Traveling as an Engineer

G.P.Burdell
Fri, 05 Jun 2009 10:44:28 +0000

When you are sent away on a business trip it is to work, not go sightseeing. Any sightseeing you will do is a bonus.



I used to get a good bit of sight-seeing in by using weekends / vacation time. Most companies allow you to book a return flight whenever you want, so if I had to go to Chicago M-F, I’d book the return flight on Sunday instead of Friday, and just pay for two days of hotel rooms (which usually isn’t bad since most chains have reduced weekend rates and give free days).

What’s even better is that if you work M-F in the same location for multiple weeks, they’ll usually fly you home on Friday and back on Monday. But, what you call “home” is up to you as long as the cost is the same. I’ve taken several weekend trips with free airfare that way.

The best part about traveling, though, is the frequent flier miles, hotel points, and car rental points. In my consulting days, I took many “free vacations”. My honeymoon was a three week European vacation with two free first class r/t tickets, 21 free hotel nights in 4 cities, and free car rental.

It’s great… until you have kids.

But back to the OP: how much you travel depends on what you do. If you’re a civil engineer that works on road projects or highway bridge integrity, I doubt you’ll travel much. However, a civil engineer that works as a consultant to design the supports for chemical reactors would travel all over the world about a third of the year (during design, you’re at home, during construction, you’re at the site).