Tips for Staying Healthy While Traveling for Business

On busy business trips, health often takes a backseat to convenience. Over time, this can take a serious toll on the health of traveling employees physically and mentally, affecting home and work life. With just a little extra effort, however, it is possible to stay well. What small changes can be made to ensure a healthier travel experience?

Drink Healthy Liquids

Travel-weary? Your business travel planner knows this often indicates dehydration, causing symptoms like fatigue, headache, dizziness, and reduced mental capacity. To make sure you’re ready for that post-flight meeting, be sure to hydrate with plenty of water, bringing a refillable bottle to ensure adequate fluid intake. Avoid sugary drinks and excessive alcohol consumption, which worsens dehydration and amplifies these symptoms.

Wash Hands Frequently

It’s easy to pick up germs at busy airports, in taxis, and at restaurants. Washing hands often can reduce germ exposure and reduce the likelihood of illness. If you know you will be traveling places where access to a sink and water will be in short supply, pack a small carry-on sized bottle of hand sanitizer, as well as disinfecting wipes for hard surfaces like tray tables and armrests.

Maintain a Regular Schedule

Carefully schedule your trip with the help of your corporate travel agency. Maintaining a daily schedule as close as possible to the one normally followed at home is key to maintaining health during business travel and upon return.

Make Sleep a Priority

Fly during the day whenever possible, ensuring 8-hours of sleep to be certain you are able to tackle the coming day’s tasks. Proper sleep also helps the body fend off illness. Power down electronics before sleep to avoid temptation. If you need extra help drifting off due to the strange setting, consider the addition of a melatonin supplement to your travel regime.

Stay Active

Business travel agents know, travel often involves remaining sedentary for an extended period of time, which lowers immune function. Luckily, it doesn’t take a lot of work to reap big benefits. A walk around the block or area park, or perhaps a swim in the hotel pool, will deliver big physical and mental benefits, helping you sleep and feel better. If you’re more active, take advantage of the hotel gym, or reduce stress and increase movement in the comfort of your own room with a simple yoga routine.

Eat Sensibly

Pack healthy snacks for the plane, such as trail mix, eating well each meal of the day. Hotel refrigerators make it easy to start the day with yogurt and fruit from the local grocer. For lunch and dinner, opt for dishes with fresh produce, whole grains and lean protein. Avoid high fat, high sugar, and high salt, high calorie foods. Remember, a business trip is not vacation! Research indicates regularly eating these types of foods increases inflammation, lowers immune function, and increases the likelihood of infection and illness.

Looking for corporate business travel management services that look beyond the basics to meet your business travel needs? Learn more about trusted travel management services of GTI Travel today.

 

The Top Summer Business Travel Destinations

Turn your business trip into a working vacation at these top business travel destinations. The best corporate travel companies will be happy to suggest a list of sightseeing opportunities.

Are You Traveling to One of These Top Business Travel Destinations?

  • Top U.S. Destinations:
    • Orlando
      A top summer travel destination, Orlando is home to a number of top theme parks including the Disney, Universal Studios, and Sea World family of parks, as well as an array of water parks, and the Kennedy Space Center. If you’re headed south, be sure to ask about cost saving travel solutions such as park ticket combo deals you can use during your stay.
    • Seattle
      Love coffee? Visit the Starbucks Reserve Roastery and Tasting Room. Prefer wine? Woodinville Wine Country features over 100 wineries and tasting rooms. Take in a show by the leading Pacific Northwest Ballet or enjoy the view atop the Space Needle. Wander Pike Place Market, or tour the areas most-coveted museums, including the Chihuly Garden and Glass Museum, Pacific Science Center.
    • Anchorage
      Pack a jacket, contact your business travel consultant, and get up-close-and-personal with nature in Anchorage, learning more about the natives at the Alaska Native Heritage Center, go on a whale and glacier-hunting day cruise, or find a moose at the city zoo or the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center. More adventurous? Go ‘flightseeing,’ bear watching, trek through Denali National Park or the Chugach Range, or try dog sledding.
    • Honolulu
      Don’t leave the island without visiting Hawaii’s world-renowned beaches. Learn how to surf, go snorkeling, or hike around Manoa Falls in Honolulu, Hawaii. Take-in the infamous art and architecture at Shangri La, or peruse an assortment of WWII attractions, including the Battleship Missouri Memorial and USS Bowfin Submarine Museum and Park.
    • Vancouver
      Vancouver is an outdoor lover’s dream, home to lush outdoor spaces like Stanley Park, Queen Elizabeth Park, and VanDusen Botanical Garden, as well as Granville Island on Fall’s Creek, home to the popular Granville Island Market, an array of shops, restaurants, and theatres. For the more adventurous, there’s the Capilano Suspension Bridge and Grouse Mountain, top winter skiing and snowboarding destination and summer entertainment zone.
  • Top Destinations Abroad:
    • London
      Big Ben. The Tower of London. Buckingham Palace. St. Paul’s Cathedral. The most difficult part of a business trip to London will be deciding what to take-in and what to miss-out on in this vibrant city.
    • Rome
      Rome is bursting with culturally significant destinations, including the Pantheon, Colosseum, Trevi Fountain, St. Peter’s Basilica, Sistine Chapel and Vatican Museums. Global event travel services providers will tell you this cultural mecca can’t be missed.
    • Dublin
      Stroll through Dublin Castle, Blarney Castle, Kilkenny Castle, St. Patrick’s Cathedral, or Chester Beatty Library. Or get outdoors and take-in the sights at Wicklow Mountain National Park, the Cliffs of Moher, or Dingle Peninsula.
    • Paris
      Home to amazing cuisine, and iconic attractions such as the Louvre and Eiffel Tower, Paris has an atmosphere all its own.

Think outside the box with the help of the corporate travel management solutions of GTI Travel today.