Thrifty Traveling

I just returned from a conference in Chicago. It was an amazing experience and I got to talk with people in my field from all over the world - everywhere from East Sussex, UK to Amsterdam, Netherlands to Durbin, South Africa and Essen, Belgium. I got to hear Captain Jim Lovell (of the famed Apollo 13), Jeffrey Taylor (founder of Monster.com) and Laurence Gonzales (journalist, author and National Geographic editor). However, I am on a budget and none of the meals (save one) was covered by the conference fee. The old “buy stuff at the grocery store and cook in your hotel room” trick didn’t work as I wasn’t familiar with the area, had no idea where a grocery store was, and didn’t have sufficient time to locate one and travel there via public transportation. Neither did I have a courtesy microwave or even coffee pot to use.

I got up early every morning and walked a half mile to the nearest college campus where I ate in the cafeteria for about $3.50 every morning. Lunch, I generally skipped as even a house salad in the conference restaurant ran $14.95 and a glass of water was $3.50. For dinner, I walked back over to the college campus area where I could pick up a fairly decent dinner for $7 - $8. Being a complete cheapskate, my family and I don’t normally do this type of traveling but it made me think – what do people do when you have to travel for business? I realize most people get reimbursed for these types of expenses by their company but really! There must be traveling tricks I don’t know. What do you do? How do you save yourself and your company money?