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As someone with a family... some tips:
1) learn when to say no to travel. If you have one boss, and maybe some other people where you need to kiss the ring, get to a good place with them so they trust your judgment omg when and when not to travel. If anyone outside of this circle asks you to travel - you need to make a judgment call if it’s worth shot term and long term relative to your goals. Otherwise, they can fuck right off. The number of dumbshit travel requests I’ve received from random partners is absurd. “Yeah, I’m not traveling to Tulsa on a Sunday night for a 8:30AM meeting for some shit I just heard about Friday for a Partner I don’t give a fuck about.”
2) you need to make the “leaving” process as easy as possible. You should be an expert packer. Two sets of toiletries. Socks, underwear, etc - basically the shit you are going to bring on every trip should be nice and bought in duplicate. I have my dress shirts dry cleaned and folded. Packing cubes are the shit. I could be packed for a two week international trip in about 20 minutes. This makes Sunday’s a lot less stressful. Laptop charger, mouse, phone cords, etc should never leave your briefcase. Drop you laptop in and your ready to go. You need to be CIA about this shit. It will ultimately bring you comfort.
3) You need to be prepared to come home. When you get home - be in a good place mentally. I like the calm app for the cab ride back. Some good meditation stuff to switch out of work mode. Or even just a chill playlist. Schedule stuff. I don’t mean outlook invites to your wife. My wife and I do this thing where we wake up, blare two random episodes of the office and see if we can clean the entire place in that 44 minutes. Then we go for a walk - no phones - to a coffee place - and present dinner ideas for the weekend. Recipes or restaurants.
Sorry for the long response. I have a wife but no kids (I’m 28 for what it’s worth). I’m on the road probably 125-175 business days a year with 25-50 international.
Long story short - it’s a life style but you can make it fun. My wife Just went with my to Greece for work.
Packing cubes are legit for everything except dress shirts. They have what I guess is technically a packing cube but is like a way to fold your dress shirts (it has a little “stencil” thing on how to fold) and put it in a packing cube type situation. You’ll still have “creases” but the parts that weren’t the fold lines will be perfectly smooth. When I used to “hand fold” it looked like I had just been mugged. Throw the dress shirts on hangers when you get to the hotel and shower steam for like 10 minutes - look prefect.
Last travel tip, and maybe this is / was just a personal thing. If you find something you like (socks, undies, workout clothes, etc. ) just bite the bullet and buy like 10-15 pair of everything. When I do laundry, I fold my travel type clothes (not dress clothes but everything else) and put them directly into the cubes. I have like 4-5 cubes in my closet right now ready to go for M-R travel.
My closet looks like fucking John Wick but it keeps me from getting sad the day before travel.
I’m this way because I went to London once and forgot me undies - do you know how hard it is to buy knickers in London for less than 100 quid?
This is why I’m peacing out. Honestly if you feel this way it’s not gonna get better. Just IMHO. You can consider sticking with it until you settle down and then leave. Best of luck Op.
Cool! I loved it the first 4 years or so (actually how I met my wife). The years after that it’s work on me a bit. Now we’re thinking of having kids so planning to settle down. Just make sure whatever branch of consulting you’re in that you’re getting expertise in an industry you plan to work in later, and not a super specific area of consulting - will help with the transition.
I traveled weekly from 1998 to 2018. I should have stopped sooner. My kids were 2 and 4 when I started and were finishing university when I stopped.
I have always been the breadwinner in our house, so I felt obligated to keep going. My husband stayed home with the kids, so there was no chance for me to step back to a local gig. It used to be that we were paid more to travel than local jobs, but that's not true anymore.
We made it work, but now I have deep regrets
I made the switch to being local when I had my first kid. We had no problem with the travel when we were married and it was just the two of us, but children change the whole game.
If you have a stay-at-home spouse, I guess it's possible to make it work with the travel, but that's the only way. My wife makes a similar salary to mine, and I don't expect her to put her career on hold. We're making it work now, with me taking the morning shift with the kiddo, and her taking the evening shift.
This is my frame of mind right now. Recently had our first child and I’ll be looking to leave for industry in a few months. Fortunately I’ve been remote for a better part of this past year. Honestly, being remote would keep me happy but you can’t bank on being remote or not traveling in this line of work. It’s good you’re thinking ahead about this already OP bc you can take your time finding the best exit opportunity
I travel weekly. Miss my husband but it’s only 3 nights away and it’s not like I’d be home early if I were working local. We figure it out. If you’ve got kids, definitely more difficult and requires a spouse who’s willing to own the brunt of weekday activities etc.
Be careful partitioning life that way. It’s not wrong, but it could make the parts you care about more slip away easier than you’d like.