UA_Flyer

Mrtrash757

wow. thats kinda shocking to me.....

I remember when my father used to work for TI in the late 90s.... flew across the world 1-2 times a month.... I think he was glad to leave that job..

Now that he is in a new position and talking about Asian trips, I worry how long he is going to keep it up for. Plus now that my sibling and I are getting older... kinda just want more time with him (even though I hole myself up to do school work and focus on things... ). It sucks growing up... and i say this as i hear his suitcase rolling across the floor, another WN flight to the Bay Area this week

My condolences about the loss of that person that left a major impact in your life. I have people like that that I would feel the same about.

This is the human side of business travel I believe millenials like me don't think about when they pursue things like this. It would kill me to become distant from my family and such.... I commend you for being able to deal with it. and i feel you with the health stuff. Its hard to keep yourself healthy and balance life at the same time.

Looking forward to seeing the rest.

UA_Flyer

Of course as a mid-aged man, I want to eat healthy. But, that does not mean I cannot loosen up and dig into the saturated fat and sodium once awhile. Hey, I did grow up in a British boarding school, and the Full English Breakfast represents home cooking taste from my teenage era.

It has everything: The Protein Bunch of Sausages, Bacon, Baked Beans and Fried Eggs. Then, there are the healthy duo of Grilled Tomato and Sauteed Mushrooms. They are complimented with carbohydrates of Fried Potato (or Hush Brown) or Fried Bread. My mouth is watering as I tupe this post.

Andaze does the English Breakfast well. I skipped the fried bread so I can enjoy toast with the fine British Marmalade.









It was almost impposble to say no to the second serving of English Sausages:

stevie

Very interesting TR for me. I am travelling 15 years globally, first for a large corporate and the last 5 years for myself. I have an 8 and 5 year old at home, and a great wife. I probably now do a major tip (at least a week across at least 5 time zones) every 6 weeks. I fly premium and stay in decent hotels. But....I get the same dragging emotions lately as I am just tired of the travel, missing my kids and stuff at home. However, I need to pay the bills and keep the business growing.

So I can identify a lot with this TR. I go to Japan/Korea/China / Hong Kong in two weeks for 10 days, and I am going to make a big effort to get out of the hotel more and do stuff I would not normally do. Time to turn this travel lark into a positive, like it was 15 years ago.

UA_Flyer

Thank you thetravelingRedhead for sharing your comments and thoughts. What you expressed about your dad is exactly my daughter/son have said to me recently. I just left home on another trip this morning and it was hard to say goodbye to my kids.


stevie, I hear you. Kids grow up fast and you don't get missed time back. I am preaching something that I cannot deliver.

I think people don't quite understand is that when we are working while traveling. It is not like we can drop everything and start sightseeing. I have found myself working in the planes and hotel rooms in order to get ready for the next meeting or the next discussions.

I thought doing a work trip report may provide a different perspective than the usual leisure trip reports we read in this forum.

apodo77

Sitting in a downtown Nashville hotel at 3:50am unable to sleep on my current 9 day work road trip has definitely not been exotic or glamorous.

This is year 15 of the grind.

jfidler

Great report that brings out the human side of frequent travel. I know as I've gotten older, I find myself booking itineraries based on which routing means I'll be away from home the least, even if it means a higher cost.

DCA writer

I'm reading this a few days before I fly to BCN for work. Pretty much everybody who hears about that itinerary is immediately jealous of my "having to go to Barcelona." How many of them also understand this pit I get in my stomach when I realize I'm about to be thousands of miles apart from my wife and my daughter for a week?

Thanks for telling it like it is, UA_Flyer. Hope the trip gets better for you and ends with some family time.

MKE-MR

That's not black and white--that's how Beijing actually looks on a polluted day!

The work trips definitely start to wear. I only realized it last year when I got excited about my 106th flight of the year in a way that I hadn't been in ages. The reason? My wife was joining me and it was leisure, not business.
This year's back to the grind, but I've made choices to cut back as well. I only hope that I can keep the resolve to balance when amazing opportunities come up that will still require travel and I don't want to miss them.

UA_Flyer

London has been showing up in several of my trip reports in this forum. More prominently featured in:

This is London! - Inaugural LH A380 Frankfurt-Beijing Service!!

As a teenager who went to a British Boarding School in the countryside, occasional weekend getaway to London was always welcome and filled with excitements. The quote " If you are bored of London, you are bored of life" gets no disagreement from me.

On this day, I woke up to a gloomy rainy morning. My plan to walk around the streets was not going to happen. On top of the gloomy weather, jetlag was hitting me hard and I needed to get back the hotel by the middle of afternoon to do some work. Not a good way to start a day...

UA_Flyer

UA_Flyer

Thanks for sharing apodo77! I have definitely been in the same place as you described. Have you seen the movie "Lost in Translation"? My mental state often mirror the opening 20 minutes of that movie.....travel to foreign land not knowing the languages and sat in taxi and just try to make sense what appeared in front of my eyes, got to hotel, and woke up in the middle of night because of jetlag....all lonely in darkness!

I do the same, jfidler. A few years ago, I was picking flights that would allow me to earn more miles and experienced different airlines and airport locations. Now, thanks to longer range airplanes, non-stop flights are preferred. Non-stop flights minimize travel time and allow more time on the ground instead of trapped in an aluminum tube. Premium cabins or not, body and health are more important.

Thank you DCA writer! Friends or neighbors tend to forget we are traveling for work and we still have to work when we reach foreign lands. Often, we do double duties due to time differences. I often work the whole day in local time, and when US wakes up, I then have to work in accordance with US office hours. Sometimes, one works so hard and long hours, there is little energy left to do any sightseeing. Sleep or just want to get out and go home.

Yes, MKE-MR! I feel the same way. Sometimes I have to blame myself because I don't want to miss that opportunity and volunteer to take on more work and that creates more travels. I love my job so much that sometime it is taking over me.

IWontRegretThis

I agree strongly with this. Asia especially being the worst - I remember a previous 6 day trip to Shenzen to meet with suppliers, I was up @ 5AM to get the last bit of the US workday in, then a full day in town, only to have the US wake up right when your about to sit down for dinner.

FallenPlat

Working and traveling 300K BIS miles a year is mind-boggling. I don't absolutely have to travel anymore for business, thank goodness, and affirmatively avoid "optional" trips. Now I'm remembering why. Diet, exercise, family -- they all suffer. Working the whole time doesn't help either.

Swimming in a hotel or nearby pool usually makes me feel better. So does calling home. Short of hospital-grade pharmaceuticals, that's about all you can do, and even then time zones and scheduling are never really elastic enough.

Good luck.

UA_Flyer

From Wikipedia:

To cheer myself up, I decided to visit the Hamleys. I have been going there since the middle of 70s.....almost forty years later, it is still the place for me to behave as a child.