Does your work offer trips abroad?

In previous roles I'd travel a lot but it was work related. I'd often ask to stay a few extra days as the flight didn't cost any more and then would just enjoy the weekend on my own expense.

In some companies we set up a ski group or something similar which was fun.
 
I worked somewhere that took everyone to Paris for the weekend, was a one-off thing though.

Had a few opportunities to travel for work, with the option to shuffle the flights a bit to basically get a short holiday with free flights. I don't take up these things because I don't really want to travel for work, not worth the hassle.
 
Used to have a 4 day client conference every year somewhere in Europe. Barcelona, Rome, Venice, Marbella, Italian Lakes etc

Sounds great but - I hated every minute - work face on from the minute we got to the airport until we landed back in the UK.

No time for any site seeing etc and work work work followed by very boring dinners making polite conversation. Occasionally a client would get hammered and make a fool of themselves or worse which added some light relief but mostly it was tedious long days and evenings.

Thank god I took early retirement :D
 
I work for a big recruiter and we send certain staff abroad for a weekend one a year if they’ve met certain targets. It’s a global thing so people all over the world will go. They’ve gone to some pretty cool places over the years.

I work in a support role rather than as a recruiter so I don’t qualify :(
 
I work all over the place doing installs of various bits of hardware - mainly switches, firewalls, servers and storage arrays. Mostly UK based but get to go to some interesting places from time to time. Been to the US and Canada a few times, France several times, Italy, Slovenia, UAE and the Netherlands several times and a bunch of others I can’t even remember.

Off to Switzerland tomorrow afternoon which I honestly can’t be bothered with, but I’m off for a week after so can’t complain :)

Oh me too, I got to go to the TechData office, good coffee machine though.

That’s where I’d be based if I went in to the office ;) Keep meaning to go in as it’s been a while.
 
Last edited:
My Dad’s last two employers had factories in Germany and/or Poland. Sometimes he had to book a last minute flight for the morning. Leave home at 3am. Get 6am flight to Birmingham. Then either get taxi or hire car (depending which airport he landed) drive to factory. Do what’s needed. Have a bite to eat at canteen. Go for meeting. Leave factory at 4pm. Get flight back to Birmingham at 7pm. Get home at 10:30pm

 
I think he meant it as a joke - his taxi driver was ripping him off by driving round and round :p

We have a winner!

Actually happened to a colleague of mine who was attending the same meeting. I got the train from the airport into Rome and then walked from the station to the hotel which only took about 10 minutes. She was on a later flight and jumped into a random taxi outside the train station and gave the driver the hotel details. He then took her on a huge detour around the city and charged her something like 50 Euros for the journey when she finally got to the hotel. Which then turned into the joke about her passing the Colosseum multiple times on the way there.
 
Last edited:
i have never had any trips like that however at my previous job there was a chap who had been with the company since he was 19 and retired last year but stayed part time. The company in question is a global company having sites and stores all over the show. He has been to most of those often for a fortnight to assist in ensuring work was done following the main places process.

places of note (me being jealous) being australia, spain, canada, germany, italy, iceland, Japan, sweden, norway. and there are many more to that list.. he always had time to enjoy the places too often given a nice long weekend mid stay.
 
I have an International role but so far my only travel has been to Milton Keynes!

In my previous role, I'd visit NYC quite a lot, as well as Paris and Belgium.

I do miss it but travelling abroad for work is not as great as it sounds.
 
I used to get to travel for work a lot before everything started becoming cloud based and I had to actually visit customer offices to install equipment. Over the years I have been lucky enough to travel to New York, Philadelphia, Washington and San Fran several times for one customer, on all trips I have had at least one day free and obviously evenings to allow me to do some touristy things, the two best were having to do Saturday morning and then Monday on site, so getting Saturday afternoon and Sunday all to myself. Had the same when I got a 5 day trip to Japan, ended up with a day free in Tokyo. Most of the European trips I have done dont usually get a full day free but I would regularly get half day finishes and of course evenings so usually had a decent amount of free time to see the places a bit.

The only times I haven't had any freedom outside of the office hours was when I had trips to Iran and Lagos, but then that also involved armed transport to and from the hotel and office.
 
Back
Top Bottom