The Travel Bug: Business trips... Fun or Not?

People seem to think that travelling for work is equivalent to an all-expenses-paid semi-holiday...

But next time, ask these questions first:
(+1 for "Good", 0 for "Neutral", -1 for "Bad")

1. Where is the trip to?
- Developed country -> Good
- Undeveloped country -> Bad

2. Are you flying business class or economy? How long is the flight?
- Business class -> Good
- Economy class but short -> Neutral
- Economy class and long -> Bad.. very bad

3. How many places in how many days?
- One place -> Good
- Many places in few days -> Bad

4. Who is going along?
- Colleagues you like -> Good
- Boss you hate -> Bad

5. Are you buy-side or sell-side?
- Buy-side with bankers helping with logistics -> Good
- Sell-side with self-arranged logistics -> Bad

6. Is there a lot of pre-trip / follow-up work?
- A little or None -> Good
- Yes, a lot -> Bad

7. Possibility of going up earlier or extending the trip?
- Yes -> Good
- No and you want to -> Bad

8. Any free time to sight-see?
- Yes -> Good
- No -> Bad

So recently I was on a trip that managed to score a total of 4 points. Not too bad! Excluding the time where I went up earlier, we covered 6 cities in 7 days. Was super tiring, lugging my heavy bag up and down the trains and flights of stairs every day. Luckily the trip was in Europe and we usually had free time from the late afternoon onwards, which kind of made up for it.