Travel The Pleasures & Pitfalls

I've done a lot of travelling. Lived in the USA as an expat from the UK. We used to leave early Friday afternoon and drive away for the weekend.

Also went on press trips. My spouse was a speaker at conferences. So we were given a room in the big hotel at company expense. Sometimes the hotel was full and we were in a nearby hotel. Rush, rush, rush.

Exhausting politics. Get to met VIPs at breakfast. Should you complain about being in second rate hotel or keep quiet?

Lots of the time it is not as glamorous as it sounds. You fly through the night. Lose luggage.
Arrive on five hours sleep. They don't have your booking.

You are given a room overlooking a building site. Instead of the (Sydney) harbour view you are due to spend a week looking at dustbins.

You sit listening to a party next door while you wait for your spouse to come back from a meeting which has taken two hours longer than they said.

You miss the morning's guided tour waiting for room to be changed. Then you lose more time sending off your spouse's clothes to the laundry.

The promised swimming pool is closed for repairs or for winter. The hotel is miles from the city.

At dinner you smile into space for two hours having been told not to interrupt because of some important negotiation. You dare not speak because you must not risk revealing that you diverted to that country not on holiday but because of a job interview wtih another company.

I didn't appreciate how lucky I was until I got a peeved letter complaining, 'You are a fantasist. Nobody lives that life style.'

Really? So who is in all those big hotels at conferences? Actually businessmen whose marriages fall apart because four conferences out of five the wife is left at home wondering whether her husband is sleeping with some other woman.

I'm not complaining. That's where I want to be. Using up frequent flyer miles to visit exotic locations, swim in the hotel pool, pad across the sandy beach to paddle in the surf, back to the bubbles of the Jacuzzi, buffet breakfast, souvenirs on discount from the hotel shop. American hotels are the best - doesn't every shop in America have discount of the day?

Given the choice between cleaning and cooking, shopping for food, shopping for souvenirs and clothes, and sightseeing, guess what I would prefer?