Whether for business or pleasure, travel remains a big part of our lives. The world is replete with guidebooks, videos, influencers, and even AI-generated itineraries. You can find tips on tourist traps and hidden gems elsewhere. But we should also consider how to approach travel. Here are some my own guiding principles when it comes to both personal and business travel.
Personal Travel
Travel can be a surprisingly affordable luxury. Even with today’s high fuel prices, flights from the Eastern U.S. to Europe can run well under $1,000. The same goes for cruises. More premium travel can run much, much higher. There is even some evidence that people have become more willing to pay up for a premium experience. Still, that’s a choice and people can enjoy a comfortable and safe experience without taking out a second mortgage. When considering a trip’s costs, it’s helpful to compare it to alternatives. Kitchen remodels can easily run well over $25,000. Although home improvements can recoup some of their costs when a house is sold, few return more the 100% of the investment.
Have a plan. What are the must-see sites? How much can you realistically do in a day? Do you want to do any side-trips? Book some of the top attractions in advance. That can ensure you’ll have a spot and means less time waiting in line. What activities make most sense to do the same day? For example, you might visit a city with three top-notch museums but probably don’t want to visit them all in the same day. Have contingencies for bad weather.
Don’t always stick to the plan. While a plan makes a useful starting point, that doesn’t mean that you must follow that plan no matter what. Often that means doing fewer activities that you initially intended. Try not to rush through things just to fit a schedule. Some of the most pleasurable trips are at a leisurely pace. Of course, we all face time constraints, and you may need to prioritize. If you can’t visit every bucket list attraction on your schedule, that’s a good excuse for a return visit.
Learn about the local culture. Try to learn a bit about the place’s culture and history. Visits to historic sites take on more meaning if you have a better understanding of its role in a country’s history and culture. Learning a bit of a country’s language can also be helpful. That doesn’t mean intensive study. After all, you’re on vacation. But it’s not difficult to learn some basic greetings.
Pictures are important. People can obsess over getting that perfect shot to post on social media. In the process, you can miss the experience itself. But don’t be too dismissive of picture taking. Pictures can be a great way to relive the experience. Months, and even years later, those pictures bring us back to that iconic site, stunning vista, or delicious meal.
It’s location, location, location when choosing a hotel. Luxury is nice but safety and convenience are paramount. First figure out the places in a city you most want to visit. Then look at travel time to those sites from selected hotels. Walking distance is best, but quick and easy access via train or metro works as well, especially in cities with good public transit. When it comes to safety, user reviews help a lot. Watch out for phrases like “sketchy neighborhood.”
Red herrings and red flags. Online reviews can be extremely helpful when evaluating hotels, restaurants, and attractions. Don’t just focus on the overall ratings but also look at the reviews themselves, especially negative reviews. People have different preferences and if a negative review is based on something you don’t really care about, then you should probably discount it. One type of review to be especially wary of is the freebie search. It’s one thing to complain about food, service, or overall experience and quite another to say the meal or hotel costs should be comped as a result.
Some hotels and restaurants monitor and respond to online reviews. These responses are usually too bland to matter much one way or another. Some try to address a concern or to correct the record. Snippy responses don’t help, though. One well-known but apparently past its prime restaurant (now closed) received some negative reviews complaining about overpriced, underwhelming food. Combative, snarky responses from the restaurant’s owner didn’t help. He did close his responses with “Cheers!” though.
Most people you deal with are … fine. Reactions to overtourism have led to some well-publicized incidents. Anti-tourism groups spearheaded mass protests in Barcelona and elsewhere, complete with water guns and smoke bombs. Then there’s the Mayor of Venice, Luigi Brugnaro. When some British tourists complained about a €526 lunch bill, the mayor labelled the tourists as “cheapskates” who ought to learn Italian or even the Venetian dialect (!) if they don’t want to get overcharged. It’s one thing to learn to say bongiorno or grazie and quite another to be sufficiently fluent to avoid getting taken advantage of at a restaurant.
Brugnaro wouldn’t be the first obnoxious blowhard to hold political office. You may encounter rude or dishonest people while traveling abroad but you’ll also have no trouble finding them at home. From my experience, most people you encounter most of the time are … fine. It’s good to be on the watch for pickpockets, scammers, and assorted bad actors. But don’t let that scare you away.
But it is great to feel welcome. As tourism began to reopen after COVID, the City of Galway, Ireland put up a large banner that read, “Welcome back. We appreciate your support.” And the people there were indeed welcoming. Cruise ports in New Zealand and Australia include retired volunteers to greet tourists, give directions, and provide local tips. The Mayor of Burnie, Tasmania boards cruise shuttle buses to welcome tourists and adds some suggestions of places to visit while in town. These welcomes aren’t exactly essential, but they do enhance your visit.
Business Travel
Travel as a perk – or not. At the start of my career, training for new bank supervisors were often set at resort locations like Monterey, CA, Sanibel Island, FL, or Snowmass, CO. This travel wasn’t especially expensive, since it usually occurred during shoulder season and occasionally were held at foreclosed resorts. That changed in late 1986 when the head of my agency got some unwanted publicity around lavish business trips. Even the usually staid Philadelphia Inquirer described the Chairman of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board as the “king of junkets” who indulged in “enough exotic food and drink to shame Nero.” Trips to resort locations were pretty much out after that and most of our training was in the Dallas or DC suburbs.
We saw variations of this pattern over the years. As U.S. bank regulators became more active in international committees, trips to Europe and elsewhere became more common. This led to a reaction where international travel was cut back and made decidedly less attractive. Private businesses also veer between perks and austerity campaigns. Austerity efforts are more likely to focus on business trips than, say the CEO’s compensation.
Don’t be stupid. Cheating on one’s expense account is dishonest and unethical. It’s also incredibly stupid. About the easiest way to get yourself fired and derail your career is to get caught padding your expense account. People can make honest mistakes. But check first when charging an expense. When in doubt, err on the conservative side.
It’s ok to “lose money” on a business trip. The General Services Administration (GSA) establishes per diem expense rates, based on location, for meals and incidental expenses (M&IE), as well as for hotels. M&IE rates for domestic travel range from $68 to $92 per day. Rates are considerably higher for international travel. It’s quite common for people to view the M&IE rate as some sort of maximum expense rather than as a maximum reimbursable expense. Cheap food might be the best alternative, depending on where you’re staying and your own preferences. But you can also view the M&IE as a subsidy for a more expensive meal. If you spend $100 a day at nice restaurants, your employer is picking up 92% of the tab. It’s not as though eating at home is exactly free.
Make the most of your free time. Business trips aren’t supposed to be vacations, and the job needs to come first. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t make the best use of the free time you do have. That’s especially true when traveling to a new place. Consider venturing outside your hotel. Try a local restaurant rather than a predictable national chain.
Consider reputation risk. U.S. banking regulators are deemphasizing reputation risk, to the point of literally crossing out references to the word “reputation” from examiner manuals. That doesn’t mean that a firm’s or an agency’s reputation no longer matters. Travel-related missteps can damage the reputations of both organizations and the individuals involved.
In 2008, AIG sent some executives to a posh resort, complete with banquets, golf outings, and spa treatments. This came just weeks after a taxpayer-funded bailout and triggered Congressional hearings. The trip was a public relations disaster for AIG.
Then there is the case of the FDIC. The Wall Street Journal ran a series of articles in 2024regarding the agency’s supposedly “toxic” workplace culture. Congressional hearings and an internal investigation followed. Included were stories about young examiners drinking to excess at the FDIC training facility in Arlington, VA. While no one should be that shocked that some 22-year-olds might drink too much while on the road, it’s still a bad look. It hurts the agency’s credibility if some of their employees come off drunken louts. For the employees themselves, it’s not the sort of attention you want. For better or worse, you are the face of the agency.
Leave a Reply