Global working: travelling light?

We asked our team, who constantly work around the world, for their travel tips. A single blog post rapidly became a series, and we share their business travel tips over the coming weeks.

But something interesting happened. There was a split down the middle of the team. The whole ‘packing for a trip’ conversation created a big debate, with some of the team paring down their packing to a single cabin bag, and some taking a more relaxed and leisurely ‘let them get on with it’ approach.

This is great – it summarises the issues that all of us face when we travel regularly, balancing speed, comfort, relaxation, preparation…. the list goes on. We’ll pull those questions out as we progress through our series of tips.

But let’s kick off with the suitcase debate, since packing’s the first thing we all face when travelling.

Most of the team fell on the ‘pack light, get through the airport quickly’ side of the equation. But there were two main voices of dissent.

The ever practical Janet Davis noted: “I always ignore the ‘pack light’ thing, and pack whatever I want to take, as I’ve only ever once lost my luggage, and that was truly a fund of stories ever after because it was a trip with dramatic temperature change, so I had to buy all new clothes.  And anyway, I have multiple shoe needs, even for a one-day event!”

Tony Poots noted:  “Chill out when travelling – all that worrying about getting your luggage on as hand luggage is just too stressful!”

(Personally, I’m with him on the stress front.)

Tony uses the extra space to pack extra training props and course exercises so he can share something new in the courses he’s running

There’s talk of some airlines starting to charge for cabin luggage, so I’m guessing there will probably be further debate along the line. But in the meantime, let’s hear from you. What’s your preference? Travel light and rush through the airport quickly, or pack for every eventuality?

Next week – the airport

Next week we’ll take a look at tips for getting through the airports with your soul intact.

If you have any tips you’d like included, particularly any tips for getting through specific airports, email them to claire (at) www.global-integration.com and we’ll include the best ones.

And, if you haven’t already, don’t forget to have your say on seat debate: aisle, middle or window seat? (And why?)
Click here to take survey