From the outside, work travel looks glamorous.

The airport lounges, priority boarding, the photos from new cities, the hotel breakfasts: all of it seems like a badge of success. People often say, “You’re so lucky, you get to travel so much.” And in a way, they’re right. Travel is a privilege. It opens your eyes to different cultures, food, and ways of thinking. It stretches your worldview.

But there’s another side to it, a quieter, lonelier one that rarely makes it to the photos.

When you travel for work, you don’t travel with your family. You leave them behind: the early-morning school run, the evening energy of home, the small rituals that make ordinary days feel complete. While others might see you in motion, you often feel suspended, between time zones, between worlds. It’s not unpleasant, just isolating. Airports blur into one another. Hotel rooms are interchangeable. You’re there for a purpose, and yet you’re slightly disconnected from everything familiar.

The paradox of the road

The truth about business travel is that it’s both exhilarating and disciplined. You’re there to represent your organisation, to build relationships, to learn. But also to deliver, to respond to emails, to review budgets, to stay on top of the day-to-day. The world might move around you, but your deadlines don’t. The real work still sits in your inbox.

There’s a strange dual identity that comes with this rhythm. On one side, you’re the professional on the move, speaking at a conference, attending a meeting, building connections. On the other hand, you’re the spouse, the parent, the friend left out of the everyday moments. You live in two worlds at once, present in one, thinking about another.

It’s in that gap, that distance, where the reflection begins.

The discipline of the road

At first, travel took a toll. I used to come home sick after almost every trip: run-down, congested, often with the flu. It wasn’t about what I ate; it was the fatigue, the jet lag, the recycled air of airports and planes that seemed to pass every possible germ around.

I’ve learned since then that discipline isn’t just about work; it’s about well-being. I’ve built small, practical habits that help me arrive and return better.

Even if I’m connecting through a 35-degree Dubai airport, I’ll still keep a hoodie or sweater on hand, because that cold blast of air-conditioning has taught me too many lessons. I rest when I land, even if it means a slow morning. I carry mild medication just in case. It’s a small act of self-preservation, but it matters.

And one more ritual: I always pack my running shoes. Whether I use them or not, they come with me. They’re a reminder of rhythm, of routine, of movement and time that’s mine. Some trips, they stay packed in the bag; other times, they see early-morning pavements in cities I may never visit again. Either way, they represent continuity, a small, silent promise to myself to keep moving, wherever I am.

The other habit is my checklist. It’s now a running document: pages of what to pack and what to prepare before leaving home.

• There’s a list for my backpack: laptop, cables, adapters, notebooks.
• A list for my small bag: passport, documents, sanitiser.
• Another for the main suitcase: clothes, toiletries, shoes.
• And finally, a “home list”: a few practical checks to make sure things at home are in order before I go.”

The routine sounds obsessive, but it brings order to movement. It turns travel from disruption into rhythm, a kind of groundedness you can take anywhere.

The stillness at 35 000 feet

If there’s one place where time slows down, it’s on a plane. Once the seat-belt sign clicks off and the cabin lights dim, there’s an odd stillness that takes over. The world below disappears; the chatter fades; and for a few hours, you exist in suspended quiet.

It’s in that space (somewhere above the clouds) where my clearest thoughts tend to surface.

Not the kind of rushed thinking that happens in meetings or between tasks, but the slow, unhurried kind that lets you see patterns, connect ideas, and find meaning.

Long flights have become my version of solitude.

• No phone calls.
• No meetings.
• No interruptions.
• Just a tray table, a notebook, and the steady hum of the engines.

Sometimes I read. Sometimes I work. But often, I just think.

It was on one of those long-haul flights that the idea for The Bottom Line came to me, the notion of distilling years of corporate finance into something practical and hopeful for South Africa’s turnaround. Months before that, another flight sparked something smaller but equally defining: my decision to post on LinkedIn every day. At the time, it felt like an experiment in discipline. Looking back, it became one of the most consistent creative practices of my career.

Above, alone, and thinking

When you strip away the buzz and novelty, the beauty of travel lies not in the destination but in the distance it gives you, from your routine, your habits, even your assumptions. Up there, disconnected from the world, you can look down and see things differently.

From 35 000 feet, perspective expands. Problems shrink to their real size. Priorities reorder themselves. The noise that fills everyday life (the meetings, notifications, small irritations) goes quiet.

What remains are the essentials: what matters, who matters, and why you’re doing what you do.

That’s the paradox I’ve come to love about travel. The very act of movement creates stillness. The very distance from home deepens your understanding of it. The very isolation that feels uncomfortable at first becomes fertile ground for clarity.

Seeing life more clearly from above

Each journey teaches something different.

Some flights give me time to think; others simply remind me of how much I miss home. But taken together, they offer a rhythm of reflection, moments where movement meets meaning.

I used to think of travel as a professional requirement. Now, I see it as a teacher.

It reminds me that clarity often comes not from seeking more noise but from stepping away from it. That perspective isn’t found in new places but in quiet moments, often 35,000 feet above them.

And perhaps that’s the real gift of travel: not the miles, not the meetings, but the silence in between, where ideas form, values realign, and you rediscover what truly moves you.

 

 

 

Originally published on LinkedIn.

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