NW-Bound
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
- Joined
- Jul 3, 2008
- Messages
- 35,712
I have read many people saying that since they have traveled so much for work, they no longer want to travel in retirement.
My jobs did not require me to travel that much. Still I dreaded work related travel. Most of the time, it let me see the inside of airports, the lobbies of megacorps, their conference rooms, their labs, and then the hotel rooms. And I was often too tired to even think of trying to get a nice dinner to compensate for the hassle. Of course, if one gets assigned to a nice location for an extended period like a few months, perhaps it would allow more time to explore and to experience something worthwhile. But then, it would come with different types of hassle. I'd rather not!
So, while at megacorps, I have seen many coworkers clamoring to go on boondoggle trips, but I never wanted to go unless it was truly necessary for me to go. It was a good thing that my geeky work was usually one to do in solitude and in isolation.
For a while, my wife had to travel for quite a bit in her past work, in order to visit her subordinates in some far-flung remote offices. You can guess whether she enjoyed that!
But personal traveling in our own time, at our own pace, and with our own itinerary is something else entirely. Of course it is at my expenses, but my, the difference to business travel is night and day. Yes, even if it means that, being frugal as I am, I have never paid for my own business class airfare and have to suffer the coach seat. Or that I most likely stay in cheaper and more touristy hotels. But the difference is that I am now traveling for leisure, for me, me, me, and not for w*rk.
One of my brothers had to travel all over the world for business. He worked for an esteemed high-tech company with a world-wide presence. His travel wore him out. And although he had been to some of the same European cities that I had been as a tourist, and even spent a longer time there than I did, did he enjoy the same experience as I did? Well, he said he wanted to tough it out for a few years until he could get a promotion and had the authority to send somebody out in his place.
But would he enjoy taking his family to the very same locations for a vacation? You betcha!
My jobs did not require me to travel that much. Still I dreaded work related travel. Most of the time, it let me see the inside of airports, the lobbies of megacorps, their conference rooms, their labs, and then the hotel rooms. And I was often too tired to even think of trying to get a nice dinner to compensate for the hassle. Of course, if one gets assigned to a nice location for an extended period like a few months, perhaps it would allow more time to explore and to experience something worthwhile. But then, it would come with different types of hassle. I'd rather not!
So, while at megacorps, I have seen many coworkers clamoring to go on boondoggle trips, but I never wanted to go unless it was truly necessary for me to go. It was a good thing that my geeky work was usually one to do in solitude and in isolation.
For a while, my wife had to travel for quite a bit in her past work, in order to visit her subordinates in some far-flung remote offices. You can guess whether she enjoyed that!
But personal traveling in our own time, at our own pace, and with our own itinerary is something else entirely. Of course it is at my expenses, but my, the difference to business travel is night and day. Yes, even if it means that, being frugal as I am, I have never paid for my own business class airfare and have to suffer the coach seat. Or that I most likely stay in cheaper and more touristy hotels. But the difference is that I am now traveling for leisure, for me, me, me, and not for w*rk.
One of my brothers had to travel all over the world for business. He worked for an esteemed high-tech company with a world-wide presence. His travel wore him out. And although he had been to some of the same European cities that I had been as a tourist, and even spent a longer time there than I did, did he enjoy the same experience as I did? Well, he said he wanted to tough it out for a few years until he could get a promotion and had the authority to send somebody out in his place.
But would he enjoy taking his family to the very same locations for a vacation? You betcha!