Business Travel 101
October 15, 2017 11:37 AM   Subscribe

I'm starting a new job soon (yay!) and will be spending two weeks in the South Bay for orientation/training. I'm having visions of sitting a hotel room being sad and lonely. How do I prevent this from becoming reality?

I'm staying at one of those extended-stay hotels, so will have a quasi-equipped kitchen. There looks to be a Whole Foods within walking distance, but not a whole lot else in the surrounding area. I won't have a car and please assume that I won't be renting one.

I'll likely go see a friend in Oakland on at least one day of the weekend I'm there. Is there anything in the South Bay I should go see/do? (I went to UC Berkeley, but not having a car meant that the South Bay might as well have been Mars.)
posted by hoyland to Travel & Transportation (15 answers total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
Do you still use the phone, as in a device that you can dial and there are voices on the other end? An incredible device. It may be fun to call a friend. Or Skype, if that is something you guys do.

Audiobooks can be incredibly absorbing and leaving one on as you roam around the city might be nice.

On the other hand, Meetup? Meetup, meetup, meetup? Try meeting some people who are locals, I think that would really make a trip like this. There is no time like the present!
posted by karmachameleon at 11:48 AM on October 15, 2017


Why can't you just hang out with the other people attending training/orientation with you?
posted by Jacqueline at 12:01 PM on October 15, 2017 [1 favorite]


mefi meetup. computer history museum. movie theatres. san jose museum of art. the tech museum.

you can lyft just about anywhere.
posted by koroshiya at 12:30 PM on October 15, 2017 [2 favorites]


My business travel rules that help with this:

1. Don't turn on the TV, ever. Don't get sucked into flipping channels until late at night or watching horrible stuff that will make you feel empty.

2. Have a book or kindle and read.

3. Put on the local public radio station or stream some nice music over the web. I put on jazz usually. It's great when there is a local jazz station.

4. Keep the room tidy! Put stuff in the closet and drawers. Put all of your dirty clothes in the big plastic bag they leave you for laundry.

5. Don't eat meals in your room. Get out. Eat at the bar at a nearby restaurant. Eating at the bar is perfect when you are alone. Eat at the Whole Foods - just walk there. Bring the book.
posted by Mid at 12:35 PM on October 15, 2017


I spend a lot of time in hotels in boring places due to work travel. My job involves a lot of standing and walking and talking when I'm in the field, so your classroom/meeting experience may be different, but I find that I'm usually ready to bed down for the night once I finish my day.

I spend a lot of time reading and working on personal creative projects in the hotel. I almost always carry a notebook/sketchbook, my personal laptop, and whatever other easily portable things I may be working on. If I don't have anything easily portable I try to burn some time planning / building parts-lists and spreadsheets for later (or whatever the equivalent is for what you're into).

Strongly agree re: "go out to eat," even if it's just to whole foods or a hotel bar. Depending on where you are, Yelp can be a great resource re: finding places to eat and so forth. I generally eat with myself and my phone or a book, which can kinda be a bummer sometimes, but I generally enjoy the quiet time after a day of work.

I imagine in the south bay area there's some attractions and musuems and such around too -- if I'm going to be somewhere over a weekend I usually have a rental car or am in enough of a city that taxis are available, and will try to find something touristy and interesting.
posted by Alterscape at 1:21 PM on October 15, 2017 [2 favorites]


Agreed with Alterscape. I used to travel quite a bit for work, and after mentally taxing all-day meetings, most of the time I was very glad to go back to my room for some quiet and decompressing!

I'd use some of my travel nights to amuse myself with mini-spa experiences. Take an extra long shower, paint my toenails, do a sheet mask, deep condition my hair. Make a tiny pot of herbal tea with the coffeemaker. It was really nice!

And if you're there with a group, there's almost always someone who wants company for dinner or a drink at the bar. Sometimes we'd go swimming if there was a pool.
posted by mochapickle at 1:52 PM on October 15, 2017 [1 favorite]


Yeah, adding my data point to those saying they're too tired to do much. Half the time I'd nap after coming back to the hotel, even before eating (which is saying something forms - I'm nearly always starving).

The one thing I'll suggest is to exercise at the hotel. Pretty much every business-travel hotel has at least a passable gym, and if you have a pool, even better. Perhaps I'm just easily amused, but swimming in a pool still feels like a special occasion to me. It also happens to be my favorite form of cardio. So if you have a pool, go swimming for half an hour, and then cool down in the hot tub. No pool, just work out for an hour.

Then, when you come back to your room, just sit and chill. Nthing reading a book - something else it seems like real life is too busy for a lot of the time.

I've eaten in my room before. It's not the quest thing. It's not the best thing, either, but sometimes it's necessary (if your naps are too long!). I wouldn't do it all the time, but a couple of nights won't kill you. Being the South Bay, there are probably an infinite amount of restaurant delivery services serving this area, which could break up your Whole Foods monotony. Maybe see if there's a picnic area at the hotel, or a park nearby, so you can eat outside?

In the Bay Area, not having a car isn't the end of the world. If you're near the train or a bus line, you've got tons of options, and if not, there's Uber and Lyft. But when I'm traveling, I rarely drive anywhere except back to the hotel from work, then to and from dinner.
posted by kevinbelt at 3:00 PM on October 15, 2017


I had to work for like a month in another state. I was all by myself. At the time I was on Match.com and I wrote a note to someone in that town that looked really nice. I told him I was in town and did not want a hookup or date but if he was interested I'd be happy take him to dinner. He took me up on the offer and we went out every few days and we became friends. It was lovely.
posted by ReluctantViking at 3:15 PM on October 15, 2017 [2 favorites]


A weekend away is brutal, especially if you have kids/spouse/pets. I would ask to go home for weekend. All of the above suggestions are great (especially exercise) for weekdays, but they’d get me to day 4 before I really just want to go home and see my kid/dog.

Traveling with the dogs, on trips where I could smuggle them into an office, improved my experience immensely.
posted by crazycanuck at 4:55 PM on October 15, 2017


If your weekend happens to be on the first Friday of the month, check out South First Fridays in San Jose.
posted by metahawk at 5:38 PM on October 15, 2017


I'm nthing the "you'll be too tired to do much!" but also if you have a mini project you want to get done a hotel room is the best--no distractions. i.e. write a blog post, organize some finances, clean out your dropbox, tag photos, etc. All those things you SHOULD do but never get around to are way easier for me in a hotel room because everything else is done for me.

I also love watching tv in a hotel room! Yay weird reality shows on channels I don't have! But ymmv.
posted by jennybento at 10:00 PM on October 15, 2017 [1 favorite]


If this is orientation for new employees and they make you travel a fair distance it is very likely that there will be several new starters attending the program, probably also from out of town. These people are now your friends for the duration of the course.

I have never been to such an event, where they did not also have some more or less optional evening activities at least some days and where you couldn't find a local or two who were happy to point you to things you could do outside those. Even without that there are normally at least a couple of people who want to grab dinner or are open for some kind of weekend activity.

All the suggestions for how to entertain yourself during general business travel are fine. But if this is a new job and there are 'optional' activities after the working day you'd do well to participate. The idea is that you network and learn the new corporate culture.

Presumably you have contact details for the organizers? Just call them and ask about the timetable and about any other activities you should be prepared for. You want to make sure you pack the right things.
posted by koahiatamadl at 4:35 AM on October 16, 2017


You're there for onboarding, do you have an itinerary for the 2 weeks ? (ie is it 9-5 training, and that's it ? No after hours activities -- voluntary or otherwise ? When my company brings folks in for training, there's usually a "dinner with execs" one night, and maybe a go see sportsball another night, and other team-building type activities after work hours)

When I've gone somewhere for non-onboarding training, I try to find some local sports game to go to (hockey is my preferred sport, but minor league baseball is fun as well).
posted by k5.user at 7:00 AM on October 16, 2017


In addition to sports events, consider seeking out a thing you like/do at home to see what it's like there. When I was traveling for work I was into brewing beer, so I would make it a point to check out breweries wherever I was working, even if it meant going out of my way a bit.
posted by craven_morhead at 10:39 AM on October 16, 2017


This may be incredibly specific, but when I was faced with something similar, on the first day I went to the grocery store and bought a big bag of par-baked buns, and a small container of funky jam or good butter. Keep them in the fridge. Every morning when my alarm went off, I stumbled into the kitchen, turned on the oven and threw a couple of buns in there. By the time my shower was done, the room smelled wonderful, and by the time I was dressed, I had a couple of hot, fresh buns for breakfast. (On one trip, I traded with my colleague - half a stick of butter for a hotel glass full of jam).
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 10:56 AM on October 16, 2017


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