Unfortunately, no one gives you a handbook outlining how to act and what to pack for a work trip. ESPECIALLY if you work in a male dominated field and don’t have too many female co-workers to ask for advice from. But that’s why you have me! Your engineer big-sis who has been on more work trips than I can could on my two hands. In this post, we are going to be discussing all things work trips, from how to pack for them, to what close to bring/wear, to routines and the lifestyle to expect when traveling for work.
You know the drill, before I spew my work trip wisdom your way, I need to add a disclaimer. Everyone’s work trip is going to look slightly different, depending on what industry you are in, what you do for work, and what your company policies are like. The experience that I share in this post is drawn from working at two separate company’s post grad and traveling for both of them. Note, if you are preparing to travel for your own work trip for the very first time, reach out to HR, your boss, or a peer if you are unsure on how to act/what to bring. OR, you can just wing it like I did! But seriously, a lot of the finance side of a work trip – like what you can and cannot expense – is going to 100% depend on what company you work for. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get into all things work travel!
Let’s talk clothes – airport, work day, and work dinner outfits
I remember when I went on my first work trip, the last thing I wanted to do was to ask my male co-workers for advice on what to pack. It seemed so silly! I didn’t want to be perceived like this little girl who didn’t know how to pack for a work trip. I tried to casually ask in a conversation with my co-worker one day what he typically wore when he went on a power plant visit. His response: “khakis and a polo”. OF COURSE! Why wouldn’t he be wearing khakis and a polo!? That didn’t help much, but did at least provide me with an idea that the environment must be somewhat casual if he wasn’t used to wearing a button down shirt to the plant.
I had so much anxiety when packing for my first work trip because I didn’t want to wear the wrong thing. I feel like there are SO many options for attire as a woman in the working world. First impressions are important to me and I wanted to be perceived as someone who could be taken seriously and who could get the job done. So what on earth are you supposed to pack for these work trips? It totally depends on the environment you work in / the environment you’re traveling to, but a good rule of thumb is to stick to the existing attire that you typically wear to work. If you’re wearing jeans and a sweater every day to work, pack jeans and sweaters for the work trip.
Depending on the location that you’ll be traveling to, it’s also always a good idea to pack in layers. Optimizing your packing strategy by attempting to pack the same color family for your bottoms and tops. That way, you can mix and match and don’t necessarily need an entire separate outfit for each day. This can be especially helpful if you have to pay out of pocket for checking a bag or you’re just trying to keep everything to your carry-ons. I always bring a pull over or zip up jacket to throw in my backpack in case I get cold during the day while at the plant. (I especially like this one in black, >CLICK HERE<).
Travel outfits – let’s talk about it. Is it appropriate or acceptable to travel in leggings or yoga pants in front of your coworkers? Do you have to travel in jeans? Can you wear comfies on the plane? So much to unpack with this topic! Let’s start with a travel day where you’re able to head right to the hotel once you land and don’t necessarily have to worry about being right in a work setting. In this situation, I believe it is totally acceptable to wear leggings, yoga pants or joggers. There are so many outfits that you can come up with that are still work appropriate but a little more comfy for the plane. Try pairing athleisure bottoms with a cute sweater or more structured quarter zip. I’m a firm believer that, as long as it doesn’t look like you just rolled out of bed, athleisure is appropriate to wear while traveling with coworkers – we’re all adults.
What if you have to go right to the office, plant, or work setting right when you get off the plane? Is athleisure still appropriate in this instance? It depends what your preference is! I’ve been in situations like this before and travelled in comfies but then packed work clothes in my carry on to change into once getting off the place. You can take this approach, or you can just fly in your work clothes. Not the most convenient outfit to travel in but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. BUT – totally acceptable to change into your outfit once you get there as long as you are prepared and have a plan for what to do.
The dreaded work dinners – are holey jeans acceptable? Is athleisure acceptable? You don’t want to show up under dressed or under prepared! Don’t worry – I’ve got some advice for this one. Again, totally depends on what you feel comfortable and confident in in front of your co-workers. I think it also depends if you are going to a client dinner or just with co-workers. For client dinners, I’d air on the side of a more business casual outfit, straying away from holey jeans. You want to make sure your keeping in mind your own professional reputation as well as the reputation of the company. Represent yourself how you’d like to be perceived in this professional relationship. If you are just going out with your team after a long day on the job, holey jeans or athleisure are totally acceptable. Let me give some examples – a nice sushi restaurant dinner in Cape Canaveral, FL with co-workers/peers only and I chose to wear Free People jeans, with holes in them, and a cute short sleeve top. An all-American Red-Robin-Style casual restaurant, again with co-workers only, and I wore athletic shorts and a college sweatshirt with sneakers. I hope this gives you peace of mind when trying to come up with outfits for your work trip. Ultimately, if your first work trip is a fail or has some embarrassing moments, don’t fret – everyone needs to struggle through their first.
What about expenses?
One of the best part about work trips? You get fed for the week! Companies will have a daily food stipend or blanket amount that you are approved to spend each day on food. It’s important to know what that amount is prior to going on your work trip so that you don’t have to stress about food expenses while on the trip. When you get back from the work trip, you are going to have to fill out an expense report. I have used two different expense tracking software during my time in corporate post-grad. No matter which system your company uses it’s important to remember that you’ll more than likely need to submit receipts for each of your expenses. Ultimately, every company is going to work differently and have different policies regarding expenses on work trips. You can find out about these policies by contacting your company’s HR department to ensure you are complying with the rules.
What about personal care items and toiletries that you unexpectedly need on a trip? Can you expense those? Don’t worry, I have a story to tell you on this topic. On my very first work trip, I had to run to Walmart for tampons. I had no idea how to use my work credit card (because I didn’t do my research beforehand – not something I recommend!) so when I needed something on the trip I decided to use it. The expense was shown as a “7.99 expense from Walmart” when I went to submit my receipts. I didn’t submit a receipt for this one because I didn’t want my male boss to see this purchase. OF COURSE, it gets flagged by my manager and he asked if this was a personal expense or a work expense. This experience took place at a company whose policy was to have a receipt for every single expense. I have also worked at a company that doesn’t look very closely at expenses less than $25 so I likely wouldn’t have gotten questioned about the same purchase at that company. Don’t make the same mistakes I made and read up on your company policy before going on the trip!
Are you able to visit tourist attractions while on work trips? In my experience, the answer is no. Typically, when I go on work trips, I am there to focus on a particular task and want to get it done as fast as possible. Meaning, I will be at the plant early in the morning and stay late in the day, working long hours so that I can reduce the number of days that I am away from home. Every company will have a different vibe while on the work trip, and the vibe also may differ depending on who you travel with. I once traveled with a guy that was very strict about working 8 hours a day, even on work trips, and spent the evenings in his hotel working on personal projects and talking on the phone with his kids. It’s up to you to define your prerogative on work trips and decide whether or not you want to prioritize taking advantage of this travel time. Hot tip – if you’re going somewhere you’ve never been and want to spend the weekend or another day in the area on PTO, ask your boss if you can arrange your flights differently from the rest of the group as long as you are paying for your hotel accommodations with your own money on those days. It can feel super awkward the first time you’re asking this, but doing this has allowed me multiple Sunday explore days in Nashville and a long weekend in West Palm Beach!
Are you still able to maintain work-life balance on work trips? When do you respond to emails?
This is a tough one! And it totally depends on what industry you work in. Luckily, I have experienced a variety of work trip types and am here to give you a few tips.
Let’s start with work trips that are a little more relaxed. Some work trips are similar to your every day work but you’re just working in a different location. In this case, replying to emails is totally reasonable and attainable to keep up with. I should also preface that statement by mentioning that it’s all relative to what you are typically used to receiving in terms of email count per day, maybe they aren’t reasonable to begin with!
What about work trips that are CRAZY! Slam packed with work! You’re up and working before the sun rises, finish the day in the late afternoon, and head right to a team dinner, not getting back to your hotel until past 10pm. These work trip types are particularly emotionally draining and it can be hard to not feel burnt out. My personal rule of thumb is to go to bed before midnight on these types of work trips. So, if that means, after showering post dinner and getting ready for bed that it’s almost 11:30pm, I’m heading to bed instead of trying to burn the midnight oil responding to emails. Ultimately, it’s personal preference and what you can handle, but remember – people will generally give you grace on email response time when you’re on a work trip.
Finally, try out this tip regarding emails on work trips. There are two aspects to this tip, your Outlook calendar and your automatic email response. The days that you’ll be out on the work trip, create a meeting with yourself and set the meeting setting as “Out of Office”. Make the title of this meeting something along the lines of “Trip to X-Location”. What’s the point of this? First, you won’t get in-person meeting invites that you cannot attend, and second, if anyone tries to schedule a meeting with you on those days they will see the title of the meeting and know you are unavailable for those days. Now let’s get your automatic email response set up. Just like when you are sick or out of office, you are going to set up an automatic response while you are on work trips stating that you are working elsewhere for that time period and your email responses may be delayed. I also like to add in my work cell phone number and state that in case of emergency you can call this number, but I’ve never actually had anyone call me with an emergency from that. In most cases, people will respect the fact that you are out and at the end of the day it’s likely not that big of a deal that you need some time to respond to them. And lastly, do yourself a favor and block out your morning the day you are back in office, if you are able. Reserve this time for email catch up and replying to anything that you’ve been delayed on.
Embarrassing things I’ve done
I’d like to end this piece with a few embarrassing stories of myself on a few work trips. Granted, looking back, these really aren’t that embarrassing, but at the time they were! Hopefully, you can introduce some of the tips that I spoke about in this post to not make the same mistakes that I did. Always remember, on work trips early in your career people will more than likely give you grace and any mistakes you make or embarrassing things you do are simply ways to learn and grow in your career.
Growing up, my family didn’t travel much or go on very many family vacations where I would be on an airplane. I was, however, a competitive ice skater and travelled a lot with my team to different competitions across the country and world. My coach would set what our apparel would be on the plane so I never had to worry much about what I was wearing. The travel outfits were typically yoga pants with a team t-shirt. So this was my point of reference for what to wear on an plane. Fast forward to my first work trip post grad. It’s February, 1 month after I had started, and I was taken on my first trip to a power plant in Pennsylvania. The day of our travels was also a day that we would be at the plant as we had an early morning flight. I show up in my typical uniform – yoga pants and a long sleeve t-shirt – only to be greeted by my male co-worker who was dressed in jeans, a flannel, and steel toes. Good thing I had packed a backup outfit! Once we landed, I asked for him to wait for me to run to the restroom to change. Pro tip – always bring a backup outfit, lesson learned!
One more to humor your fancy. This work trip was to Palm Beach, Florida to visit a plant down south. We had arrived early in the afternoon, but too late to head to the plant, so my co-worker said – “Let’s go to the beach!”. You go to the beach on work trips!? I was totally not prepared, who brings a swimsuit on a work trip!? Luckily, Ron Jon’s Surf Shop was down the street from our hotel and saved the day. I scowered the racks to find the one that had the most booty coverage and showed up in the lobby 30 minutes later at our designated time to go to the beach. We set up a spot on the sand using some hotel towels, and made friends with someone who had a boogie board. My co-worker went first while I enjoyed the sun, and came back about 15 minutes later offering the board up for me to try. Little did he know I hadn’t been boogie boarding since I was 9! As I was trying to catch some waves I noticed that everyone was getting out of the ocean and I was so confused. It didn’t occur to me that there could be a SHARK following me closely. I got out of the water and my coworker said “this shark was 3 ft behind you!”, as he proceeded to show me a picture on his phone. Moral of the story? A) I know always pack a swim suit on work trips and B) follow the crowd when swimming in the ocean.
