Why Travel for Work is not Fun?

Traveling is really fun, I always look forward to visiting new places and experience new things. Our family loves to travel if time and budget permit but I guess traveling for work is not fun at all.

It’s been more than a year that my husband travels a lot because of work and I am not really happy about it because he is always miles away from us. I am thankful before that he did not choose to be an OFW but now it seems that I have an OFW husband.

Whenever people hear that my husband travels a lot, the initial reaction is “Wow, ang saya naman” or “Wow, ang suwerte naman ang dami napupuntahan”. If my husband is still young and single, maybe work traveling can be fun.

But for someone who has a family, it is not amazing at all. The truth is a family trip is very different from a business trip. So I will share with you why travel for work is not fun at all, the way I see it.

1. Less Time for the Family  

Yes, this is the first reason why work travel is not enjoyable because you will be away from your family. Even there is a technology that connects you like video call, nothing beats the personal presence.

If my husband has a business trip, most of the time he is not home either Saturday or Sunday because he needs to travel the day before or the day after his work schedule.

Weekends = Family Day, but he is not with us so most of the time we just stayed at home when my husband is not at home.

2. Irregular Work Schedule  

If you will not travel for work, the regular working hours is 8-5PM except if you need to render overtime without pay or with pay if your company offers that. But if you have a business trip, you need to wake up as early as 12AM because as a general rule, you need to be at the airport 3 to 4 hours before your flight.

Then sometimes you can’t sleep yet because you are waiting for your boarding time which is 12MN or 1AM. The worst-case scenario is you need to sleep at the airport because the next connecting flight is the following morning.

You need to adjust to different time zones. It is not enjoyable to adjust your body clock. Sleeping and waking time is very much affected.

3. You Have No Time to Enjoy 

Work travels allow you to stay in luxury hotels but the problem is, you have no time to enjoy the amenities and facilities of the hotel. Most of the time you will just sleep and eat in your hotel because you are already tired. You tend to work longer hours if you are on a business trip because you need to finish your agenda.

4. You Miss Home Cooked Meals 

Yes, you can eat in the restaurant but the problem is, you are not sure if you will eat those foods. If you travel, expect that foods are not the same. Sometimes you will eat the same hotel breakfast food every single day.

So when my husband is home, he eats a lot and missed my home-cooked meals even it is already our leftover food. Especially if he came from a non-pork eating country.

5. You Missed Important Occasion, Events and Holidays 

If you have a business trip, you can’t just say “No, I can’t go because it is my wife’s birthday, my son’s recognition or whatever reason you have”. So there are times that you will miss the important occasions, events and holidays. Yes, even holidays because you already booked the flight before the government announced that it was a special non-working holiday. I experienced that a lot of times like APEC and EDSA holiday.

6. You Cannot Just File Sick Leave 

Even you are not feeling well, you can’t just message your boss that you will file a sick leave. You have work to do that needs to be finished before you went back to your home country.

It is not easy to buy over the counter medicine if you are overseas. Good thing my husband was able to buy medicine when he was in Thailand. Lesson learned, do not forget the medicine kit.

Update: March 2020 
7. You Can’t Say NO When You Need to GO 

Lastly, you cannot say no when you need to go because if you don’t travel, it means you are not doing your job. As of this writing, there is a coronavirus that greatly affected several countries around the world and because of this, there were canceled business trips. But it’s been two months already and there is still coronavirus.

There are works that need to be done so my husband and other employees who need to travel for work have no choice but to travel despite the coronavirus health scare. Life must go on!

Here are my 7 reasons why travel for work is not fun. Despite all of these reasons, my husband is not looking for a new job and he does not need to check out ORB for sales associate resumes.

I have to admit that there are perks in traveling for work because you can visit different countries and places for free. You can stay in luxury hotels and try different foods. We can expect pasalubongs. Hehehe! But the bottom line is traveling for work is not as glamorous as it sounds.