Getting the Most out of Academic Travel: The Ideal Work Trip

I have been traveling a lot for work lately, which is great, but it also means I need to make decisions about which invitations to accept, as well as what to ask of my hosts to make travel more feasible and enjoyable. Jet-setting around the world can be fun, but also exhausting.

Several years ago, I wrote a blog post about my "ideal day," inspired by Barbara Sher's book, Wishcraft. I think of this exercise often, although my ideal day has shifted a bit since 2011, as I have gained clarity on what I want and need, and what makes me happy.

During a recent work trip, I realized I could use the "ideal day" exercise to think through what my ideal work trip would look like. What kind of work trip would I look forward to?

Envisioning what an ideal work trip would look like allows me to try and arrange my visits to reflect that - and to actually enjoy traveling for work.

Here is what I came up with for my ideal work trip:

Photo from a recent work trip to Costa Rica!

Tuesday evening:
Pack for my trip so that my travel bag is ready to go.

Wednesday morning:
6:00am: Wake up at home and write for an hour
7:00am: Go outside for a jog.
7:40am: Have breakfast with my family before they leave for the day.
8:00am: Shower, get ready.
8:30am: Write for another hour.
10:00am: Leave the house for my work trip
… travel to my destination ….
6:00pm: Have an engaging dinner with hosts
8:00pm: Back at hotel, relaxing with a novel

Thursday morning:
6:00am: Wake up and write for an hour
7:00am: Go outside for a jog or to hotel gym if weather is not suitable
7:40am: Have breakfast.
8:00am: Shower, get ready for the day.
8:30am: Write for another hour.
10:00am: Leave the hotel for a day of engagement with hosts and other guests
… this day can include meals, talks, meetings, and downtime …
8:00pm: Back at hotel, relaxing

Friday morning:
6:00am: Wake up and write for an hour
7:00am: Breakfast
7:30am: Shower, get ready.
8:00am: Write for another hour
9:00am: Leave the hotel to do something enjoyable - preferably a long nature hike. If I'm in a city, visit a museum or something I can only do in that location.
12:00pm: travel back home
….
6:00pm: Back home with my family

My ideal workday at home involves waking up early, exercising, and getting a couple of hours of writing in. My ideal work travel visit also involves having some alone time in the morning when I am writing and not skipping out on my exercise routine. If I can travel and keep my writing routine going, I feel better about my projects. If I can travel and find time to exercise, I feel better all around.

I enjoy engaging with others. But, I have also realized that one full day of engagement with people is plenty for me. So, I can request that my meetings be limited to one day. I enjoy having meals with people and trying new food, so I also try and arrange my travel such that I can make it in time to have dinner the night before.

When I travel, I also enjoy doing at least one activity that I can only do in that place. During a recent trip to Oregon, I went on a hike up a butte, for example. And, when I went to Costa Rica, I was able to visit a volcano!

I travel a lot for work, and often miss my family when I do. It thus works better for me to travel during the week so that I am home on the weekends and can spend time with my partner and three kids.

Now that I have a sense of my ideal work trip, I can aim to mold my future trips to emulate this as much as possible.

Of course, I am dependent on airline schedules, conference schedules, and my hosts' needs and location. However, knowing what I want makes it easier for me to make decisions about which invitations to accept, as well as when to schedule my flights.

For example, I have an upcoming trip to give a public lecture on a Thursday evening. I am unable to leave on Wednesday for that trip so I will have to leave early in the morning on Thursday. I have a three-hour flight, so hopefully will be able to get at least an hour worth of writing done on the plane. I have asked my host to schedule all of my meetings on Thursday so that I have Friday to myself. I will wake up on Friday, write for a couple of hours, and then find a great place to hike and have lunch before getting on a plane back to California.

Now, I am looking forward to that trip and especially to finding a cool place to hike!

What about you? How are you handling work travel these days? What does your ideal work trip look like?

What would your ideal day look like? Lessons from Barbara Sher

There are lots of ways of getting what you want in life. The first step, however, is to know what it is you want in life. This, for many, is the hardest part.

Nearly three years ago, when I was on vacation in Portland, Jamaica, I read a book by Barbara Sher called Wishcraft: How to Get What You Really Want.

The book came highly recommended by the amazing Kerry Ann Rockquemore and I found it carried many important life lessons. In Wishcraft, Barbara Sher offers a strategy for figuring out what you want in life. Part of that strategy is to imagine your perfect day. Not your perfect vacation day, but a regular day in your ideal life. Once you know what your perfect day would look like, it makes it easier to imagine your perfect life.

Enthralled by the idea of a perfect day, and, of course, a perfect life, I began to think about how a day in my ideal life would look.

My ideal day

My day begins with me waking up at the crack of dawn to the sound of ocean waves crashing on the shore. The first thing I do is get up and go for a walk on the beach.


After walking, I do some strength training or yoga on the beach, and then go for a dip in the ocean. I go inside, take a shower, and then have breakfast on the patio overlooking the ocean with my husband and children. My breakfast includes a café latte, a mango smoothie, and yogurt with granola and strawberries.

My children walk off to school and my husband gets busy doing what he loves – practicing music or making jewelry. I sit out on my patio or at a huge window at my writing desk and write for two hours. After writing, I answer emails and update my blog. Then, I get ready for lunch.

I walk a few blocks from my house to a nice restaurant and have lunch in the garden with inspiring, engaging, smart friends. We enjoy a delicious, healthy meal and wonderful conversation.

After lunch, I walk up to campus, where I either prepare my class if it is a teaching day or do library research if it’s a research day. When I teach my class, it is to a room full of engaged, socially active students who are thrilled with learning and with ideas. I leave campus feeling fulfilled and walk to my children’s school to pick them up.

In the afternoon, I take the kids to an outdoor or cultural activity. This might be theatre practice, horseback riding, nature hiking, or swimming at the beach.



Or, it could be the day we all go to zumba or dance class together. After our family activity, we go home and prepare dinner. The kids do their homework while Nando and I make dinner.

A couple of musician friends come over for dinner, which we enjoy on the back deck. The food is delicious and the conversation is lively. After dinner, my husband, Nando, and our friends play a few songs. I listen from the hammock on our back deck.

I read books with the children for a bit before they go off to bed. Nando and I relax on the couch for a while before going to bed. I fall asleep, relaxed, and sleep until I am ready to start a new day.

What will make you happy?

The next step in this exercise is to figure out what kind of life you want to lead on the basis of this ideal day. And, to figure out which things are necessary in order to be happy, and which are just frills. As I think about this for myself, I have realized that I do not necessarily have to live on the beach, but do need access to the beauty of Mother Nature on a regular basis. I love going for long walks and doing outdoor activities, so living in a warm climate is a definite plus for me. Another of the most important parts of my day involves having good friends around. So, I also want to live somewhere where I have access to a great community.

One great thing I got out of this exercise is that I have chosen the right profession. Working as a college professor allows me the flexibility to be able to spend my mornings at home writing, and my afternoons engaging with the wider community. I am too social to want to be in the house writing all of the time, so I do enjoy being able to teach and to speak publicly.

How Does Your Ideal Day Look?

What about you? What would your ideal day look like? What things are most important to you in life?

Here are the instructions from http://www.wishcraft.com/wishcraft_ch3.pdf

EXERCISE 9: Your Ideal Day
With pen in hand and as much paper as you need (or a tape recorder if you prefer to dream out loud), take a leisurely walk through a day that would be perfect if it represented your usual days—not a vacation day, not a compromise day, but the very substance of your life as you’d love it to be. Live through that day in the present tense and in detail, from getting up in the morning to going to sleep at night. What’s the first thing you do when you wake up? What do you have for breakfast? Do you make it yourself—or is it brought to you in bed, with a single rose and the morning paper? Do you take a long, hot bath? a bracing cold shower? What kinds of clothes do you put on? How do you spend the morning? the afternoon? At each time of day, are you indoors or outdoors, quiet or active, alone or with people?

As you go through the hours of your fantasy day, there are three helpful categories to keep in mind: what, where, and who.

What are you doing—what kind of work, what kind of play? Imagine yourself at the full stretch of your capacities. If you’d like to sing or sail, and you don’t know how, in this fantasy you do know how.

Where—in what kind of place, space, situation? A London flat, an Oregon farm, a fully equipped workshop, an elegant hotel room, a houseboat?

Who do you work with, eat with, laugh and talk with, sleep with? You will undoubtedly want to write some of your favorite real people into your fantasy; you might also want to include some types of people you’d like to be surrounded by—writers, musicians, children, people your own age, people of all different ages, athletes, Frenchmen, financiers, simple country people, celebrities.

What about you? How do you envision your ideal day? How close are you to achieving it? What is one thing you can do today to get you closer to your ideal life?