Tag Archives: travel

Vacation? How to Really Unplug From Work and Check Into Vacation Mode

In theory this sounds easy to do, but if you’re in sales or own your own business it can be almost impossible. If you’re like me, you worry that if you check-out from work that nobody else in your company will be able to handle your clients with the same quality of care that you do.

This is especially so because I’m guilty of checking my work emails and messages from the moment I wake up at 5:30am until just before I go to sleep at 10pm. Whether it’s the evening, the weekend or I’m off stick, I can’t help but attend to all my work-related calls, emails and text messages. By doing this, my clients have an expectation that I am available at all times.

The primary reason I opted to make myself so available is because I manage clients across Canada. I am based out of the east coast and almost half of my clients are on the west coast. This means that when my head office is closed at 4pm, it is still 1pm, the middle of the work day, for a substantial portion of my clients. Needless to say, I made myself available to them to secure the business and it was an excellent move.

This is all great until I need to take a break and go on vacation. How does one take time off when work is constantly beckoning you at your side?

Similar to the electronic devices we use on a daily basis, we too need to rest and recharge. It is essential to our mental and physical health. Taking a well-deserved break will enable you to come back to work refreshed and better able to tackle all of the challenges in front of you.

How can you “separate” yourself from work and not feel guilty?

Keep in mind that everyone (your clients included) can understand the need to take a break. As long as you can get away without their service being completely interrupted in your absence, go for it! We are all deserve some sort of vacation, so don’t cheat yourself of that.

Follow the following steps:

Make a Contact List for Your Clients to Contact in Your Absence

Compile a list of the basic elements of your job and assign a person in your company to handle those tasks in your absence. Make sure to get their permission and your supervisor’s permission to delegate your tasks before you leave, otherwise you might land in some hot water with your co-workers.

Set an Out-of-Office Email Reply

This is quite standard practice. Be sure to include the exact dates that you will be unavailable and all of the contact information of your colleagues who will be able to assist your customers in your absence. Upon my return to the office, I will send an email to all of my clients who emailed me while I was away in order to assure that their inquiries were taken care of. This is important because I have noticed that almost 50% of my clients will wait for me to come back because they prefer to deal with me directly.

Change Your Voicemail

Compile a temporary voicemail message which will relay the same details as your out-of-office reply.

Give Your Clients a Head’s Up

Email: This is very important if you have clients that have grown accustomed to emailing you and assuming you have everything taken care of and don’t check their inbox for a reply. If a client places an order in the morning and doesn’t see your out-of-office reply until later that day or the next day, their order may be substantially delayed and they will not likely be very happy. Send them a quick email before you leave stating exactly when and how long you will be away and who they are to contact in your absence. Your clients will really appreciate this.

Text: Since there is no automatic out-of-office text message reply, be sure to text your clients who regularly text you before you leave to let them know you will not be receiving your messages. I have no idea why there isn’t an app for this in this day in age. Whoever invents this will be a millionaire!

Turn Off Your Phone and Get Off the Internet!

Yes, that’s right! Disconnect!

Enjoy Your Vacation!

Today I’m heading off on vacation for one week. I’ve finished scrambling to get everything done before I leave, which often is more stressful than the average work week and I’ve completed all of the steps above and plan to enjoy my time off guilt-free. I hope you do the same.

Safe travels my friends and don’t forget to charge your batteries every once in a while too.

TSW

Pack Your Carry-on Luggage Appropriately or Risk Not Flying at All

If you’re travelling for business and your briefcase containing all of your portable electronic devices doesn’t conform to your airline’s carry-on standards, you can forget that business trip!

In this post I will provide some general airline travel tips and provide suggestions on what types of baggage you should travel with and the contents each baggage type should contain.

How many times have you packed for a trip only to end up using half if not less of what you packed? We have all done it at some point. As we become more seasoned travellers, we learn how to pack more wisely. In the US, more and more people are travelling (see infographic from Hudson News below), and most of whom (I say from experience), do not know how to pack appropriately. Now, airlines are beginning to crack down on these passengers and you need to be prepared for it the next time you fly.

Last week Air Canada announced that they will begin strictly enforcing their carry-on allowance at Pearson International Airport (YYZ) in Toronto effective this past Monday and they will begin doing so in other international airports across the country over the coming months. This means that at all check-in and security check points, Air Canada will be checking passengers’ carry-on baggage to ensure that it meets their specifications. If it does, each bag will be tagged with a “Carry-on Approved” tag. If the bag does not meet the airline’s specifications, passengers will be required to check their bags before proceeding through security.

When I heard this news, I thought “This is great news! It’s about friggin’ time!!!”. For those of you who read my article “The Top 10 Worst Airline Passengers I’ve Encountered”, you will recall me mentioning my frustration with the “Carry-on Cow”. You know, those passengers that have multiple and/or oversized bags and who naturally board the aircraft before you and then there is no room for your appropriately sized carry-on. Or those who deliberately try to sneak on baggage that they know is oversized so that they can avoid the baggage check fees. When this happens, the flight attendants then have to make arrangements to check their baggage and do that at no additional fee. My neighbor who is a baggage handler for Air Canada informed me that this is the reason for 95% of flight delays. That’s insane!!! So I’m extremely relieved that Air Canada is taking the lead in doing this, especially because that is the airline I most frequently fly on. I presume other airlines will follow suit shortly.

If you’re guilty of being one of those Carry-On Cows or just uncertain about the size of your carry-on bag, here are some helpful hints:

1. Research your airline’s baggage allowance policy BEFORE you PACK and plan what you will bring accordingly. You may have to buy new luggage.

TIP: Many companies sell bags with labels describing the bag as “carry-on size” when that is not the case at all. Bring a measuring tape with you and measure the luggage dimensions before you buy!

2. Wear you bulkiest items (largest shoes/boots, coats etc) on the plane.

3. Leisure Travellers: As long as you have your PHOTO ID and CREDIT CARD EVERYTHING ELSE CAN BE REPLACED. If you try to pack everything as carry-on because you are afraid of the airline losing your luggage, you won’t be able to get away with this anymore. Either pack less or just commit to packing a checked bag and don’t put any real unreplaceable items in it.

4. Portable Electronic Devices Can NOT be CHECKED. This is because most of these devices (laptop, chargers, batteries, GPS, mobile power inverter, etc) contain lithium ion batteries which are classified as dangerous goods. Their improper storage on an aircraft may result in an explosion, fire or short circuit, all of which will not only destroy the device but may pose a flight hazard.

This can pose a dilemma for business travelers who usually must carry several if not all of these devices. They take up half of my briefcase and they are items I cannot do my business trip without. So if you don’t pack them appropriately in your carry-on, you won’t be able to check them and therefore won’t be able to board the aircraft for that important business trip. Try explaining that to your boss!

To help you decide how to pack appropriately for your next trip, I have laid out my packing suggestions in the table below:

What’s in my baggage?

Small Purse:

Photo ID/Passport (You can’t board without it!)
Wallet (Relax– you can always buy whatever you forgot!)
Pens (Yes pens –If you are travelling internationally you will have to fill out customs immigration forms)
Cell Phone and charger
Travel documents (Yes I still keep paper copies of everything. After all you never know when your phone or tablet will die
iPad and charger
Personal articles such as liquids and gels (-moisturizer, hand sanitizer, lipstick, lighter), hair brush, gum, kleenex.

TIP: The best way to relieve pressure in your ears due to altitude changes is to blow your nose

Large Purse or Laptop Case (same dimensions):

Same as above except my laptop instead of iPAD (that’s just a toy!)
Small detail binder including literature

Small Carry-on:

Chargers, adaptors
Camera
Clothes – only enough for my trip. It is OK to wear something more than once!
Toiletries (that are less than 100mL each and total no more than 1L) in a TSA-approved bag

Briefcase:

TIP: Be sure to use a hardside briefcase to prevent yourself from over-stuffing it and making it oversized!

Laptop and charger
GPS, cable and mount
Phone charger (for wall and car)
iPod and aux cable
Power cord (most hotel rooms NEVER have enough outlets!)
Detail Binder
Literature (sell sheets)
Schedule/ Calendar for all of my appointments – Yes I’m old school! I prefer a paper back-up
Sales Reports (paper copies for handy reference)

Yes, believe it or not I squeeze all of this into my little briefcase!

TIP: If it gets full, I either put some literature in my checked baggage or arrange to have it shipped to me at my destination.

Checked Baggage:

You can put anything in here, except something that you cannot replace (i.e. family heirloom etc) or that is very heavy as most airlines will charge you an additional $100 or more if your back is over 50lbs.

I hope you find some of these tips helpful for when you are preparing for your next trip be it for business or pleasure. If you would like any more specific advice, please feel free to contact me at [email protected] or provide your questions in the comment field below.

Safe travels my friends, and just as a reminder, don’t be that Cary-on Cow. You won’t get away with it for much longer and certainly not if you fly with Air Canada.

Cheers,

TSW

Reasons Why the iPhone is Inferior to BlackBerry for Business

And Why I’m Ditching my iPhone and Going Back to Blackberry

When I first hopped on the bandwagon and switched to an iPhone, I quickly realized how useless it is for business and that it was much more of a toy. Sure the iPhone is pretty, has lots of fancy apps and you can play all sorts of games, however the applications for business use are seriously lacking. Yesterday I experienced the last and final straw with this device which pushed me over the edge to toss my iPhone and go back to BlackBerry. However, before I get to that, I’ll share the other primary reasons why I find the iPhone inferior to BlackBerry for business use.

Keyboard (touch vs QWERTY)

In business, most of us are used to typing on a computer on a daily basis. For me, typing out emails on a touch screen keyboard is completely aggravating. Even more so is the autocorrect feature which consistently seems to add the most inappropriate words and makes it difficult to use the words you intended to use. Furthermore, as a woman who likes to have nice nails, you can’t have them if you intend to use the touch screen keyboard since the screen will not respond to nail tips. I realize this sounds girly, but I never thought I’d have to choose between being able to use my phone and having a nice manicure. I suppose I could have invested in a stylus, but I’m sure I would have misplaced that in less than 24 hours. So, bye-bye manicure it was.

Email Access

On my iPhone, in order for me to access my work email (which is an IMAP account), I had to manually disable my wifi and use my cellular data to send and receive email. Apple apparently has no solution to this problem and nicely told me that if I want to use this “old” email set-up (which I obviously have no say in) that I must routinely disable my wifi to check if I received any new email. Furthermore, if I sent an email while out of a wifi zone and then my phone picks up a wifi network without me noticing, my sent email could sit in my outbox until I leave the wifi area. How ridiculously inconvenient is that??? I never experienced this issue on a BlackBerry.

Available Travel Apps

I was spoiled by BlackBerry’s Travel Manager app. With zero effort on my part, this app picked up all of my travel arrangements, put them in my calendar, gave me notifications (some of which were even before the airline itself would announce them) and provided timely reminders for anything I could think of. When I switched to an iPhone, I was extremely disappointed that there wasn’t and app that was even remotely close to being as efficient as the BlackBerry Travel App. Tripit, I was told was the “closest” and that is a long shot! All travel arrangements have to be manually inputted into this app. If you are lucky, when you manually forward email your reservation to the app, it will acknowledge it 25-50% of the time. The other 50-75% of the time it doesn’t understand the reservation and you have to enter ALL of your travel info MANUALLY!!! Who has time for this??? Sometimes I have over 20 days of reservations booked for flights, hotels, car rentals etc. and to have to enter this data manually? Forget it! Even worse is that it will only notify you of a flight change or delay if you pay for the premium version. Did I mention that BlackBerry Travel was FREE?

Battery Life

The iPhone is also seriously lagging in this department. I have to charge it 1-2 times daily whereas my BlackBerry would last at least one full day if not more. This is extremely inconvenient when travelling where you don’t always have access to a power outlet.

Security

To date, I was willing to accept all of these faults I mentioned above and managed to live with them for almost a year, but yesterday I had my last straw with this device. Yesterday morning I unlocked my phone only to discover that someone was remotely browsing through old files and photos that I had “permanently deleted” on my device. They also accessed my Facebook account (which I could see) and who knows what else! If this hacker had access to that information, they clearly had access to all of the other information on my device including where I live. How scary is that? So much for confidentiality! In business, confidentiality is of utmost importance, so why put all of that at risk? There is a reason the government uses BlackBerry. All of the information is secure and can be easily encrypted. The security on a BlackBerry is unbeatable.

BACKUP

The only place to back-up your iPhone data is on the iCloud or on iTunes. If your account has been compromised, what is the point to putting it back in an unsecure zone? There is no direct secure way to back up files to a PC or encrypt files securely. This is a very serious flaw!

VULNERABLE APPS

Recently in excess of 25,000 iPhone and iPad Apps have vulnerabilities that allow hackers easy access into your iPhone and your iCloud. You can read more about this massive security flaw here.

To check if any the apps you are using are vulnerable go check this website by clicking here . I realized that I had quite a few vulnerable apps on my phone including but not limited to:

Yahoo mail
Skype
Soundcloud
Find my iPhone <-–Yes seriously!!! Thanks Apple!
Battery Doctor

So, all of that being said, I got rid of my iPhone yesterday and switched back to a BlackBerry which I love. Sure it doesn’t have all of the bells and whistles but it is a workhorse and it is secure. Like most business professionals, I need to do work on my phone, not play games and the BlackBerry is the best device on the market for that purpose.

If you are a business professional using an iPhone, make sure to either delete your cloud account or at minimum change your Apple ID and all other passwords weekly, otherwise you run a very high risk of all of your data being compromised.

I hope that you found this information helpful and have an opportunity to make the appropriate changes before your phone and consequently your data is compromised.

The iPhone is a toy. The BlackBerry is a Business tool.

Keep your data safe fellow business men and women.

TSW

Listening to a little Back in Black

Top 10 Worst Airline Passengers I’ve Ever Encountered

Why is it that when people travel, so many of them lose their manners?

Is it that flying makes people feel elite and gives them a sense of entitlement at the expense of others? Or is it the stress that wears people down so they become incapable of acting on their best behaviour?

For the most part people aren’t so bad. However I sure have met a few gems over the course of my travels. Even if you don’t travel often, you’ve probably met your fair share as well.

If you’re like me, I’m sure that whenever you get into your seat on an aircraft where the seat next to you is empty, you keep your fingers crossed hoping and praying that nobody will sit next to you. But just when you think you’re home free, that stand-by passenger who gets on the plane last minute rushes down the aisle in your general direction. You size him or her up as they approach, assessing other vacant seats, and avoiding eye contact with them, thinking, hoping, that just “maybe they are sitting there and not next to me!”…or not.

So there you are, all nice and cozy, seated with a complete stranger. Let’s just hope they aren’t anything like some of these passengers that made my personal top 10 list of the worst airline passengers I’ve ever met.

Note that these are not in any particular order and that I have excluded those that are not acting out deliberately (i.e. crying babies). Enjoy!

The Starfish-He Will Spread Out All Over You

Very shortly after I was seated on a long haul flight, an average sized man sat next to me. I was relieved, thinking, that he didn’t seem so bad at all. Well, immediately after take-off, he fell asleep and proceeded to slowly spread out in starfish position. I was in a window seat and he in the aisle. As his leg slowly pressed harder and harder on mine, his arm on the armrest did the same. Initially, I thought he was getting fresh with me, so I moved abruptly pretending to access my bag below the seat in front of me giving him a big jolt but to no avail. Before I knew it, his arm kept falling in my lap and his leg as spread out as far in my direction as possible. He would not wake up, nor budge for the entire 5 ½ hour flight.

2. The Queen –She Commands First Class Service in Coach Economy

I was seated in seat 13A on a Dash 8, which is the worst seat on the plane. It’s very back row of a very tiny aircraft with minimal overhead cabin space. My briefcase (because of the wheels) would not fit in the overhead bin so I had no choice but to put it under the seat in front of me along with my purse. I have very long legs so I was already very cramped which I’m not complaining about. I actually don’t mind being stuffed into the back corner of a plane. It can be quite cozy. The next thing I know, The Queen has arrived, fur coat, Coach handbag and all. She sits next to me and immediately expresses that she has a problem with the baggage at my feet because she “has an arthritic ankle and needs the extra leg room”, where MY feet are! She demands that I remove my bags, which were not infringing on her legroom at all! I apologized nicely saying that my briefcase doesn’t fit in the overhead so I have it below my feet and reminded her that she has the whole aisle in addition to the space at her feet to spread out. She says to me “I’m sorry you’re having a bad day but your bag needs to go because I need the legroom!” I was enraged and told her that if she needed the room, she should have paid for the premium seat! She calls the flight attendant over and insists they remove my bags (including my purse!) and store them in first class! There isn’t even a business class section on these planes! I didn’t want to get into a full out fight and get kicked off the plane, so I sucked it up and told the flight attendant that she could take all my of bags. That was an awkward next 3 hours!

3. The King –He is Above The Rules

On a flight with severe turbulence passing over an area where just the previous day it had been in the news that several passengers were injured because of turbulence, I met The King. As the turbulence increased in severity and the flight attendants insisted that everyone stay seated and fasten their seat belts, this very large gentleman who was about 6’5 and 250 lbs decided that it was a good time for him to stand up and put his shoes on! He was in the aisle with his foot on the armrest right in front of me. I was afraid that the next jolt of turbulence would send him plummeting on top of me and crush me, so I politely asked him if he was aware that the seat belt sign was on. He tells me that he was and he didn’t care. He completely ignores the flight attendants well. He needed to put his shoes on and standing up even though he was seated in an exit row and had all the legroom he needed. Fortunately he sat down before the turbulence got really bad!

4. The Baby Daddy-He Wants YOU to Babysit His Baby

It never would have even occurred to me that anyone could have the gall to do what The Baby Daddy did. I was seated watching a movie when a man holding an infant started waving at me as to attract my attention. After I removed my headphones, he asks me “Hey, do you mind holding my baby? I need a break and I’m tired of holding him.” I couldn’t believe it. Did I look like some kind of babysitter? Or was it just because I’m a woman that I’m supposed to like holding babies? Seriously?!?!? I politely told him, “No, sorry, I don’t hold babies.” How awkward is that? So he moved along down the aisle and asked the next lady he saw the same question! For the record, he was not in any sort of distress and neither was the child.

5. The Seat Kicking Couple-They Are Getting Hot and Heavy Behind You and Don’t Need a Room

Seat kickers are the worst!!! Especially the ones who clearly don’t give two #$%#’s, like this couple I had seated behind me once. They were going through phases of intensely making out and tickling each other and hence all of the kicking. And like bad children, as soon as the flight attendant came by, they stopped so they weren’t caught. This went on for over 2 hours. And for the intermittent bouts of silence, who knows what happened there. Gross!

6. The Party Princess-You Can Smell the Party On Her

Naturally I met this one on a long-haul flight. This girl smelled like booze, had the worst body odor I have ever smelled on a woman and her neck was covered in hickies. The worst part was, for the entire flight she felt the need to continuously adjust the fresh air vent, raising her arm above me. The smell was unbearable. Even my scarf couldn’t mask it. When we landed, I couldn’t help but oversee that she was texting her boyfriend about how much she missed him-l I wonder what he thought about her “condition”? *sigh*

7. The Carry-On Cow- She Knows No Limit to Carry On Baggage Allowance

This is nobody in particular. We have all seen this person. You know, the one with 3 or 4 carry-on bags, sometimes even a large suitcase who stands in the aisle looking puzzled as to why their bags don’t fit in the overhead bin. I have no idea why most airlines do nothing to prevent people from getting on board with oversized or multiple pieces of luggage. Every time I board a plane, my blood boils just a bit looking at all of the bags people will try to bring on board. This irritates me because those travellers hog all of the overhead bin space, meaning that there wont’ be any room for my appropriately sized carry-on and I’ll have to stow that under my feet for the whole flight. If their bags are oversized, they will have to be checked after they board. Lots of people do this on purpose so they don’t pay the check baggage fee, and so often that this is apparently the #1 cause of flight delays. Airlines need to get up to speed on this problem!

8. The Octopus-She Will Spread out in Ways You Never Thought Possible

On a very cramped flight where my knees were uncomfortably pressed against the seat in front of me, I encountered The Octopus. She was worse than the starfish. She was seated in front of me and had an entire row to herself, 3 seats and all. But she decided that she needed more room than that, so she decided to recline all of the seats in her row so she could lie down and spread herself out entirely! When I asked her nicely if she could put the seat up because none of us behind her had any room to begin with, she just laid back down and said “No, I am entitled to all of the space I need.” Things started to escalate between us all and fortunately, the flight attendant stepped in and insisted she put the seats back in the upright position.

9. The Ignorant– Assigned Seating is Meaningless to Her

One time when I was boarding a plane, I noticed there was a lady seated in my seat. This is a common mistake, so no big deal. However when I showed the woman my boarding pass and said that she was in the wrong seat, she just nodded her head and dove back into her book. We were told that this was a full flight prior to boarding, so it wasn’t like I could just take a seat elsewhere. I asked her what seat she was supposed to be in and she just kept ignoring me as if I would somehow just disappear if she didn’t look at me. I’m sorry but if you can read the flight number and the gate number to get on your flight, you most certainly can read your seat number! The line-up behind me was growing. My patience and the patience of the other passengers behind me was thinning. There was no flight attendant in sight so I decided to make the executive decision to stow my bag and just physically pick her up and take her out of the seat and stand her in the aisle. Then I sat in my seat. She just stood in the aisle looking very perplexed and sat in the next available seat.

10. The Clueless Guy-He Just Doesn’t Get Why He Has to Take Every Coin Out of His Pocket at the Security Checkpoint

This guy made me laugh to tears, so I saved him for last. It was rush hour at the airport and really busy at the security checkpoint. To give people the benefit of the doubt, it’s easy to forget to remove a belt or a piece of jewellery when you’re rushing through security but this guy took the cake. He went through the metal detector at least 5 times! Each time he went through, he removed a watch, then his belt, then his shoes, then coins from one, yes just one pocket…And finally he went through a last time after he removed the change in his other pocket! It was absolutely hysterical how clueless he was. It was so ridiculous that I was thinking that it was some sort of prank but alas it wasn’t.

I hope you had a good laugh reading these and that you don’t ever get seated next to any of these poorly behaved travellers. Now that pretty much everyone has access to a camera on their phones, entire websites and twitter accounts dedicated to shaming passengers have popped up and are rapidly gaining in popularity. My personal favourite is www.PassengerShaming.com, a site started by a sassy flight attendant.

In the meantime, travel safe my friends and good luck out there! It’s a zoo!

Cheers,

TSW

Love and Romance en Route

The Unique Challenges Frequent Travellers and Their Loved Ones Face When Dating and Maintaining Long Term Relationships

In Hollywood films, business travellers are often portrayed as living extravagant lifestyles where they are away from home 90-99% of the time and enjoying exciting adventures, often which involve infidelity.

Of course what happens in the movies is not truly representative of what happens in real life. However the stereotypes of the business traveller that Hollywood has created for us, can on occasion, cause trouble for us frequent travellers in our real life relationships. In particular, for those of us who are romantically involved with people who do not travel frequently for work.

In reality, most frequent travellers are not away from home 90% of the time. It’s more likely to be along the lines of between 30-70%. What Hollywood films typically don’t show you is that you really spend the bulk of your time in transit, meeting with customers and working on reports in hotel rooms. As such, most of the people you are interacting with are either your customers, people in the service industry and other travellers who are also on the move. The lifestyle is transient. You go wherever your work takes you and never stay anywhere or with anyone too long. When you do engage with others, those interactions are most often brief and superficial. That being said, although you may be meeting a lot of people, most of them will not be dating material. Especially your clients! Don’t ever make the mistake of getting romantically involved with your clients. Need a refresher on why this is a bad idea? Read my previous blog post “How to Handle Clients Who Want More Than What You’re Selling”

So let’s say you’ve met someone special, now what?

If your career involves a significant amount of travel and you are romantically involved with someone, whether you realize it or not, you are in some form of a long distance relationship (LDR). After all, if you and your significant other are away from each other more than 30% of the time, does it really matter if you live in the same house, same city, are a short-haul flight away, or even live in the same time zone?

This frequent flyer lifestyle poses a unique challenge to not only dating but also maintaining long term relationships, and not everyone is cut out for it.

My longest relationships have been either long distance or with salesmen. What do these have in common? That travel is a fundamental, non-negotiable element of the relationship.

Setting Ground Rules For Communication

When you are in a relationship where one person is travelling a lot for work or if you are in a LDR, it is all the more essential that you communicate openly and effectively about everything. Setting aside even a small amount of time each day at a mutually convenient time for you to touch base, can be immensely helpful in solidifying your relationship, even if it is just to say briefly how your day was and remind your partner that you are thinking of them. Making sure you are on the same page about the amount of communication you will have is also key. For example, if you are busy travelling and in and out of meetings all day, your parter should be aware of this and not be calling you 10 times a day to ask you what colour you think the living room should be painted, or to give you updates on the weather back home. Setting ground rules and maintaining proper communication is essential to building and maintaining trust in your relationship. In my experience, this is often difficult for both individuals, but more so for the one staying at home.

Hollywood films have done us business travellers no justice in this department, portraying us as such a promiscuous bunch. In reality, this is so untrue. The travelling, the meetings, the reports… all of it is time consuming and exhausting. If you are in a relationship with someone you love and are committed to them, you won’t stray but rather look forward to returning home to their warm embrace. But yes, certainly there are people out there who do cheat and in most cases they do so because of problems in their relationship, not because of their choice in careers. Overcoming this stigma is not an easy task and hence why I typically date men who also have careers which require them to travel because they ‘get it’.

Dating the Non-Traveller:

Many people who do not travel for work may initially be “OK” with their significant other travelling often, but after a while, their tolerance dissipates and the relationship can break down. I’ve heard things such as, “Why can’t I come with you?” or “Can’t you just cancel your business trip or come home early to be with me?”.

I mean, I’m sure it would be a blast for my partner to sit and rot in my car all day long with nowhere to go while I’m in and out of sales calls and all, but really??? Just like it would be so awesome for us to not be able to go on that vacation because I won’t be making that commission on that deal I could have made on that business trip I cancelled, right???

But the problem is, if you say these things to your partner, it may come across as being cold, uncaring and make it seem as though you don’t want to spend time with them. That can create insecurity, suspicion and jealousy. Trust me, that is not a fun path to travel down!

The Long Distance Relationship (LDR):

Contrary to popular belief, true LDR’s aren’t so bad. I realize this may sound bizarre, but I find it easier to go to the airport once or twice a month to have a romantic weekend with a significant other than I do to drive to a nearby city several times a week. The reason being is that this way when we are together, I can devote 100% to my significant other which won’t be interrupted by work and other day to day distractions and when we are apart, I get all of the “me time” I need and I can give my 100% at work.

The only major setback to LDR’s is that if things get serious, which they ultimately will if things go well, is that at some point, one of you will have to make the move. That move may involve one of you quitting your job if you are unable to relocate with your current company. I seriously considered doing this once, but for various reasons, I decided that in the long term, that this would have been a very poor decision.

Overall, there are a significant number of challenges facing travelling businessmen and women when it comes to dating and maintaining long term relationships. It takes a lot of work to “go the distance” sort to speak. In reading this, I hope that I didn’t disappoint too many of you who were hoping to read the 50 Shades version of Up in the Air- Sorry to be the one to break it to you, but it’s not all Hollywood cracks it up to be.

I would love to hear from other travelling business professionals about the challenges you face or have faced in developing and maintaining romantic relationships.

In the meantime, safe travels fellow travelling salesmen and women.

Bon Voyage!

TSW

Why You Shouldn’t Always Trust Hotel Websites

Have you ever booked a hotel online which you thought looked great on the hotel website only to discover that it more closely resembles The Bates Motel upon your arrival? And found yourself wondering, “What the heck am I doing here? Why on earth did I book this wretched place?” You are not alone!

Quite often hotel websites can be very misleading. They contain photos of hotel rooms and facilities that may have been taken 10-20 years ago, or the last time the hotel was renovated. Another scam is that some hotel chains may have standard photographs of hotel rooms that they use to represent all hotels in that particular chain even though in reality, some of their hotels are high end and others more closely resemble 1 star motels. How are you to know the difference?

Another kicker is that usually by the time you arrive at the hotel (or motel), you won’t be allowed to cancel without any penalty. Most hotels have very strict cancellation policies which usually require that you provide 24-48 hours notice or more to cancel your reservation.

Websites like TripAdvisor can be immensely helpful when selecting a hotel because for the most part, the reviews are legitimate. Occasionally however, especially if the town you plan to stay in is quite small, even the top rated hotel might not just be up to your usual standards. Sometimes even the top rated hotel can be well, much, much worse than you had ever imagined. Below are some of my hotel booking horror stories:

Oriental Working Girl Oasis

I needed to stay at a hotel that was relatively close to my first appointment that I had scheduled for early the following morning. After reviewing all of the hotels on TripAdvisor (but without reading the reviews I must add!), I booked myself into a hotel that was rated 4/5 stars, was very highly rated in the provincial hotel rating system and wasn’t cheap. At $175 per night, how bad could it be?

Upon my arrival at this “hotel”, I quickly realized that it was more of a motel and located within walking distance from a strip club. In the hotel lobby, I noticed that the high ranking they received from the provincial hotel rating system was well out of date. They put me in a room that I can only describe as an ‘Oriental Working Girl Oasis’, to put it nicely. The picture of this Oriental themed room is from the hotels website and was clearly taken before it was ever used. What you can’t see in this picture is that the room:

had mirrors all around the bed and on the ceiling
stunk like cigars and perfume
had no windows, just a sliding door to the street
and everything was covered in dust (clearly nobody was using the desk!)

I didn’t want to touch or use anything in that room.

So what did I do?

I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep, so I kept all of my clothes on including my boots and a hat, drank a bottle of wine, passed out on the bed (on top of the covers on my jacket) and just got up and left immediately for my meeting the next morning. I didn’t even open my suitcase. I left it in the car because I was sure that some sort of vermin or insects would get into it. I know this doesn’t sound very classy, but in speaking with other sales representatives, I’m certain that I’m not the only one who has experienced this!

In doing some research, I discovered that this small town with a population of just over 50,000 people has 4 strip clubs. That’s 1 strip club per 12,500 people! In Canada, Windsor and Montreal both claim to have the highest number of strip clubs in Canada. Windsor has 10 strip clubs to service a population of 217,000 (ratio of 1:21,700) and Montreal has 75 strip clubs to service a population of 1.62 Million people (ratio of 1: 21,600). Based on this basic internet research I’ve done, I’m pretty sure I was staying in the Strip Club Capital of Canada! Next time around, I stayed at a very nice place that was over an hour from my first meeting.

Escort Escapade Hotel: The 5 Star Experience

This hotel I found online and not on a trusted traveler site. I was looking for a nice hotel in this particular city where I had an early meeting the next morning. In an internet search, this 5 star hotel came up. The website looked nice and the pictures of the room looked fabulous. The price was decent as well. I must add that this hotel website was in both English and French and the English side didn’t seem to make too much sense to me. The gist was that it was ideal for all business travelers and it had photos of what appeared to be business or high class couples enjoying champagne in the hotel room. When I went to make the reservation, I noticed that you could only do so if you paid in full with PayPal in advance. I called the hotel and they informed me that they do not accept credit cards but will accept cash or PayPal. This was a HUGE red flag! I asked my coworker to read the French side of the webpage, and well, let’s just say that there was a lot of information about this place that was either not correctly translated into English or not translated period! In particular, this “hotel” offered packages for business travelers where the hotel room was accompanied by an escort! I was sure glad to find this out BEFORE I decided to book this hotel and show up. Needless to say, I found alternative accommodations that did not come with an escort!

Hotel Hell

I discovered this gem which I call “Hotel Hell” when I first started out in sales. One of my superiors recommended to me that when I am researching hotels, that I should book those that were either in close proximity a major highway or the airport, depending on my schedule, so that is precisely what I did. However, having just researched location and price, I did not spend much time researching the quality of these hotels and now I am much the wiser!

This hotel was supposedly close to the airport and very reasonably priced. I had a very early flight the next morning, so I figured it would be fine to just spend the night. As I pulled up to the hotel, I quickly realized that it was in much poorer shape than the photos on the website had indicated. I noticed a bar/club/bowling alley on the main floor of this “hotel” and as I was pulling into the driveway, I witnessed a drug deal clearly taking place in front of the hotel in broad daylight. I immediately thought I would be a target of some sort of crime since I was driving an Audi A4, which was a complimentary upgrade from the rental car company. So much for that being a blessing! I hesitated going into the hotel, but I didn’t know where else to go since there were no other hotels in sight, because it was NOWHERE NEAR THE AIRPORT and I also didn’t want to just leave my belongings in car since I was sure it would be broken into.

At the front desk, I was informed that I had to pay in full for the room in advance and they asked me if I needed the room for the night or just a few hours??? Yikes!! Now if that wasn’t a bad sign, I don’t know what is!

I proceeded to the room and well, I couldn’t believe my eyes! These are some highlights:

The huge old school 27″ TV had a large sign on it saying “Please Do Not Remove From Room”
The bed sheets were filthy, torn and had clear hand prints on them
The window opened to the roof outside and had no locking mechanism
There was no phone in the room
Mouse or maybe rat excrement in the room corners

So what did I do?

I didn’t even want to sit on the bed it was so horrifically disgusting. I needed to find another hotel room ASAP. There was just NO way I was staying here. The problem was, I was in an unfamiliar city, there was no phone book in the room and my computer was dead (but I’m sure there was no internet access anyways!) so I had no way of figuring out another place to go. I had misplaced my city map and I felt lost.

So what did I do? I called my ex-boyfriend, whom I hadn’t spoken with in at least 5 years, hoping that he still lived in this city which is where he had moved here after our break-up. Luckily, he answered the phone and bailed me out. He escorted me out of the hotel (no pun intended) which made me feel safer since he was a big guy and he drove with me to a much nicer hotel that actually was close to the airport. I’ll never forget when he arrived at my hotel room, he said to me, “What are you doing here? I wouldn’t even &*%$ prostitutes in this hotel!” That was reassuring!

Needless to say, I’ve never stayed at discount hotels since, even if they are part of a major chain!

I also make sure to thoroughly research the reviews on sites like TripAdvisor and read them in great detail. When booking hotels now, my preferences are in the following order:

Hotel amenities
Positive Reviews*** MAKE SURE YOU READ THE REVIEWS FOR DETAILS! I CAN’T EMPHASIZE THIS ENOUGH!
Price
Location

So the next time you’re booking a hotel, make sure you do your research and not just blindly trust the hotel website because otherwise, you might just be in for a horrific surprise.

Bates Hotel anyone? Count me out!

If you have the time, take 5 minutes to write a review of the hotels you stay at regardless of whether or not your review is good or bad. All of us depend on those honest reviews.

Safe travels my friends.

Cheers,

TSW

Canadian Healthcare: “Free” but Certainly Not Consistent

When you travel as much as I do, it is pretty much inevitable that at some point, you will succumb to illness. Regardless of how much effort I put into eating healthy, working out, washing or sanitizing my hands at every opportunity I get while I’m on the road, I occasionally get sick and require medical treatment.

Since my territory is the entire country of Canada, I often get sick while away from home and therefore am unable to see my family doctor. Over the years, I have noticed a significant variance in the healthcare treatment we have in Canada, in particular the difference between provinces.

For my American readers, in Canada we have provinces (not providences) which are equivalent to individual states. Most of you are aware that in Canada, our healthcare is “free” and covered by our government. I say “free” in quotations because we do pay for it in the form of taxes which are automatically deducted from our income. The most common misconception about our healthcare system here in Canada is that all Canadians have full and equal access to all healthcare professionals. In my travels, I have discovered that this is clearly not the case.

Fortunately, I have not required medical treatment in all of the provinces, however I would like share a combination of my personal experiences and those of my associates in this post to illustrate the gross inequality of our healthcare system.

Below I have ranked the provinces in terms of the quality of healthcare they provide and the average wait times for a “walk-in” to see a doctor. Note that I have only listed provinces for which I have had direct experience in or have heard feedback on. I cannot comment on the others.

Best: BRITISH COLUMBIA “We sincerely apologize for the wait.”

Approximate wait time to see a doctor: <1 hour

To date, I have sought treatment in this province 4 times and I have never spent more than 1 hour in total from checking in to walking out with a prescription as a walk-in from out of province. Two times I had eye infections and the others I was sick and required antibiotics. Every time, yes 4/4 times, the nurse or receptionist apologized to me saying “We are so sorry that you have to wait to see a doctor! I promise it won’t be much longer.” This is unheard of in my home province of Ontario.

NEW BRUNSWICK “Well come on in and I’ll wrangle up a doctor for ya!”

Approximate wait time to see a doctor: <1h hour

This province is one of the most sparsely populated provinces in Canada which might explain the exceptional treatment that I have seen. My friend had completely severed his biceps tendon while trying to push a car out of the snow. We walked into the hospital emergency department, spoke with a triage nurse in less than 15 minutes, were in to see a general physician within 30 minutes and an orthopedic surgeon within an hour. If I recall correctly, I think the triage nurse said something to the effect that “Relax, take a seat and I’ll wrangle up a doctor for ya! I think you’ll end up seeing Dr. Y. who is here today and he did a great job on me and lots of my coworkers.” Maritimers are an exceptionally friendly bunch. At the 2 hour point, my friend was having an MRI and he was out the door with a sling and a promise for a call back with the results by the day’s end. By the end of the day, he had a surgery date scheduled for less than two weeks later. This is completely unheard of anywhere else in Canada.

ONTARIO “Know where to go for appropriate care or wait and rot.”

Approximate wait time to see a doctor: 2-4 hours

Ontario is the most populated province in Canada.. In order to receive the appropriate care, you must know where to go. We have a service called TeleHealth Ontario which is a toll free number that anyone can call and speak to a nurse and they will advise you as to whether or not you should see your family doctor, go to a walk-in clinic, the emergency department or to call 911. Generally speaking, Ontario is quite good for healthcare if you go to the appropriate place for your particular ailment. If you have a legitimate emergency and go to the hospital, you will be seen immediately and receive excellent care. If you have a non-urgent condition, you can expect to wait approximately 2-6 hours (depending on the condition) to receive treatment. You may have to wait but, you will receive excellent medical care. Going back to my friends’ experience with getting an MRI in New Brunswick; I was particularly impressed with the speediness of his diagnostics because when I had a bad concussion and was experiencing olfactory hallucinations (smelling things that are not there), I saw my family doctor and had to wait 8 months for a CT scan. I thought that was completely unacceptable. Needless to say, by then my brain had healed, or at least I’d like to think so.

SASKATCHEWAN “You’re close enough to a nurse.”

Approximate wait time to see a doctor: 3-6 hours, or maybe never!

Fortunately, I have never required medical treatment in this province. Although I do not have any direct experience here, one of my clients told me this story. She had to take her mother into the hospital for an impacted colon. Her mother had a history of bowel problems and had prior surgery so she was well aware of what symptoms would qualify her condition as an emergency. At the hospital, the intake nurse decided that this was not an emergency or a typical non-urgent condition, which meant that she was in some sort of grey area where she was not going to see a doctor, period. My client was with her mother at the time and made a big fuss over this, as anyone in their right mind should do. Ultimately, the nurse decided that since my client was a veterinary technician, that she was “close enough to being a nurse”, so she gave my client medications and verbal instructions on what to do if her mother’s condition worsens. None of the medications were labelled nor were any written instructions provided. This is something I would expect from a third world country! Fortunately, the impaction passed and she did not require further treatment.

The Worst: QUEBEC “You’re better off going back to Ontario or go to the US.”

Approximate wait time to see a doctor: 36-72 hours

Yes, it gets worse! Quebec is by far the worst province in Canada to receive healthcare. On one trip, I had a very severe bacterial infection in my chest and in required antibiotics ASAP so that I didn’t develop pneumonia. In the late evening when my condition worsened, I called around including the emergency department and they informed me that my best bet was to simply show up at a walk-in clinic at 7am when they opened and I might be able to see a doctor in the next day or two. So, that’s exactly what I did. When I showed up at 7am the walk-in clinic was fully booked for the next 2 days! Is it just me or do they have some deluded idea of what a walk-in clinic is??? They told me that I could either show up at another clinic tomorrow morning to book an appointment, or go to the emergency department and wait a guaranteed 36 hours minimum! I lividly told the nurses, “I could be dead of pneumonia by then!!” and then they told me, “You’re better off going back to Ontario or go to the US”. So, I cancelled the rest of my business trip and drove home to Ontario where I saw a doctor right away and got the medication I needed. Sometimes you just have to do things like that. If you don’t have your health, there isn’t much you can do in life. Know your priorities.

Ironically, Quebecers pay the highest income taxes in Canada.

I would love to hear from you about your experiences with healthcare. In particular, to my fellow Canadians, I am interested in hearing your experiences with our healthcare system in each province. I would also like to hear from my American readers about your experience with the promptness of healthcare in the USA and if it varies by state.

Travel Safe and Keep Healthy fellow Travellers.

Cheers,

TSW

Tips for Eating Healthy on the Road

Most people know what it means to eat healthy just as most people and understand the experience of working on the road. Unfortunately however, these are most often seen as mutually exclusive behaviors.

**If you know what it takes to eat healthy and you know what it is like living on the road, why is it so difficult to do both simultaneously**?

Usually when I tell people that I work on the road for extended periods of time, the first thing they say is “You are so lucky! You get to eat out at nice restaurants all of the time and eat whatever you want.”, as if it is some sort of vacation at an all-inclusive resort. New sales representatives are often of this mindset as well, especially because most sales people have an expense account.

For those of you following me on social media, you may be aware that I am currently doing a 3 week business trip covering Western Canada. This means that I am travelling by plane, by car and staying at hotels every night. Most days, I am even changing hotels every day which makes it even more difficult to eat healthy.

After you’ve been in sales for a while, eating out gets old and you get to the point where you’d do just about anything for a nice home cooked meal. About 8 years into my sales career, I had gained approximately 40 pounds and I decided that enough was enough. I started working with a personal trainer and developed a system to keep fit and eat healthy on the road.

Besides weight gain, why should you bother eating healthy on the road? Eating healthy is not only great for your overall long term health, but on the short term it can provide a well needed energy boost and ramp up your immune system.

How do I plan to eat healthy on the road?

Stay at Suite Hotels

This is my best kept secret! Why? Because suite hotels:

Are the same price if not cheaper than a standard hotel room at a major chain
They have full kitchens which are equipped with everything you need to prepare almost any meal that you can in the comfort of your own home.
Sometimes suite hotels even have in-suite laundry which can allow you to dramatically reduce the amount of luggage you are carrying

Shop at the Grocery Store

Treat your suite hotel as your home-away-from-home. Go shopping as if you were planning to make your meals and lunches for the week at home. This will not only save you (or your employer) money but it will surely save you some inches on your waistline and maybe add years to your lifespan. Below are some examples of meals I commonly prepare in my hotel room:

Breakfast:

Protein Shake (milk, protein powder) & Bananna OR
Oatmeal, Mixed Berries (frozen if I have access to a freezer for a few days, fresh if not) & Greek Yogurt.

Lunch:

Sandwich using whole wheat or multigrain bread:

Chicken/Turkey with tomato, lettuce, onion, pepper low-fat cream cheese (the veggies I will also buy to prepare a salad for dinner and will make at the same time)
Tuna, low-fat cream cheese or 1% cottage cheese

**TIP: TO KEEP THESE COOL, PACK A FREEZER PACK AND A LUNCH SAC SO THEY WILL NOT SPOIL

Snacks:

Boiled egg
Fruit or veggies
Protein bar
Low fat cheese (Swiss) or cottage cheese
Can of tuna

Dinner:

Mixed greens salad (appetizer)
Roasted chicken with smashed potatoes and steamed or broiled veggies
Chicken Fajitas (chicken, peppers, onions, cheese, whole wheat tortilla) with a side of veggies

Must-Have Items:

These items can either be bought at your location or you could pack them and bring them with you on your journey:

Lunch bag
Ice packs
Ziplock Bags: These are great for storing snacks, sorting single serving sizes of protein powder, oatmeal etc.
Reusable grocery bag: It is good to have at least one large reusable grocery bag for transporting your foods. For me, if I have 1 suitcase, 1 briefcase, 1 purse, 1 lunch bag and 1 large grocery bag, I can usually make it to and from my hotel room in a single trip.
Coffee Filters: Aside from the obvious use, these can also be used to store washed fruit in your lunch bag to prevent it from getting dirty, to keep your fresh berries fresh by putting it at the bottom of the container or soaking up excess water in a bowl when you prepare a salad.
Olive Oil/Balsamic Vinegar: These can be used on a variety of foods ranging from salad dressings to cooking meats (marinade, frying, etc.)

You might be thinking, “Travelling Saleswoman you are in sales! You can’t avoid eating out all of the time?”

And yes, you are correct. Certainly I must make time to entertain clients and occasionally take them out for a meal! Most of the time however, I prepare my own meals and snacks.

When I tell people that I have been on the road (away from home) for over 1 week and never ate out at a restaurant or had takeout even once, their minds are blown! When I tell them that I cook in my prepare all of my own meals in my hotel room, they usually look at me as if I am speaking a foreign language.

I am currently working on a guidebook for professionals who spend a lot of time on the road in which I will be providing very detailed tips on how to stay fit and eat healthy. This book will contain my typical shopping list, recipes, how I find the best suite hotels and much more.

In the meantime, if you would like any general tips or some of my hotel cooking recipes, please email me at [email protected] and I will be happy to share.

Safe Travels,

TSW

Travelling? Leaving Your Home Unattended Could Cost You

Whether you live alone or with your family, you should never leave your home unattended for extended periods of time, and not for the reasons you are probably thinking of.

A couple of years ago, 2 days into my vacation in Grenada, I received a panicked phone call from my father who was checking in on my cats while I was away.

It sounded as though he was in the shower and I could barely make out what he was saying.

I jokingly asked him if he was calling me from the shower and the words he spoke just made my stomach sink, “No I’m not in the shower! I’m in your basement!! There is water spraying all over the place and it’s flowing out of your window! What do I do?”

I immediately wanted to cry. I felt so hopeless. My first home that I so proudly purchased just the year before was under water! And flowing out of my windows??? How much water was in there?? Fortunately I was able to gather my thoughts and tell him where he could find my plumber’s business card and my home insurance card. I keep these on my fridge for easy access in case of an emergency such as this.

I later found out that there was only 2 feet of water in the basement (pfewf!) and it was flowing out of the window because a pipe near a window broke and that force of the water flowing out of the broken pipe was so powerful that it broke my basement window and hence why the water was flowing out of it.

Fortunately, my father was able to contact all of the right people and the insurance company brought in a site restoration company and removed all of the water by the time I returned home from vacation. What a miracle! And my house was still standing?!? Although this was somewhat of a relief, it still completely ruined the rest of my holiday.

It turns out it was a good thing that my window did break because according to my hydro bill, I went through 95,000L of water that month. That’s 2 average sized swimming pools of water! Fortunately, most of that water flowed OUT of the house!

So you’re probably reading this thinking this damage is the point of my story. Nope!

When I returned home, the insurance adjuster interviewed me. She asked me very specific questions regarding the sequence of events which I only had to state second hand since I was not home. For instance:

“What time did you leave the house exactly to go to the airport?”
“Was there anyone still at the house after you departed?”
“What date and time did your father call you to inform you the house was flooded? Do you have record of this on your cell phone?”

Unbeknownst to me, she was trying to ascertain if my house had been unattended for longer than 48 hours (precisely!).

Why would she care about this? Because it is a little known fact that most insurance companies have a clause in their policy requiring that the insured property not be vacant for longer than 48 hours otherwise whatever damages occur beyond that time frame may not be covered.

So if you are away and you don’t have anyone checking in on your house every 48 hours or less, if anything happens (flood, fire, burglary etc.), you may not be covered by your insurance company.

I was never aware of this until a friend of mine brought it to my attention, so I checked my policy and low and behold, there it was in my policy!!!!!

Fortunately, in my case, my cat’s can’t go longer than 2 days without being checked in on so I was OK!

So the next time you travel for business or pleasure, if your home will be vacant, make sure it isn’t so for more than 48 hours. And for your own peace of mind, read that small print in your insurance policy.

Safe travels.

The Travelling Saleswoman on SalesBabble.com

Travel and Sales Advice from the Travelling Saleswoman (a SalesBabble.com Podcast)

Yours truly, The Travelling Saleswoman is honoured to have been a guest on SalesBabble.com, hosted by Patrick Helmers. In this interview I give travel and sales advice from a savvy travelling saleswoman’s perspective. This website is an excellent resource for anyone starting out in sales or who is a small business owner. I would highly recommend you take a moment to check it out.

In this interview, I offer tips on:

Selecting the best transportation to and from the airport
Getting the best value from your travel rewards program
Sales scenarios-What to do and what not to do
Challenges on the road and how to overcome them

To listen to the full interview and to learn how you can win an Air Canada Maple Leaf Lounge Guest Pass, listen here or go to SalesBabble.com/46

A Podcast by:

If you have any questions, comments or would like personalized advice, please either leave your comments below or email me directly at [email protected]

Happy sales and safe travels my friends!

Yours Truly,

TSW

The Travelling Saleswoman Blog

Tips and Travel Adventures from a Savvy Saleswoman

Tag Archives: travel

Vacation? How to Really Unplug From Work and Check Into Vacation Mode

In theory this sounds easy to do, but if you’re in sales or own your own business it can be almost impossible. If you’re like me, you worry that if you check-out from work that nobody else in your company will be able to handle your clients with the same quality of care that you do.

Pack Your Carry-on Luggage Appropriately or Risk Not Flying at All

If you’re travelling for business and your briefcase containing all of your portable electronic devices doesn’t conform to your airline’s carry-on standards, you can forget that business trip!

In this post I will provide some general airline travel tips and provide suggestions on what types of baggage you should travel with and the contents each baggage type should contain.

If you’re guilty of being one of those Carry-On Cows or just uncertain about the size of your carry-on bag, here are some helpful hints:

What’s in my baggage?

Small Purse:

Large Purse or Laptop Case (same dimensions):

Small Carry-on:

Briefcase:

Checked Baggage:

Reasons Why the iPhone is Inferior to BlackBerry for Business

And Why I’m Ditching my iPhone and Going Back to Blackberry

Top 10 Worst Airline Passengers I’ve Ever Encountered

Love and Romance en Route

The Unique Challenges Frequent Travellers and Their Loved Ones Face When Dating and Maintaining Long Term Relationships

Why You Shouldn’t Always Trust Hotel Websites

Canadian Healthcare: “Free” but Certainly Not Consistent

Tips for Eating Healthy on the Road

Most people know what it means to eat healthy just as most people and understand the experience of working on the road. Unfortunately however, these are most often seen as mutually exclusive behaviors.

**If you know what it takes to eat healthy and you know what it is like living on the road, why is it so difficult to do both simultaneously**?

Travelling? Leaving Your Home Unattended Could Cost You

Whether you live alone or with your family, you should never leave your home unattended for extended periods of time, and not for the reasons you are probably thinking of.

The Travelling Saleswoman on SalesBabble.com

Travel and Sales Advice from the Travelling Saleswoman (a SalesBabble.com Podcast)

Enjoy this blog? Please spread the word :)

In theory this sounds easy to do, but if you’re in sales or own your own business it can be almost impossible. If you’re like me, you worry that if you check-out from work that nobody else in your company will be able to handle your clients with the same quality of care that you do.

If you’re travelling for business and your briefcase containing all of your portable electronic devices doesn’t conform to your airline’s carry-on standards, you can forget that business trip!

In this post I will provide some general airline travel tips and provide suggestions on what types of baggage you should travel with and the contents each baggage type should contain.

If you’re guilty of being one of those Carry-On Cows or just uncertain about the size of your carry-on bag, here are some helpful hints:

What’s in my baggage?

Small Purse:

Large Purse or Laptop Case (same dimensions):

Small Carry-on:

Briefcase:

Checked Baggage:

And Why I’m Ditching my iPhone and Going Back to Blackberry

The Unique Challenges Frequent Travellers and Their Loved Ones Face When Dating and Maintaining Long Term Relationships

Most people know what it means to eat healthy just as most people and understand the experience of working on the road. Unfortunately however, these are most often seen as mutually exclusive behaviors.

If you know what it takes to eat healthy and you know what it is like living on the road, why is it so difficult to do both simultaneously?

Whether you live alone or with your family, you should never leave your home unattended for extended periods of time, and not for the reasons you are probably thinking of.

Travel and Sales Advice from the Travelling Saleswoman (a SalesBabble.com Podcast)

Enjoy this blog? Please spread the word :)

**If you know what it takes to eat healthy and you know what it is like living on the road, why is it so difficult to do both simultaneously**?