I’ve always enjoyed traveling — so much that I generally didn’t care where I was going. I’d always be the first to volunteer to go anywhere, even if I was just driving across town. The destination never mattered because the journey was so important. For this reason, I have wound up traveling for some very dumb reasons.
Little Rock, Arkansas
Before I worked in my current position in the travel industry, I worked as a graphic designer for the marketing department of a technology company and occasionally for work. Usually, this was for a marketing or design conference, but every now and then, I traveled for something flatly ridiculous.
On one occasion, a group of VPs and SVPs were going to Little Rock, Arkansas to present a proposal to a potential customer. I’d spent the past several days working on the PowerPoint for this presentation, but 24 hours before the group flew to Arkansas, the presentation really wasn’t ready, nor had they been able to get an answer from the client as to whether or not a projector was going to be available in the meeting room they’d be using for the presentation.
I was told to buy a plane ticket, get a projector from the Business Services desk, and plan on flying to Little Rock that evening. 6 hours later, I was on a small commuter plane with several of the highest-level VPs in the company, flying to Arkansas so I could plug in a projector and create a PowerPoint.
I have no idea how the presentation went or even if we won the bid. I completed the presentation on the plane and in my room that night, showed up the next morning, plugged in the projector, and made sure it worked, then got in a taxi and headed back to the airport.
Iowa
My mom and I have always been road-trippers. As a kid, most of our vacations were by car, so I was used to long drives from a young age. In my teens, I would occasionally join my mom on trips to Utah, where she had meetings with a software developer she worked with, just for fun. As I got older, our road trips became more and more silly. One Thanksgiving, we were talking about the fact that neither of us had ever been to Iowa, and it was one of the few states left that neither of us had been to.
Friday morning, we headed out on the 10-hour winter drive to Iowa!
We crossed the border, had dinner at a local restaurant, stayed in a terrible hotel, got up early the next morning, and headed home. This was a trip so stupid it remains a memorable highlight of my life!
University of Rhode Island
Most of the travel I do for my current job is necessary and reasonable. Even this story involves seemingly necessary travel, but, in the end, it wound up being pointless. But hindsight is 20/20, so you never know.
As part of the promotions for a college basketball tournament my company was managing, we visited the universities participating in it to promote the event and get folks signed up. I flew to Rhode Island for all of 36 hours just to attend this game and hand out postcards with tournament information and instructions on how to book the trip.
My boss had flown to Utah the previous week for the same reason and had a very successful event. However, Utah and Rhode Island have very different cultures. The Northeast tends to be less receptive to outsiders and is generally less friendly than the West. I was chosen for the Rhode Island game because I’m from Vermont and generally speak Northeastern. But having not lived in Vermont since I was four years old, I really don’t fit in anymore and was very clearly not a local–a fact made even more obvious by my cowboy boots and lack of accent.
Providence doesn’t have a huge airport, so any flights from states as far away as Texas are going to have layovers. In order to get to the game on time, I had to leave Houston at 6:30 AM. I spent all morning flying on very little sleep, was delayed over an hour during the layover, rushed to pick up my rental, which was booked incorrectly, and then drove 30 minutes (across the entire state) to the university. I’d already put in a full day’s work on a Saturday before even arriving at the stadium.
I showed up to this event with 1,000 postcards, expecting to hand out between 800 and 900, based on the success we’d had in Utah. By the end of the evening, I’d had to force people to take around 200. Maybe. Most people just wouldn’t talk to me; others would look at the price and hand the card back with a laugh, and a bunch gave me some sort of excuse for not being able to attend. I had (maybe) four meaningful conversations with people who were truly interested. If even one of those eventually books the trip, I’ll be shocked.
I did have time to get a proper lobster roll, though. And that’s what I love about travel. Even when traveling for stupid reasons, I still get to do, see, and experience things I wouldn’t have at home. Sure, Thailand is more interesting than Cleveland, but they’re both still new and different. Wherever I’m sent, no matter the reason, I’ll enjoy the adventure.
