While the life of a traveling consultant may appear similar to the content posted by Instagram influencers; those glamorous moments can be overshadowed by the reality of business travel. It’s easy to hide the day-to-day struggles on social media to portray a perfect life. I started traveling for work in the Summer of 2019 and I was quickly spoiled by my first project in Boston. I had a relatively short commute, a very generous project budget and was in a city that offered an unlimited number of activities from baseball games to new restaurants to American History landmarks. I quickly learned what I needed, to be a successful “traveling consultant” and signed up for airline and hotel statuses, invested in a ridiculously expensive but extremely useful travel backpack and channeled my inner Goldilocks trying every pair of noise cancelling headphones until I found the ones that blocked out screaming babies on airplanes. But just as I was getting comfortable with this too-good-to-be-true routine, I was transitioned to a new project in California.
Most of my time traveling (prior to COVID) consisted of a weekly trek across the country and while I dreaded setting that 4:30AM alarm on Sunday night, I was usually excited for the week ahead. Even though I knew almost nobody on my new team, complete strangers quickly became family with the amount of time we spent together. I soon found that my coworkers knew me better than some of my personal friends and they made the long workdays bearable. Although my trips could be exhausting, I was grateful for a predictable schedule. Within a few months, we settled into a nice routine building our list of favorite restaurants and making regular appearances at a local spin class. On special occasions we even had team outings to sporting events and amusement parks. I felt a little like Hannah Montana living two different lives on two different coasts. And for those who only knew about my life from what was posted on social media, I looked like I had the best of both worlds.
For anyone who still believes traveling is glamorous, now is the time for me to start myth-busting. After over a year of being grounded, I’ve slowly adjusted to new travel destinations and life back on the road. My post-COVID travel schedule has been much less predictable, so I don’t always know where I’m going more than two weeks in advance. When you travel for work, your number one priority is to well…work. So, while I’ve been to many cities, some work weeks are so busy that I don’t see much more than the office I’m sitting in all day. When we are visiting clients in remote areas, we are limited to everything from hotel options to food choices. It can be hard to eat healthily when the closest restaurants are McDonalds and Taco Bell. I’ve stayed in some fancy hotels, but I’ve also slept so close to the LAX runway that I could hear every plane land or overheard too much of a happy couple’s evening. For every smooth flight experience, there is an equally awful experience to match it. I’ve been delayed, diverted and on one awful occasion prepped for an emergency landing due to an oven fire. I’ve sat next to every type of person you can imagine – considerate, rude, smelly.
When your time zone changes on a weekly basis, keeping up with your personal life can be difficult. I was warned that traveling could be isolating but my experience has been almost the opposite. I’ve now made friends from all over the country and although I enjoy visiting new states, it also means I can’t invite them to go bowling on the weekend. The work hard/play hard lifestyle can be exhausting, and I typically spend so much time socializing throughout the week that I need my weekends at home to recover from long workdays and late dinners. To further complicate the matter, my friends struggle to keep up with my transient lifestyle and they reach out less often under the assumption that I’m away. And you may have already guessed it but dating with this type of schedule is no walk in the park either. It might go without saying but I don’t recommend scheduling a date on the same day you have a transcontinental flight.
While the work/life balance movement now frowns upon red eye flights and encourages expensing fitness classes, many of my travel experiences still closely resemble Cindy’s from a few decades earlier. We could likely compete on who has had more uncomfortable travel experiences even though I’d bet the personal space on airplanes has only decreased over the years. At some point I may grow tired of living out of a suitcase, but I’m grateful to work with some awesome people who motivate me to look forward to the adventures a travel week has in store. Although I know this lifestyle isn’t for everyone, I believe that now is the time to enjoy all the experiences my traveling has to offer.
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