Do you get sick of flying and travel?

[harvyk]

I embarked on a mad itinerary of 16 flights in 2 weeks in October last week, secretly hoping it would make me sick of flying, transit, lounges and other evils of travel.

The truth is, it just made me want to travel more. I seem to be one of the weird people who is happier on the road (I seem to pretty closely be a wannabe Ryan Bingham ).

I'm just a freak i'm sure. MEL-SYD-SFO-LAX-SEA-LAX-SFO-LAX-SEA-LAX-SFO-LAX-LAS-LAX-SFO-LAX-MEL. I loved every second of it and secretly wanted more.

*hides in the corner now*

My best effort was 17 flights over 4 weeks (three international trips), and at the end of that all I was actually a little sad that I wasn't hopping onto another plane again in a few days time... (I had to wait another month for my next flight).

So no, I don't get sick of flying around and travel... (although there are some destinations which don't excite me anymore, and almost feel like "commuting", Adelaide I'm looking at you... )

 

[Cheesy]

The most I've done (and purely for "pleasure") was 8 flights in 14 days ... PER-SIN-MFM-SIN-CNX-SIN-BKK-SIN-PER, with all sectors on TR except for the final sector on QF. Let's just say that the TR flights weren't as "pleasurable" as the rest of the holiday, but it did only cost A$500 for the entire set (with SG$300 for the SIN-PER leg on QF). My passport certainly got a good workout with all the connections through SIN Budget Terminal.

Recently just completed PER-SYD-AKL-WLG-AKL-SYD-ADL-PER, 7 flights across a space of 8 days, with the first three and the last three being consecutive connections.

Can't say I have any ambitions at this stage of performing an anat0l run, but I could be tempted under the right conditions. But to answer the question ... no! :mrgreen:

As Peter Allen sang once or twice, "I'm always travelling, I love being free".

 

[liamg]

I'm pretty sick of it right now. I usually love travelling, and indeed am still having a great time. But with such little time between trips I'm having to pull 10 hours a day/6 days a week at the office to keep up with the workload expected of me/I expect of myself.

I've been on the road since October when I did: MEL-LAX-LHR-TLV-LHR-JFK-LAX-IAD-LAX-MEL over a month. Then to SYD a week after coming home. Then MEL-HKG-TLV-HKG-SYD-MEL three weeks after that for three weeks. Leaving on Monday for a 17 day trip MEL-SYD-BKK-TLV-FRA-CPH-ARN-OSL-FRA-SIN-MEL.

I've then got a few interstates before heading back to the States in April/May and Israel and UK again in June. Needless to say, I'm exhausted already and sick of travelling to work. What is beneficial though is that I get to tag on a break of a few days 'in that part of the world' (at own expense, of course) after each overseas trip. i.e. Scandinavia in a few weeks, elsewhere in the US in May, etc.

All of it in discount Y (all fares unable to be upgraded using points), too... if it wasn't for showers between legs in the lounge I'd be even more dead...

*But*... I probably wouldn't trade it. I love the excitement of a new city, the thrills of arguing with a cabbie in a language you only pretend to speak, the shuffling of coins to try and figure out which is the currency of the country you're in this week... I guess I'm lucky I'm also young and don't have a wife, family, etc.

 

[trippin_the_rift]

ahh... you need to watch the movie 'up in the air'...

 

[samh004]

I don’t think I’ll get sick of flying for a while, as only last night I had a dream about flying, and a smooth early morning landing into Sydney

 

[codash1099]

I don’t think I’ll get sick of flying for a while, as only last night I had a dream about flying, and a smooth early morning landing into Sydney

Did you dream you were in J? - may as well for the extra dream SC's.

 

[Warks]

Thanks for the replies, I posted this when I was dreading a day trip SYD-PER with unpleasant business there. Thankfully it's off and I can breathe again. Still got to fly out Australia Day evening to ADL and more on the next few weeks.

Extensive travel tends to come too late for many of us. In my 20s without a wife and family I would have killed for the amount of travel I got in later years when I had young kids. I would have tacked on extra leave and had a good look around but as you'd expect I went home as soon as I possibly could.

Anyone who doesn't occasionally get sick of it must be "family free" or keen to get away from them! :mrgreen:
Jokes aside, I did work with guys who travelled as much as possible and spent long hours at the office just to avoid the home life. They admitted as much when tipsy at conferences. Different strokes I guess.

 

[samh004]

Did you dream you were in J? - may as well for the extra dream SC's.

I can’t recall exactly, but I was fairly relaxed so I must have been!

 

[browski]

Jokes aside, I did work with guys who travelled as much as possible and spent long hours at the office just to avoid the home life. They admitted as much when tipsy at conferences.

This is one of the "great unspoken" truths.

Travelling for work is best suited to men/women with partners and teenage kids (or older). They are the ones who seem desperate to get away from their families. Most even concoct their trips away.

Single people (as frequent business travellers) have far less to look forward to. They'd rather be in their home city doing their socialising....

Since, I suspect some people will doth protest too much with regards to this post........As the great one said, "I'm like my mother, I like to generalise, it's quicker that way."

Getting back on topic. Yes, I get sick of it, and am sick of it right now. Currently typing from booze-free Riyadh though; and when I am deprived of alcohol, I'm capable of wrtiting all sorts of dribble.

 

[simongr]

My travel erupted in 2006 when I changed jobs - it involved 5 or 6 DONE4's over 2 1/2 years plus a few DCIRC12/15 as well. I changed jobs to reduce my travel when my wife became pregnant and took a job with minimal long trips away but regular day trips to MEL.

I am still that put out by the domestic commutes as although it is a long day it is a change of scenery from the office.

The hard part is longer trips away from the little guy and this year I have a LHR, DONE4, NZ and India trip scheduled...

 

[Cyclogenesis]

I like change and get bored with doing the same thing for too long (yes I will grow up one day )
So at the end of a trip I am looking forward to my routine back home (back on the bike, back to good coffee and all my old haunts, and of course the family)

But I soon get a little sick of my cramped little space at work and yearn for the open road... this is also enhanced that most of my travel is either out into the field or to a workshop/conference...

In fact the lack of travel in my current position is the primary reason why I recently accepted a job offer in the states, a lot of the important meetings in my field (meteorology) are in the states and due to being a junior public servant travel is a rare luxury (both of my last trips were paid for by the US employer)

In fact the last trip I took was ideal, a one month visiting scientist appointment, which meant that they flew the family out as well! I worked a few weeks (took Xmas off) doing some fun work (yes I like my job) while they had a holiday (and checked out schools/shops/apartments)

And of course travel was made a lot more pleasant once I got lounge access quickly followed by airline status.... I remember the day when I used to hope I got a good seat, now I expect it And Travel would be a lot less pleasant, especially in the US, without lounge access...

 

[HardieBoys]

I've been doing about 75 domestic returns for work annually for the past two years (it was 50 returns for the four years prior to that), as well as about 4 - 6 long-haul international and about 3 - 4 domestic returns for leisure. I've enjoyed it up until recently, but have been recently thinking about cutting down.

 

[coolumbla]

At the moment the answer is yes for me

But then i am on week 6 of 7 of a LONE4 with the family that has involved delays at almost every airport including today at JFK
Apparently planes dont like flying in the rain here!(albeit 2 inches of rain today)

The delinquents are bored due to ipod screens of death etc and i can't have another beer because of the rental car i'm getting in orlando

If i was on my own i'd be ok catching up on work stuff but i am laptop and mobile free for this trip and have to keep entertaining the delinquents

It just depends on teh situation

C

 

[htchapman]

I'm not sure how I stack up compared to the rest of you. Last year I did about 120 flights.

Since I started back on 10th Jan after Christmas this is me:

AKL-MEL
MEL-SYD
SYD-BNE
BNE-BVI (SkyTrans with six stops)
BSV-BVI (...and back)
BNE-SYD
SYD-MEL
MEL-SYD
SYD-MEL
MEL-HKG
HKG-LHR
LHR-SIN
SIN-SYD
SYD-MEL
MEL-WLG
WLG-MEL

I'm 24 - single - no kids. So I generally enjoy the travel side of things for business.

 

[serfty]

During the current life of this thread (22nd Jan- 1st Feb) I have travelled 25,664 miles and earned nearly 71K QFF points.

Earned 1060 SC's over 14 segments. I do it because I like it (although it was a little concerning when my final SFO-LAX flight was initially 2 hours late then XLD, and I needed to make my LAX-MEL flight that evening).

 

[Warks]

So we've got quite a few Ryan Binghams here? No surprise I guess.
If I could have had a job in my early to mid 20s where I flew as much as some of you I'd have taken a salary cut to do it! (well maybe not, the side trips can be expensive).

Having seen "Up In The Air" at the weekend (obviously from the reference above) I was wondering how difficult it would be to get 10 million air miles. With a lot of international F or J travel it wouldn't be as hard as it would be domestically of course. Maybe this is worth its own Playground thread. serfty has got 1/400th of the way there in a month so extrapolating: a mere 33 years!!

 

[serfty]

With AA it's earned miles, not BIS* miles for MM status.

i.e. a 5000 mile flight in Business class earns on AAdvantage:

 5,000 base
 1,750 Class of service bonus (25%)
 5,000 Elite status bonus  
------
11,750 Total

*BIS = Butt in Seat

Note as a WP, my 25K Miles earned ~70K QFF Points (Including Loyalty Bonii)

 

[Warks]

With AA it's earned miles, not BIS* miles for MM status.

i.e. a 5000 mile flight in Business class earns on AAdvantage:

 5,000 base
 1,750 Class of service bonus (25%)
 5,000 Elite status bonus  
------
11,750 Total

*BIS = Butt in Seat

Note as a WP, my 25K Miles earned ~70K QFF Points (Including Loyalty Bonii)

So if you kept going you could give 10 million a nudge then?

 

[serfty]

So if you kept going you could give 10 million a nudge then?

... not with AAdvantage ...

 

[JohnK]

I'm not sure how I stack up compared to the rest of you. Last year I did about 120 flights.

That is quite good. I had 104 flights (mostly SYD-BNE returns) last year and managed to break the ton for the first time.

I'm 24 - single - no kids. So I generally enjoy the travel side of things for business.

Would you still enjoy flying as much for business if you were paying for your own airfares and accommodation?