January 14, 2009 at 10:21 pm
Comments posted to this topic are about the item The Hassles of Travel
January 14, 2009 at 11:05 pm
I have been travelling extensively for nearly 20 years with my job(s). I love being in the places I get to go - certainly they never even vaguely resemble places most people would want to be - and I am amazingly lucky to meet and deal with people who are extraordinarily talented and extremely fascinating. BUT I HATE THE TRAVEL. Endless hours at airports, endless hours in planes and the inevitable checkin to a hotel at 11pm and check out at 4am.
Living in Australia means its a long way to anywhere, travelling for thirty hours via as many as four different planes gets really old really quickly. Sitting in a vehicle for a twelve hour drive is numbing - physically and mentally.
I have tried quitting many many times but, nfortunately for me, I am a junky for the job and the opportunities to meet people and be in wildy remote places - and i am smart enough to realise how blessed I am to be able to do this stuff. The helicopter and boat rides do help to even the balance though!
January 14, 2009 at 11:54 pm
I don't travel much for the job, but I do outside of it - and I love it! If it's by plane, I like a window seat so I can watch the take-off, and landing, and everything in between. But mostly I travel on two wheels - it's much more interesting than four. Motorcycles are more fun (yes, even in the rain), and you tend to talk to more people, because everyone wants to know where you're from and where you're going, and what that animal is in the tank bag. (It's a cat, and it's her custom tank bag with a gel pad and everything.) We've been across the US, and across Canada, and maybe some day we'll get down to Mexico.
I bought a house (many years ago, now) so I'd have a place to come back to between adventures, and so I wouldn't have to keep moving the garden. But give me a chance to travel, I'm always up for it. Although when I'm home, I'm a home-body, and don't go out to local events much - go figure. 🙂
Steph Brown
January 15, 2009 at 12:32 am
I'm sure the people of Cambridge are loving having you there
January 15, 2009 at 1:23 am
I've been travelling internationally since 1972, when I was 13, and have lived overseas for 11 years of my life, and spent lots of time in other places on business trips. I love seeing new places, and the opportunity to see sights that I wouldn't have if I had to spend my own money. However, I have come to loathe the "getting there" portion. Especially if it's not in business class. There's nothing like 14 hours in an interior seat in economy to turn you off of airplane travel. Once I get to the destination, everything is fine - I adjsut ot anew routine, see the sights, and have a good time.
January 15, 2009 at 1:48 am
I must admit I manage to keep my travel down to a level where I don't mind it too much. I can't say I enjoy it, given the family time I have to sacrifice, but I don't actively dislike it.
Mind you, most of my international travel is over to a sister subsidiary over in Germany (I live in the UK), and many of the guys there are now friends first and colleagues second, which makes a huge difference. Last time I went over, we all decided to go out bowling for an hour or so and then find a local pasta house for some dinner, which made the whole evening feel far more like mates out on a jolly than the corporate feel of going from offices to hotel room to hotel restaurant. Little touches like that make my trips far more bearable.
The other thing, of course, that makes my trips easier is that I can speak German. Not perfect, I'll admit, but certainly enough to get me by. And let's face it, being able to make oneself understood in a foreign country is always going to make things feel more relaxed - perhaps that's why Steve doesn't like visiting the UK ;):P
Semper in excretia, suus solum profundum variat
January 15, 2009 at 1:50 am
I enjoy travel too though for most of mine I'm a snail taking a house with me - my camper van, which means familiar surroundings and comforts in unfamiliar places.
But I still want to be at home especially with my garden and I live in such a peaceful quiet corner of the UK that I come home and just stand outside to enjoy the peace and quiet after being away in a noisier environment that others think is peace and quiet!
England's a beautiful place - make the most of your stay, despite the British weather!
January 15, 2009 at 2:01 am
I'm sure the people of Cambridge are loving having you there
Oh yes, we're very much looking forward to seeing Steve again, and planning all sorts of things to try and cheer up the cranky traveler. None of the Red-Gate Publishing team likes airplane travel. Anna gets so stressed that she makes herself ill.
Steve was a great host in Boulder, introduced us to the real Burger and bought me an unforgettable coffee.
Boulder, for me, was an exciting place to visit. It is forever associated in my mind with Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. Ginsberg, who was one of the greatest of American poets, co-founded the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at the Naropa Institute in Boulder. I also wanted to pay homage to Philip K Dick, surely the most influential writer of the sixties, buried 'in a bleak municipal cemetery in Fort Morgan, his grave uncomfortably close to Interstate 76 and downwind of a smoke-belching sugar beet refinery'. I never made that visit to Fort Morgan. I was somehow expecting these great people to be celebrated in Colorado, but sadly not. It is as strange as going to Liverpool and nobody having heard of John Lennon.
For epic airplane journeys, surely Gail Shaw's odysseys to the States call for the most endurance.
January 15, 2009 at 2:24 am
I canunderstand Steve's loathing of flying when its west to east.
You take off stateside in the afternoon and land in the UK in the early morning 8 hours of flight later feeling real crappy.
Its then worse when looking haggard and feeling done in you have to wait around for a connecting flight for 2 hours at 7:00 am in the morning in a stuffy busy noisy airport.
Definately the getting to the plane and getting off again is the bad bit.
--Shaun
Hiding under a desk from SSIS Implemenation Work :crazy:
January 15, 2009 at 6:01 am
Did you visit the Mathematical Bridge while you were in Cambridge? It's an interesting story.
January 15, 2009 at 6:31 am
Steve - "I don't want to seem ungrateful because I am"? Ingrate!
January 15, 2009 at 6:38 am
Steve - "I don't want to seem ungrateful because I am"?
[p]We were going to quote this to him next week![/p]
January 15, 2009 at 6:51 am
I' m with you Steve. I'd much rather stay home and be in my routine. If I have to go, I endure the getting there part, and usually enjoy the time there.
Now, my wife loves to travel. She doesn't get to do it much, but I've sent her off to Montana and Ecuador since we've been married, and once the kids are older she can travel more if she likes and we can afford it.
Jack Corbett
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January 15, 2009 at 6:57 am
While I agree that the actual travel is a pain, I think just going to a new location and immersing yourself in a different environment is what life is all about. When I was in the military and stationed in Europe, there were many Americans that just stayed on the base or only went to other American bases. There were missing out on a lifetime of varied experiences. I myself lived on the economy, ate (and drank) local food, and made friends with a variety of the natives. My wife and I still go back to Europe (at out own expense) every other year just to satisfy our European eating and drinking habits ;). The only bad meal I ever had in my 4 1/2 years in Europe was at an American officer's club.
Cheers,
Mike Byrd
PS I was also stationed in the mid-East for a year and never want to go back. That seemingly long century really made me appreciate the good ole USA (so even with a bad experience, it was a learning experience).
Mike Byrd
January 15, 2009 at 7:12 am
Steve - when I develop the first transporter device, you can be my first human test.
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