I've got mixed feelings on this. Most of the time my colleagues have been pretty boring company but there have been exceptions. One manager was 20 years younger than I am but well-traveled and a foodie, and I always enjoyed dinners with him. Our boss, who was only 10 years younger, was into sports cars and his young family, so it was harder to keep up an interesting conversation.

Three of my best business travel experiences were with male colleagues and pretty much squeaky-clean. I spent some spare time exploring Brussels with an Irish consultant we'd brought on and he was a font of information in history. (Too bad he smoked those smelly French cigarettes.) I say "almost" squeaky-clean because I also had a couple of trips with 2 guys. one in Munich and one in London that were fun because al 3 of us were very married and there wasn't the sexual tension of one male/one female. (I'm female, in case it wasn't obvious.) I still remember the one guy in London, stuffing the "business cards" of ladies of the evening with some interesting specialties, into his pockets, saying, "If I get run over, get these out of my pockets before you call the ambulance!" (At the time, the cards were always stuck in the niches in the famous red phone booths.) In the Munich group, one guy was 10 years younger, the other 20 years younger. One had lived in Germany for a few years before that so I learned a lot from him.

And then there were the dull ones. But I'm an actuary. It comes with the territory. ;-)