Believe it or not…I REALLY miss business travel, (and here’s what I’m doing about it)

Like many in the business world, I’ve traveled for work. A lot. If you ask anyone who knows me they’re likely to mention a mini suitcase (or not so mini as I got older) omnipresent at my side. In the past decade, my roles simply required it.

For one role, I was responsible for PR management for 10 countries, and as you can guess, was locked in a crazy concentric loop around our branch offices – two countries a week and back home to London on Saturday AM. Then repeat. Of course, having no kids helped, I won’t lie.

Such a heavy #businesstravel sequence was not always ideal of course. I inevitably woke up one Friday morning in Warsaw genuinely disorientated, feeling tearful and ready to quit. Oh, how times change, eh? After one year now in home-office lockdown, many of us feel a hankering for the clouds once again, and everything a change of environment brings. Who hasn’t flicked through their phone’s photo gallery in recent months, wistfully, and smiled at a picture of a favorite colleague in a company-branded sombrero?

When I think back to my fondest memories, a great many of these happened unexpectedly on seemingly routine business trips. The great thing about #business #travel is that your expectations for fun or learning are set pretty low. But chancing upon a secret chapel garden behind your faceless conference hotel or the amazing locals’ restaurant you arrived at in error – that felt special.

Perhaps it is no surprise that business trips spent alone can be an ideal time to reflect or realize something important. After all, what is better than a new culture, new surroundings, new languages to stretch us and bring out the best in us? I suspect I was often a more charming version of myself in the Miami office.

For all the Avios and hotel slippers in the world, it is special friendships that are the most valuable souvenirs for me. I have been truly blessed with collecting a set of amazing friends from around the world – completely by accident, purely because we connected on a human level on a #businesstrip.

I’ve gained a lot more than Molton Brown miniatures from my work travels – and I’m truly grateful. I cannot resist giving a shout-out to a few special people I met up to a decade ago somewhere far flung, now priceless friends, many of whom I still speak with every week: 

1. Eugene Patron - met in the Amtrak café car, he coveted my pound cake, I was majorly ear-wigging his political lobbyist conversations. We speak every week now.
2. Nina Ruebsam - we struck up a conversation in the queue to board a BA flight from Washington, then (from an entire A380) found we were sat next to each other. A witty purveyor of tough-love, I can’t live without her now.
3. Patrick Lauria - sat next to each other on an 8hr flight to Newark. I had never seen a guy drink so much Diet Coke. One of us mentioned Seinfeld and we became blood-brothers from then on.
4. Jennifer McLean - the funniest, kindest check-in agent in Philadelphia, became a beautiful friend.
5. Melanie Leather - met one day on a train to Bath, and we still haven't stopped talking about media and property.

A couple of years ago, at a photoshoot, I had the pleasure of meeting Carolyn Pearson, the Founder & CEO of a company called Maiden-Voyage.com. The business has a brilliant mission to make business travel safe in a diverse world. The company runs travel risk management programs to enable corporate travelers of all genders, races, and religions to feel empowered when overseas.

Carolyn herself created the business out of a pure passion to make business travel a wonderful experience – and the company has big corporate clients, and a loyal fanbase – myself included. When Carolyn asked recently if I would like to advise her team on communications, it was 100% yes.

Once our families and teams become vaccinated and it is safe to do so, organizations will once again become mobile, and we will all be on the move. Post-COVID business travel will surely come with new considerations and pressures, and businesses will need to support their staff with these.

So, I’m really looking forward to writing for and representing Maiden-Voyage from time to time, and helping more travelers to experience everything valuable that business travel can offer. When it’s again time for that chilly 5.50am Heathrow HOPPA bus, the team at Maiden-Voyage will be there for us all - to advise, support and inspire. 

(Photo credits: Gordon Plant – lovely guy, first met on a trip to San Diego in 2015)