Five Tips to Making the Most of Business Trips

By Meredith McKee, Account Supervisor and Mattie Walker, Account Executive

There is definitely a difference between a business trip and a leisure trip.  While we like being able to expense our business trips, let’s face it – there is generally nothing relaxing about them.  And the majority of your time is spent in an office building, convention center, etc. However, after years of traveling for work and working with one of the leading online travel companies – we’ve learned a few things about travel including how to make the most of every trip.

We’ll use a recent trip with the PR team from Travelocity to showcase how you can work hard – and play hard in any city where you wind up.

1. Tell Your Friends You’ll Be There.  Before we left on our trip we alerted our friends in New York we’d be in town.  We didn’t know if we would be able to get together or when we’d be available at this point, but if they were around we’d call them.  We were able to go have drinks after a client dinner with one of my friend’s from college.
2. Make a List of Things You Want to Do.  Admittedly, we had a long list that realistically, was never going to happen.  However, we had a number one priority and that was to go to the Empire State Building.  Neither of us had ever been – which may explain why we walked right by it and never noticed.  It was less than an hour out of our day and totally worth it.
3. Walk Everywhere Possible.  Skip the cab, the subway, the rental car – whatever it is.  Walking is the best way to actually see your surroundings.  We even got one of our clients to give us a nice little tour of the city as we walked back to our hotel from dinner – where Jude Law was kind enough to hold the door for us.
4. Plan Something Fun with Your Coworkers.  Maybe this is a happy hour or nice dinner.  In our case, it was a Mets game enjoying delish burgers from Shake Shack after a long day of meetings.
5. Tack on a Few Days.  We both came home when work was over, but when we can we like to add a few extra days and stay on our own dime.  Edelman has a Stay A Day program. With approval from your supervisor, you can expense a one-night hotel stay and work out of the Edelman office the following day. This is a great way to see more of the city and meet fellow Edelman coworkers.

While not everyone can travel with @RoamingGnome for business – you can have a little more fun on your work trips.  Because really should any travel be work?