Lately, I’ve been spending a lot of my free time, thinking about where I want to travel. I recently took a five week vacation to Italy (but that’s another post) and am already thinking about a trip to Argentina and another trip to Thailand. I don’t know what it is, but I can’t shake the travel bug.
Today, I find myself traveling for work again. I’ll say that traveling for work has taught me that I don’t actually like to travel for the sake of travel. I like traveling because it gets me out of my routine, away from my every day life. It forces me out of my comfort zone and gives me new perspective when I return.
But work travel does none of this. When I travel for work, I inevitably spend every waking minute either focused on whatever it was that prompted the travel or trying to catch up on the stuff I am missing back in the office.
Regardless of the city, work trips always entail a hectic schedule that encompass mediocre hotels, restaurants you would never otherwise eat at, convention centers, office buildings, and awkward cab rides. Occasionally, you get a chance to get outside and enjoy the actual city these events take place in, but it’s always crammed in to the one free hour you have before you have to catch your flight home.
On these trips, it’s hard to believe that I look forward to travel and have to remind myself that this isn’t travel. This is just work.