I work for a mid-size software company (approx 275 employees, of which ~70 are developers, aka 'programmers'.) In general the developers don't travel much, if at all, on business. Occasionally they will travel to training or to a particularly complex installation, but by and large that is rare.

However, there are plenty of technical jobs within our software company that *do* involve travel -

- Sales Engineers: These guys & gals back up the slick sales guys in suits and 'talk geek' with the geeks at the customer site. Requires the ability to comfortably hang with salespeople, present in front of an audience etc.

- Professional services: These guys & gals head in after the sale and manage implementations, code custom integrations etc.

- Training: As the name describes, provides technical training.

- Product/program management: Sit between the customers and development & produce the requirements docs that define what the software company is going to build. Typically requires travel to meet with customers, attend trade shows and visit partners.

As you can see, all of these jobs require good 'people skills' so that's something to work on. If you can, see if you can join a toastmasters club (just google it) so work on public speaking etc. If a software company can see that you're both somone who understands the nuts and bolts of tech, but can also be put in front of customers, they will consider you 'gold' and likely promote you into one of the roles above.

Feel free to PM me if you have any specific questions.