Travel to feed the soul - what I’ve missed about business trips
I don’t know what picture springs to mind when you hear the two words ‘business travel.’ It’s probably not walking around the deserted city of Hull on a wet Monday evening in February looking for a restaurant.
But that scene - rather than the inside of a first class airport lounge - has been typical of the business trips I’ve taken over the last few years. Yes, there have been trips to wonderful cities and destinations across Europe to deliver talks and workshops. Yet many journeys have been closer to home. Short flights. Long train journeys. Belfast. Edinburgh. Glasgow. Leeds. Manchester. Birmingham. Cardiff. Newcastle. Liverpool. And Hull.
But even though they’ve not fitted the often glamorous stereotype of business travel, these trips consistently opened my eyes, fuelled me creatively and made me grateful for what I do and how I do it.
In the Financial Times this week, columnist Michael Skapinker signed off after 34 years at the newspaper with his take on the importance of the journeys we make for work, ‘What we lose if we stop travelling on business.’
“Even when the first sight is the airport metro station or a rainy street, I’m lifted by the thought of being somewhere different,” he writes.
I agree. Taking journeys to new places and walking along streets I’ve never trod before always energises me. It provides fuel for me and my business, helping with new ideas or looking at things from a different perspective. And it provides those essential moments of joy and aliveness.
I can’t wait to get back on a plane or a train again. And when I do I’ll be adhering to my five rules for business travel:
Always search out the good coffee. I love a decent long-black, so arriving somewhere new and seeking out the best place for it always takes me on rewarding detours. In Belfast I found the wonderful Established Coffee. In Liverpool, I walked down Hope Street and discovered 92 Degrees. These were more than just pit-stops for refreshment. Here I would sit for a while and work. Often I’d chat to the proprietor or strike up a conversation with my neighbour. Independent coffee shops are often in interesting parts of a city so it’s also a chance to check out local shops too. After having coffee at The Plan in Cardiff, I headed next door to Spillers, the famous record shop, and got a recommendation for a couple of new albums.
Wander around without a map. I like walking around a city without a map. In Glasgow - a place I hadn’t been to for nearly two decades - I stumbled across a restaurant called Ox & Finch where I had one of the best meals of my life. It was so good, I went back the next night.
Ask a local for recommendations. When I went to Manchester for the first time in years my friend Paul suggested I check out The Refuge, a majestic restaurant and bar run by some of his old friends from the music industry. Sitting there with my laptop, listening to Across 110th Street blast through the vast, high-ceilinged space, I was in my element. Cheers Paul!
Chat to strangers. Emerging from a BBC building in Salford where I’d been running a workshop for journalists, I got chatting with Sunny, a cleaning supervisor. Another time, having just landed at Madrid airport I attempted to help a fellow traveller feed her rabbit Gogo some water (I must admit, that was a strange text my wife received from me afterwards!). Both those interactions - and many more like them - really fuelled me.
Have a mindset to explore. Having just delivered a talk in the foothills of the Bavarian alps, and faced with a choice of jumping on the Wi-Fi or going to explore a nearby lake, I chose to jump in a lake. And had one of the most life-affirming experiences of my time on this planet! In Belfast, I’m pleased I didn't choose to dash back to my hotel and instead could take Seamus up on his kind offer to give me a drive-by history lesson of The Troubles.
Of course with the coronavirus pandemic, business travel has stopped. “Some think it should never restart; we can talk on Zoom,” writes Michael Skapinker. “Most agree that when it does restart, there will be less of it. Companies will want to save money; flying damages the environment. I don’t contest either. But if we stop visiting each other, we will, in important ways, be diminished.”
Absolutely. Whilst I’ve enjoyed the new opportunities running video sessions from my desk - in the last few months they have allowed me to work with teams from Canada to Peru - I’ve missed hitting the road. That sense of taking a journey will always be sacred to me both professionally and personally.
