bex

Sitting here at work bored off my, ahem, tush, I was day dreaming about a job requiring a good deal of travel. Everyone always says that I will hate it, or it will grow old, or you never really want to do all that flying/driving/horseback riding.

I happen to enjoy flying (duh, why else would I be here :P). I enjoy visiting new and old places. I actually love being in airports. All of these things seem to indicate I would like a job with heavy travel.

So the question of the month (assuming your still reading ...) where do I find one? Searching through the regular boards (monster, etc) it seems that either:

1 - Companies have truly cut those jobs back to the bare minimum number

or

2 - The jobs are not generally advertised because most folks hate the idea of 80-100% travel.

Ideas?

Thanks,

bex

voyagedenfer

Flight attendant???

richard

Sales
or
Consulting

businesstraveler

If you have law enforcement (or related)experience, it sounds like Federal Sky Marshall would be the perfect job for you. Air Courier would also be good, but these are not usually full time jobs and other strings can be attached.

In general, Freq Flyers usually (but not always) fit into a few categories:

Exec Mgmt
Marketing
Sales
Field Service (repair/support people)
Consulting
Trade Show/Conference mgmt & staff

A title that has cropped up occasionally is "Evangelist". This is a person (normally associated with high tech) that goes out and promotes products or services the company offers in presentation, conferences, trade shows, user & association group meetings, etc. Again , if your qualified, this could be the job for you.

Having said this, if you have not done this type of work before, be prepared. Being a Freq Traveler is not always what is seems to be. I know - been there - done that - started the web site. Flight delays, cancelations, "red eye" flights, rental car breakdowns in the middle of nowhere, lost luggage, overbooked hotels, lost sleep. Flying thousands of miles for one meeting and returning the next day.

But the 750,000 Freq Flyer Miles I racked up ain't bad.....

Good Luck

------------------
Michael Steinberg
Editor
BizTrip
http://www.biztrip.com

bex

I am not a lawman. Beyond that, I am not really looking to work in travel per se. I like travel, but don't want it to be my job. I don't have the physical fitness for being an FA, the eyesight to be a pilot, or the hand-eye death to hijackers magic to do Air Marshalling.

Quote:

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">
In general, Freq Flyers usually (but not always) fit into a few categories:

Exec Mgmt
Marketing
Sales
Field Service (repair/support people)
Consulting
Trade Show/Conference mgmt & staff

A title that has cropped up occasionally is "Evangelist". This is a person (normally associated with high tech) that goes out and promotes products or services the company offers in presentation, conferences, trade shows, user & association group meetings, etc. Again , if your qualified, this could be the job for you.

I am qualified to do some of these. The question is where are they advertising for them? I am definetly qualifed to be an "Evangelist" as integration and customer interface are two of my specialities.

Quote:

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">
Having said this, if you have not done this type of work before, be prepared. Being a Freq Traveler is not always what is seems to be. I know - been there - done that - started the web site. Flight delays, cancelations, "red eye" flights, rental car breakdowns in the middle of nowhere, lost luggage, overbooked hotels, lost sleep. Flying thousands of miles for one meeting and returning the next day.

But the 750,000 Freq Flyer Miles I racked up ain't bad.....

Good Luck

While I certainly cannot claim to have experienced all of that yet .. well .. I am young .. the gray hair will only make me look more dignified Besides I am single and not tied down geographically. This is the time in my life to do this.

Thanks,

bex

hfly

You can travel heavily in most any field, just work for a company that has extended operations and be valuable enough that you need to be in several places at once.

And yes, the best jobs are generally not advertised, in good times or bad.

GiveMeATicket4AnAirplane

I have seen these evangelists. All travel.

Fly. Presentation. Great hotel. Meals. Fly. Lots of miles.

Man, what a life!

Craig6z

Many large companies have internal audit staff' that travel over 60% of the time. I audited for eleven years (although at the management level for most of the time), but rarely did my travel exceed 40-50% of workdays.

It gets quite old, especially as you get up in years.

wigstheone

Two words:

Kept Man

lacanau

I think the two most likely scenarios are:
1) You travel on your company's expense - usually senior management, technicians, int'l sales or marketing people. Travel will probably account for 40-60% of your time. But depending on the company's willingness to spend money, there may be cost controls. Some of my friends travel every other week on eco. class and stay in 3-4* hotels, and they hate it. Perfect proportion of travel vs. office work but not always very glamorous...
2) You travel on a client's expense - usually consultants, investment bankers, advisors, trainers etc. Since the client pays, you usually travel in biz or F class,
stay at 5* hotels and never have to worry about going to the drycleaners or cleaning your shoes by yourself . But being on the road can easily make up 80-90% of your time. That means, perpetually packing suitcases, having all hotel, airline and travel agency staff greet you by name, not having much time for anything else. Exciting but pretty tiring in the long run.
IMO, choose option 2) for a few years, then get a more laid back job and spend all the miles and points you earned for free holidays

JoeDoakes

Physically fit FAs? Not on any of the flights I've been on lately.

WHBM

One of my trips was to Nassau, Bahamas for 2 weeks to do a project for a UK-based bank.

However, the hotel used by the client was one of the major tourist resort hotels. Among other features of this trip ......

1) The restaurant didn't open for breakfast before the taxi came to take me to the office.

2) Dinner in the evening took about 3 hours plus - there was a floor show every evening, relaxed service (you all know what that means), and the whole evening was gone.

3) I was the only business traveller, and the only single, in the whole hotel, and was therefore looked on as something of a freak. In the dining room I was always seated in a corner.

4) Being the only guest around the hotel in a business suit I was always being mistaken for the management when coming in or out.

4) The C-class ticket for the transatlantic flight was changed to Y class 2 days before departure due to internal feuding at the client's head office in London, by which time only middle seats in a 2-5-2 seated DC10 were left (I'm showing my age here).

5) Having resorted to room service for meals the client objected to the additional cost and in the end we had to bear this (which was a huge amount as it was obviously designed around honeymooners) ourselves.

6) The client expected work on Saturday and Sunday because "it is costing us an awful lot to have you over here".

7) I NEVER got onto the beach.

Most trips I enjoy but this one was just a grind. No one would believe me though!

swag

I've done lots of travel in both these roles, and found that the type of travel was very different. Doing Sales, I did a lot of overnight trips, and even some same day out-and-backs. I actually enjoyed this travel.

On the other hand, my travel as a Consultant involved a lot of week long trips, out Sunday night or early early Monday morning, back Friday afternoon, week after week after week, often to the same places. I got very tired of this type of travel after a few months.

I realized I was travelling too much the first time I approached the front desk and the hotel clerk, recognizing me, greeted me with "hello Mr. swag".

So when looking into a career, look at the type of travel as well as the volume.

swag

bex

Thanks for the continuing comments.

Swag, you raise a good point. I am currently blessed to have a position where I only have to work 27 hours a week (down from 50) as I was burned out. I negotiated a temporary reduction in hours (at the cost of $$ of course ....). But I needed it. The commute of 20 min seemed the only time I wasn't working.

I plan on doing a lot of leisure travel and relaxing for a few months.

I am looking into the "travel job" possibilities right now as I will get bored with this soon (I know me), and want to know where to look to find this next role.

Besides, there are quite a few domestic places I have never been .. I should do it on someone elses dime :P

Of course now that I have said that I will have 6 months of trips where "I didn't even get to see the beach" and have a great many horror stories to share here

thanks,

bex

lalala

Field operation specialists for NOAA - you know, the poor souls that travel to exciting places like the north pole, antarctica, fiji, dutch harbor, the middle of the bering sea, over and over again to repair and deploy equipment.

Fun stuff, but hard on the complexion.

Then again, the bar at the grand aleutian ain't so bad.

lala