Why I Always Say Yes to Work Travel

When I accepted my new job, I was told that I would be asked to travel to India to meet with our offshore teams a few times a year.

I replied, "Put me on a plane anytime, any day, to anywhere."

When I first started my career, I had a mentor who told me, "Scott, say yes to getting on a plane anytime you can because it means you'll get to connect with people in real life, solve problems outside of the office, and you'll learn more than being behind a desk."

He was right, and I've taken that advice to heart ever since.

I've never shied away from getting on a plane as a result, and my advice to everyone is to volunteer and/or say yes every time the opportunity is even being discussed. I know it sounds silly, but the value of you getting to another city to connect, meet, learn, solve problems, and further relationships is more valuable than you will ever give it credit.

There is something different about sitting across from someone in person that Zoom will never fully replace. You pick up on the little things. You understand how the team interacts. You hear the conversations that happen before the meeting starts and after everyone thinks the meeting is over. Half the time, those are the moments where you actually learn what is going on.

Travel also forces you out of your normal routine, which I think is a good thing. You're not sitting behind the same desk, looking at the same screen, talking to the same people in the same sequence every day. You're exposed to a different market, a different office, a different customer, a different culture, and suddenly you start seeing problems and opportunities differently.

I've had some of my best career conversations in airports, hotel lobbies, cars, and over dinners after long days of meetings. Not in the conference room. Not in the scheduled one-hour block on the calendar. Just two people talking like normal human beings without a slide deck sitting between them.

That's also where relationships get built faster. You can work with someone remotely for a year and know them reasonably well, but spend two days together in another city, and suddenly you understand them on a completely different level. You hear about their family, what motivates them, what frustrates them, what they care about, and how they think when they aren't performing for a meeting.

Careers are built through experiences, relationships, visibility, and moments you could never have planned for.

There is also a career benefit that people don't always think about. When you volunteer to travel, you put yourself into rooms you otherwise might never enter. You meet leaders you didn't know. You get exposure to different teams. You become associated with being willing to show up when something needs attention. None of that guarantees you anything, but it absolutely creates opportunities that sitting at home saying, "Can we just do this virtually?" probably won't.

I know travel can be exhausting. Airports suck. Delays happen. Hotel beds aren't your bed. Sometimes you land at midnight and have to be in a conference room at 8am pretending you are completely alive. But I still think the upside outweighs the inconvenience almost every time.

So when someone says, "We may need someone to go," raise your hand. When your boss asks who wants to visit the customer, go. When there's an opportunity to meet another office, another team, another market, another country, say yes before you have time to talk yourself out of it.

Careers are built through experiences, relationships, visibility, and moments you could never have planned for. A surprising number of those moments start with someone asking if you're willing to get on a plane. My answer is still the same one it has been for years: anytime, any day, anywhere.