ibs_traveller

What a convenient thread. I'm currently in the process of a possible career change AWAY from traveling for work. I will give you both sides, although the cons listed below reflect my current feelings toward the topic:

PROS of Traveling for Work (based on my experience):
Visit places you've never been, and may never visit in your life on your own accord.
PER DIEM & MILEAGE (Extra $$ in your pocket)
Frequent flier miles
Hotel points
Eating well and having the cost covered
Meeting new people
Meeting the customer face-to-face (I do IT consulting for a small company, so travel is the only chance I get to meet my customers)
Staying in swank hotels (especially in CA/FL)
Learning 2x as fast (in my industry, you pretty much have to sink or swim when it comes to working and traveling. If you show that you can't handle it, you're off the road as quickly as someone can call you)

CONS of Traveling for Work:
Visit places you've never been, and may never visit in your life on your own accord. (ever been stuck on a project in rural Kentucky for 2 months?)
Threat of bed bugs from hotels (this makes my skin crawl)
Flight delays/cancellations
Fitting a week of your life into a suitcase, a week at a time
Staying in dingy hotels
Repeated exposure to TSA/Security X-Ray machines (and now full body scanners)
Time-zones
The implication that you will generally work at least 60-80 hour weeks (because the economy sucks, so companies are scrapping for budget, so project managers squeeze everything into impossible time scenarios, so you take up all the slack because, hey, after all you were sent out here to do the work, right?)
Expense reports
Not having a variety of dining options (again, rural Kentucky)
If you travel to different places often, your favorite TV channel is never the same number
Realizing that most places are pretty much the same, and people just live their lives on a day-to-day basis
Realizing how massively commercialized and franchised this nation is (my theory is that Applebees/Chilis/Olive Garden/etc. were created SOLELY for the business traveler so that they'd have a common menu in almost every city in the U.S.)
Not being able to pursue any hobbies or interests that require you be in a stationary place on a weekly basis (school, classes, etc)
Having a family to take care of back home
Long flights on small, cramped planes
Even longer flights during winter since you have to de-ice before take-off
In my current mood, I could go on for pages.

In my humble opinion, the perks of travel are great the first few years, but all that extra time you spend not-at-home due to conditions presented by traveling just eat away at your soul and turn you into a different person. Sure, it is nice to go on a vacation trip and not pay a dime, but what did it REALLY cost you? Chances are you'll get calls while on vacation anyway because you're so used to working all the time and always being wound up and ready. Not the best way to spend your vacation, IMO.

For me, I miss being at home for the sake of being at home. I crave the inconvenience of needing to fix my car or sweep the front porch, since those are things that make me feel more like a human rather than a work machine. I got where I am in the company because I busted my butt when I started since I only had a bachelor's degree, and now that I've "been-there-done-that", I want to pursue an advanced degree and be in a position where I choose how I spend my time and I'm valued for what I know instead of how much extra work I can fit into a 40 hour week.

Feel free to PM me if you have any questions. I feel like I can cover just about anything business-travel related at this point in my life.

emma69

What a horrible perspective. Firstly, I wouldn't WANT to work for someone / a company that made assumptions about my sexuality based on what I had done as a career. Your sexuality has ZERO to do with your work life, and fortunately, I work in companies who get that. I know several male flight attendents, and they are not gay, and I don't believe they have EVER experienced any issues because of their career choice. I guess they are fortunate that they have never encountered people like you.

Secondly, with the 'tick the boxes "equality" exercices' that companies go through when hiring, being assumed to be gay could actually work in your favour. I hate, with a passion, so called "positive" discrimination, but have come across it a fair amount - as the saying goes, if you are a black, one legged lesbian, the job market is your oyster!

robk5787

Amen... It is all fun and new for the first year or so. Even after 2-3 years it still has its moments. Soon after the first couple of months of travel you start to obsess with point accumulations that you won't have time to use and missed outings with the local friends you once had. A single person may see this lifestyle as a way to escape and have a blast, but you do have to come home eventually. What will be waiting for you there? Best of luck in your adventures, but choose them wisely.

gj83

Anyone who flies a lot would know not to make the assumption that a male flight attendant is gay. I might not have the best gaydar and I'm not the type of person a gay man would pursue, but most male flight attendants don't give me any kind of gay vibe...meaning i have no assumption of their sexuality. Sure, quite a few male FAs have the san francisco accent, but there are plenty who have a voice and mannerisms that are just "guy".

Sure, some of the prevailing male flight attendant bloggers are gay, but I'm sure they'd be the first to tell you that it's probably not close to a majority in the profession.

Mike SIU

You mentioned Austria.

I'm an American based out of Vienna working for a European NGO. There are lots of these in this city.


I spent the latter half of University studying in Austria. Having a student residency card "Aufenthaltstitel" made it much easier for my employer to hire me on as all they had to do was convert it to a work visa.

Oh, and if you're thinking of being based internationally many countries including Austria require the employer to prove that there are no Nationals capable of doing the job. IE they try to source citizens before foreigners.

GloverParker

You might want to think a little further out of the box -- focus on the skills you learned from your whole university experience and how you might parlay them into a fun and challenging career (with travel!). So you like to write? Technical writing has some interesting applications and can pay pretty well; international non-profits always need grant writers and you might get to check out the exotic project that needs the funding, too.

I graduated with a degree in English and Communications but it's my generalist skills that have allowed me to have a facinating career that included non profit fundraising, marketing for an association, convention management (oh, the travel), marketing consulting for the financial services industry in Australia and currently I don't even know how to try to explain what I do now -- but suffice it to say that I'm paid well to manage several different groups of folks with generalist skill-sets and I flew about 150k miles last year (enough to have both a life at home and still see the world/country)

Don't just focus on the degree, it's unnecessarily limiting (and for what it's worth, I highly recommend contracting and trying out a couple of different types of jobs if you can).

Good luck!

aroundtheworld76

Am I the only person here who likes his traveling career? While in places for work I have:

-Earned my turns skiing a remote Alaskan peak.

-Swam with wild dolphins in St. Croix, Zanzibar, and Malibu.

- Stood so (too) close to a lava flow that the soles of my shoes began to melt

-Drank coffee in the Ethiopian village where it was discovered centuries ago.

-Seen the illuminated Rock of Gibraltar from the middle of the Straits.

-Found my niece a handmade amulet in a Turkish bazaar.

and that doesn't count the places I went on holidays made possible by this career.

My god man (or woman for that matter), just go and do it. Take the chance to travel. The chance to stay home will always be there.


-"Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind." ~Seneca

-

ibs_traveller

I think if most business travelers had the TIME and OPPORTUNITY to do all those things you've done while traveling, they'd probably be just as satisfied with it. Not everyone is flown to exotic places and given enough free time to go explore. I am strictly CONUS.

edj3

You are fortunate in that you are going to some pretty cool places. In previous jobs with travel, I have done the same. My current travel doesn't send me to places like that. Instead I'm generally found at a run-down former Army post that's been converted to a National Guard post, is out in the middle of nowhere with very low end motels (not hotels and usually not chain hotels either). But it's a job I like and comes with the territory.

Keep in mind we don't all have your kinds of destinations :P

365RoadWarrior

You need this poster's job!
My per diem is government minimumm, from which I pay my own tips, bus fare, laundry...
My points and miles go to my employers - they paid for them.
I eat about as well as my per diem will cover, and 110-hour work weeks will permit. That means Subway, and it's got to be "to go".
I've never stayed in a hotel nicer than a dated Westin. Often Days Inn, Super 8, Econo Lodge. I keep my Hyatt/SPG/Hilton status at Hyatt Place, Four Points and Hampton Inns in industrial parks on weekends, when they're dirt cheap...and full of high school choirs, and football teams.

No doubt about it, the "meeting people" is the good part. ^

rjw242

No, s/he needs this poster's job :

If you're young and just starting out, why not shoot for a career that lets you travel like this?

emma69

I enjoyed travel for work most of the time, sometimes not so much, but that was the luck of the draw! But a friend of mine illustrates the 'it is what you make it' caveat perfectly. She travels on business, hates it, but I maintain this because she goes airport-hotel-room service-sleep-meeting-airport. She never goes out into the towns / cities she is in (she is a pretty timid lady, lovely, but scared of her shadow), never eats in restaurants when on her own (shyness), and is pretty much scared the whole time she is away. If I travelled like her, I would hate it. But I am the sort of gal who climbed the Eiffel Tower in stilletto heels because I didn't have time to get back to my hotel to change after my meeting before the ET closing time!

UNITED863

While I can agree a 2-month stint would be exceedingly painful, I actually enjoy visiting places I'd never have gone otherwise. Puts things more into perspective for me.

MarqFlyer

Federal Air Marshal?

timfountain

I think posters upthread who want a "job that involves lots of travel" are looking through the wrong end of the telescope. After 20 years of pretty heavy travel, I recently changed jobs. There is still travel but the first thing you need to be long-term stable and happy in your career is a genuine interest in the industry you are working in. The travel will come as a result of being good at your job not the job itself. Also travel takes you to customers or suppliers, so if you like to nerd-out in a lab but long to travel, it probably isn't going to happen.

Think about what you want out of your career and the kind of company you want to work for and don't worry about the travel; it will come if you are a good people person.

Now if you want a job that is 'travel', you are basically limited to cabin staff or being at the pointy end flying the thing. Neither is all that glamorous or well-paid and in the case of the pilot, has a very steep upfront investment (think $100K and 5 years to get all the certifications needed to be right seat on an RJ earning $25K per year in your first year) and then a long tenure to get even close to earning a decent living. Couple this with furloughs and the up and down nature of airlines means you can be out and back to the bottom of the seniority pile in a heartbeat. Also don't forget the medical aspect of being a pilot that means, again, you could be on the scrapheap due to high BP, vision issues, cancer, heart problems and 1000's of other problems.... This is from a guy who very nearly jumpoed on the pilot career path in 2000

- Tim