Do you get sick of flying and travel?

[MDC]

I'm currently sick of it but mainly because of my employer. They have a "travel during your time" policy, a corporate attitude that travel is a privilege, penny pinching such as staying in motor inns or 3 star hotels, best fare of the day.... and the list goes on.

I tend to have too many days where I'm up at 3am for a 5am flight and then home that night at 8pm only to do it all again the next day, or back in the office early the next day to catch up. Same goes for the week long trips: out Sunday or very early Monday, home late Friday night. What tops it all off are the red-eye flights... travel at night and then straight from the airport to the office for work.

I've begun to wonder what it would be like to have a normal social life again. Imagine being able to plan things on weekends rather than getting home late on a Friday and into bed early Sunday. Imagine being able to have people over for dinner mid week. Oh to have more than just Saturday night as a social night.

There are some great parts that I'll never get sick of. Going to new places and meeting new people almost makes it all worthwhile. I say almost.... because my employer expects me to check and respond to emails at night because I can't do it during the day if I'm with customers.

I'm actually thinking about changing companies and taking up a job that doesn't involve travel. The one thing that keeps me from doing this is the thought in the back of my mind that I might actually miss the travel

</rant>

 

[AnonymousCoward]

I think most people who have to travel heavily for work end up hating it.

You are constrained by corporate policies (class of service, airlines, times, routings, whatever). You end up travelling to the same place (whatever your job required) and you are expected to work (since you need to provide some value, and you don't have a family to go back to in the evening).

Living out of a small carry-on in air conditioned hotels (5 star notwithstanding) gets old. Eating by yourself in an evening, gets old too. The 4am starts, and the "travel on your own time" problems start to grate. It doesn't really matter if you fly in business (or even first) and spend lots of time in lounges. Lounges in particularly aren't anything special anymore - you can get the same food at any decent restaurant

It's sometimes fun to visit a new place, but that wears off the third/fourth/fifth time you land somewhere.

I don't mind flying for pleasure. I've done some crazy/odd itineraries when flying for leisure. Going to look at places I never would have before. But work travel gets pretty tiring pretty quickly.