Getting Home Shouldn't Be This Hard
Travel has a way of reminding you that the best part of any trip is usually the moment you head home.
I spent the day with a client in Southern California. The meetings were productive, the conversations were worthwhile, and I wrapped up feeling good about the work. Then reality arrived.
My flight was canceled.
Like thousands of other travelers every day, I suddenly found myself trying to solve a puzzle that kept changing. The best available flight wasn't from John Wayne Airport in Orange County where I had started. It was from LAX.
If you've made that drive from one side of LA to the other, you know it isn't a quick change of scenery. More than three hours later, I arrived at Los Angeles International Airport after navigating horrific Southern California traffic (I still can’t believe people do this every day). The rental car company wasn't exactly thrilled that I wanted to return the vehicle to LAX instead of taking it back to the airport only about 40 miles away where I had picked it up---they wanted to charge hundreds of extra dollars for really nothing. After that came another surprise. It took roughly 40 minutes just to get from the rental car return to the terminal using the shuttle bus system.
Then I walked into a terminal with no air conditioning. In the middle of a Southern California summer, the terminal was hot, crowded, and uncomfortable. After hours of driving, shuttle buses, and changing plans, standing in a warm terminal wasn't exactly the ending I had envisioned. It turned out that the best place to be was on the shuttle bus from the main airport to the remote terminal—the bus had great air conditioning – I almost made several trips back and forth
As a “just in case,” The airline had provided a hotel in Dallas if there was an additional delay. The list of hotels made me shake my head. Years ago, when my wife and I were just getting started and every dollar mattered, those would have NEVER been acceptable choices. Even the reviews were terrible. Now, they reminded me how far life has come and how much my expectations have changed. Let's just say I politely declined.
Frustrated, tired, hot, hungry, and exacerbated, I was ready to simply get on an airplane.
None of this should be as difficult as it often becomes. Yet anyone who travels regularly knows these experiences are more common than exceptional. Flights are delayed. Weather changes. Aircraft need repairs. Crews time out. Airports become overcrowded. Travel plans that looked perfect on paper can unravel in minutes.
The lesson isn't to expect everything to go smoothly. The lesson is to prepare for the moments when it doesn't.
Before every trip, I now spend a few minutes researching backup flights. If one airport becomes impossible, I already know my alternatives. I pack an extra day's worth of clothes (or two), just in case. I fill my water bottle every chance I get. I keep chargers, medications, and essentials in my carry on (to be candid, I haven’t checked a bag in decades). A little preparation doesn't eliminate the hassle, but it dramatically reduces the stress.
Because in the end, none of us travels simply for the sake of traveling. We travel because of work, family, service, or opportunity. But when the day is over, there is only one destination that really matters. And I made it to where I wanted to be most.
Home.
The meetings matter. The clients matter. The work matters. But the people waiting at home matter most.
