travel Tips For Consultants

Travel is a fact of life for most consultants. Many spend 45 weeks on the road every year, and some say they wouldn't want it any other way.

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We know one married join where both are traveling consultants. They often joke that they should write a book called "Marriage on Three Days a Week" because they only see each other from Thursday night to Sunday night most weeks. Of course, they take great vacations with all the frequent flier miles and hotel points, and neither one is left at home to carry on the household while the other dines in restaurants every night and comes home expecting all the chores to be done.

Like many others, they have learned how to be comfortable on the road so that their trip schedules are a source of new experiences and great stories instead of a hardship. If you learn how to be comfortable in your environment, you'll do good work and last longer in this demanding field.

There are two types of consulting roles, from a trip schedule perspective. One type of consultant is the real Road Warrior who is in a distinct city each week, often visiting two or three distinct clients and staying only a join of days each place. The other type travels to the same destination every week to work on a long-term engagement over several months. Which type of trip schedule you end up with depends as much on your personality as on your skill set.

No matter which type of trip schedule you have, there are some seemingly small things you can do to make yourself significantly more comfortable on the road.

Enroll in every frequent flier and hotel points schedule you can. The biggest perks in company trip come when you get a free family vacation later. All those trips to Pittsburgh might buy you a trip to Honolulu or Prague or wherever your heart leads you.

Whenever possible, use the same airline and hotel chain for every city. This helps you rack up the points faster, and it also establishes a level of relieve and familiarity for you from the moment you arrive in the city. Not every Marriott is exactly like every other Marriott, but there are adequate similarities in the middle of them that you will begin to feel at home quickly.

Packing for Travel

Develop a habit for packing. Make a checklist that includes all things that you know you'll need for any trip, together with items like toothbrush and cell-phone charger. Go over the checklist every particular time you pack a suitcase.

If you don't corollary this advice, you will ultimately end up spending 0 on a "charge everything" expedient and using a hotel toothbrush that will rip your gums out.

1. Always assume you will have to carry your luggage yourself. If you aren't sure you will need it, don't take it. You can all the time buy one there. (Don't accept engagements in locations that don't have stores.)
2. Pack something comfortable to wear in your hotel room and clothes you can wear to work out.
3. Plan to sleep in something you don't mind being seen wearing in public. In the event of a fire, hotels will evacuate two floors above and two floors below, even if it's just a small fire in a trash basket. That's what that loudspeaker above the bed is for.
4. All luggage looks alike. Make your bag easy to spot on the carousel and less likely to be stolen with a few strategically placed strips of duct tape or a big pink bow.
5. The military knows that rolled clothing does not wrinkle. Don't fold it, roll it. Turn jackets inside out, fold the collar up and press one shoulder inside the other.
6. Think about what you pack from the perspective of Customs and Airport Security. For example, many airlines will not allow you to carry steel-tipped darts in your carry-on luggage. (Yes, one of us learned this the hard way. Not the one you think.) Carry all medication in the primary packages, particularly prescribe medication.
7. Purchase two of all things you use daily, like cosmetics, razors, toothbrush, etc. Leave one set at home. Pack toiletries once and leave them packed. This way, you don't have to worry that you forgot something considerable and will not consideration until the middle of the night in a strange hotel room. When you run out of something on the road, replace it. (This is easier if you use coarse brands that are sold nationally.)

After only a few weeks of travel, you'll know exactly what you need to pack and what you don't.

Hotel Living

If you are traveling to the same city every week, pick a hotel that you are comfortable in and make friends with the citizen at the front desk and in Housekeeping. If you can commit to a distinct estimate of weeks, they might even give you a break on the room rate, which is also good for your customer.

Once you've tried two or three distinct rooms in distinct parts of the hotel, you'll begin to recognize exact things you like or dislike. Within a few weeks, you'll probably have a popular room. Don't be afraid to ask for it every week. Staying in the same room every week can growth your sense of relieve and it's easier to remember what room you are in. Every one of us has been frustrated at least once by trying to open a hotel room door, only to comprehend that the key doesn't work because this is the room we were in last week, and we have no idea what room we have been assigned this week.

If you followed our instructions for packing and bought duplicates of all your toiletries and trip needs, you can check a suitcase with the bellman over the weekend instead of carrying it home with you. Leave your laundry with a dry cleaner over the weekend and come back on Monday to a fresh wardrobe without carrying a bag with you to the airport. That's freedom!

Make friends with the citizen who have operate of the food. If you are eating all your meals off the Room service menu, you will soon get bored with the choices. Encourage the person who answers the Room service line to give you suggestions.

When Christine was working in one city where it wasn't considered safe to leave the hotel and meander colse to at night, she called the Room service estimate one night and said, in the most pitiful voice she could muster, "I'm hungry and nothing on the menu looks good tonight. Help me!"

The Room service voice laughed and said, "Miss Lambden, don't you worry. After all these months, I know what you like. Let me surprise you."

In addition to the best steak and the freshest salad ever served by Room Service, the waiter brought a glass of red wine and said, "The chef said to tell you that he knows you don't like red wine, but this is special. Try it with the steak. Alternate one bite of steak with one sip of wine."

She still talks about that steak. After that night, she never had to look at the Room service menu again. When she called, she would say, "Maybe a fish tonight?" or "I'm in the mood for something chocolate."

Remember, if you are tired of the hotel menu, just fantasize how the chef feels.

Since you can't eat all the time, here are some other ways to fill an evening in a hotel room:

1. Call your mother.
2. Read.
3. Go to a movie.
4. College libraries are often open late. Learn something.
5. Work out. Remember the Freshman Fifteen in college? The life of a consultant includes too many meals in restaurants and too few long walks in the park.

If you rehearsal at home, try to rehearsal the same way when you are traveling. Find out if it's safe to walk/run exterior near the hotel. This is also a great way to find the neighborhood restaurants and pubs that the trip books don't know about.

If you rehearsal in a gym at home, stay in a hotel with a gym and use it. If there is no gym ready in the hotel, remember that many national chains have memberships that allow you to work out in any city. Like national hotel and cafeteria chains, gyms are a great way to find familiar surroundings in an unfamiliar place.

Exploring new cities is a great way to get rehearsal and enjoy your time on the road. See the sights. Shop. Ask the citizen at the hotel and at work what you should be sure to see while you are in town.

We know one consultant who managed, in one year, to see Niagara Falls (working in Buffalo), the Arch in St. Louis, the Napa Valley wine country, six shows on Broadway, and Fort Lauderdale while Spring Break.

Did you know that Kansas City is the City of Fountains? In the winter, the city moderately freezes some of the fountains so you see freezing ice where water flows in the summer. Just beautiful.

Did you know that you can visit the Budweiser Clydesdales at Grant's Farm in St. Louis? If you think they are fun to watch on Super Bowl commercials, just fantasize how magnificent they are up close.

These opportunities may not present themselves again. Don't spend every evening in your hotel room.

Every city has something unique to offer and the citizen who live there will be happy to help you witness what is amazing about their hometown.

Single Life on the Road

The constant-travel lifestyle is often more involving to particular citizen who do not have a family at home waiting for them each week. For these consultants, the only challenge is looking a way to say a home when you aren't there while the week.

Here are some tips:

1. Ask a friend or neighbor to pick up your mail once or twice while the week.
2. Install self-operating light timers in your house. Setup request for retrial sensor lights outside. This makes it look like person is home and protects your stuff. (It also makes bats and possums find an additional one yard to live in, but that might just be an Austin thing.)
3. Hide valuables. Burglars know all about looking in the freezer for your jewelry, but would they think to look in that bag of potting soil in the garage? Hint: Tell person you trust where you hid them...you'll remember all the great spots you considered, and you'll forget the one you picked.
4. Splurge a little with all that money you are production as a consultant and hire a maid service to come in and clean your house while you are gone. If you have a lawn, hire a yard service, too. The last thing you are going to feel like doing when you ultimately get home is housework, and you'll be happier in this job if you don't feel that you are neglecting chores.
5. If possible, have a trusted house-sitter stay in your house. Then you won't have to worry at all.

In addition to maintaining your house, a particular person on the road has to say a public life. When you are out of town all week, it's easy to find yourself excluded from your friends' conversations about plans for the weekend. You have to work harder to say those friendships at home, especially if you are also forming new friendships in the city where you are working.

It's not totally unheard of for consultants assigned to the same client week after week to form friendships, or even romantic attachments, in the city where they work. Having bonds with citizen all over the country can be a huge benefit professionally because your network is extensive to consist of all of their colleagues, as well.

Don't date person in the client company. This can get messy. (Yeah, we know. Your situation is different. You'll handle it like grownups. We'd like to believe this, but in our experience it rarely works out that way. Even so, this is still good guidance for everyone else.)

Married With Children

Life on the road is harder for those who have a family at home. You miss them and you feel guilty about leaving them behind, and even more guilty when you're having fun without them.

The same tourist attractions that enliven a particular person's trip can make you miss your family even more. You find yourself thinking, "The kids would love this," or "Niagara Falls by myself? I don't think so!"

Here are some tips for production trip easier when you miss your family:

1. Write long letters saying all the stuff you would have said if you were at home. Buy a fax engine for the house so you can send them before you go to bed and the family can read them with breakfast. (We know. Email works just as well. Except it doesn't. Handwritten letters mean more. They just do.)
2. Give the hotel's fax estimate to your family or set up a personal e-fax number. Encourage letters from home. Also drawings and article cards and anything else that will make you feel closer. Practically all children could benefit from the occasional writing exercise, and most of them already know how to operate a computer.
3. Buy a small digital camera or use your cell phone to take pictures and make a "Day in the Life" slide show for the kids. Take pictures of your day from the time you wake up to the time you get ready for bed - pictures of your hotel room, your morning meal plate, your cubicle and co-workers, the bookstore you stop at after work, the restaurants you like - everything! (Trust us, they'll love it.)

Driving in Strange (translation: "New To You") Places

Weather conditions and driver courtesy rules vary from city to city. In some cities, driving is a brutal competition, and it's considered rude or suicidal to slow down for a yellow light. person will honk at you or run into you. In others, you'll get dirty looks if you don't yield and let a waiting car merge in front of you. On most country roads, failure to wave at passing drivers marks you as an outsider.

No matter where you are, these tips will help lessen the impact of driving while your travels:

1. Get a map when you arrive. If you know where you are going, you are much less likely to end up in the wrong place.
2. If you rear-end a car on the freeway, your first move should be to hang up the phone. good yet, go hands-free when you are driving. Best of all, hang up and drive.
3. Rent your car from the same department every week and be extra nice. Usually, the same agents are on duty every Monday morning, so ultimately they'll know you and may offer you the cool convertible or the Jag for a week at no extra charge.
4. Not every state or city has a "right on red" law. Check with the car rental department or look for a "No right on red" sign before you assume it's legal in any intersection where you are.
5. If you are stopped for speeding, running a red light, driving the wrong way, or, worst of all, hitting something, be very diplomatic to everyone involved. Of course, this is true when you aren't traveling, too, but you have a good chance of production your meeting or flight if you deal with the situation nicely.

In New York or Boston (or London or Beijing), take a cab or public transportation. Some warnings say "Don't try this at home." With regard to driving in these places, the rule is "Don't try this on the road." In other words, ask person at your destination or consult a trip guide to find out whether it's advisable to drive yourself around.

If you are facing your first winter in a snowy climate, ask person to teach you how to drive in icy conditions before the first blizzard. You may feel foolish, and they will certainly laugh at you, but the first time you feel your car start to slide, you'll be glad you did.

For us, just saying "I'm from Texas" is often adequate to have our clients offer free driving lessons, icy conditions or not.

Air trip Tips

Since 9/11, keeping track of the rules for air trip and getting straight through safety checkpoints has become more of a challenge, but the airlines have made a sincere attempt to help.

Every airline and airport website has data about safety requirements and how much time will be required to get to your gate. Experienced travelers swiftly learn to avoid the busiest times of the day and week. In fact, we don't know a particular traveling consulting who would think flying on the day before Thanksgiving under any circumstances.

Airport websites will also give you data about other amenities that are ready in the terminals. For instance, did you know that the Hong Kong airport has showers and rooms where you can take a nap? After a long flight across the Pacific ocean, a shower is a amazing way to spend your three-hour layover in the middle of connecting flights.

The airport in Portland, Oregon, has a great mall. You can get all your Christmas shopping done in the middle of flights and have the items you bought shipped home. Oh, and did we mention that Oregon doesn't have sales tax?

The San Francisco airport has twenty distinct museum galleries that rotate art, culture and science exhibitions on a quarterly schedule. At Sfo, you can't avoid being entertained and educated while you travel.

Here are some other tips for production air trip easier:

1. When you make your reservations, ask for a seat near the front of the plane. Airlines assign seats back-to-front and families traveling with children tend to plan supplementary ahead than company travelers, so the shrieking three year-olds are normally in the back of the plane.
2. Always ask the Exit Row. Children aren't permitted, and you get more legroom.
3. Wear earplugs or spend in some good noise-canceling headphones if you plan to sleep. citizen talk louder on airplanes.
4. Planes have only 3% humidity, so you get dehydrated quickly. Carry a bottle of water on board. (This will also keep your feet from swelling.) To keep costs and carryon weight low, carry an empty bottle and ask the flight attendant to fill it for you. On international flights, there is normally a water fountain ready for passengers to serve themselves.
5. When they say, "Limit two carry-on bags," assume they unquestionably mean it and be ready to check all things but your purse, portfolio and laptop. A good alternative if you are in a hurry is to "gate check" your bags. Especially with smaller commuter flights, this means you get your bags immediately when you get off the plane with no stop at baggage claim.
6. Pay attention to the safety speech every once in a while. Like washing your car to make it rain, it's just good karma. We've asked, and yes, most flight attendants feel just as silly giving the speech as you do listening to it, but the fact that no one is listening just makes their job harder.
7. To preclude a stiff neck from sleeping on a plane, ask the flight attendant for a blanket, roll it up and wrap it colse to your neck before you fall asleep. Your head won't roll from side-to-side, you won't snore and you won't look nearly as ridiculous as those citizen drooling on their neighbor's shoulder. They make C-shaped pillows that do this, but that's just one more thing to carry with you. We prefer to trip light.

While you are traveling, do all things you can to make your life easier. When you are enjoying yourself, you are good ready to accomplish at work, and you'll be more successful.

Cubicles and argument rooms are the same everywhere. The work won't change, but taking the time to make friends with the citizen colse to you, at work and at the hotel, will make all the divergence in the world to how well you do it.

travel Tips For Consultants