Because I travel a lot...

If you know me (on a personal level) then you know that for the past couple of years I've traveled a lot for work. In fact, I think I spent over 70 nights in hotels in 2009. That is nearly 1/3 of my regular business days when you factor in vacation time and holidays.

Seriously.

So, when I travel for work, I generally try to abide by a few rules to make things more fun for myself.

1. Pack light. And by light, I mean try to fit a weeks worth of clothes (to include a few casual changes and workout wear) in one bag.
2. Take the train. There's only one place to book a train too - Amtrak. This makes things simultaneously easy and frustrating. However, the train is cheaper 90% of the time, it goes to most places I need to travel, it is (by far) cleaner than driving, there is always a bathroom and it is faster than driving 95% of the time. Yes, both percentages are fairly arbitrary guesses.
3. I wear out googlemaps. There is little better in trying to find a place to eat than searching, "Restaurant near X," when X equals my location. I use this even though I bring along my GPS.
4. Eat local. I break this rule from time to time, but I generally stay away from hotel food and chains. Generally. It keeps locals in business and lets me try something that I may have never had before. I can always eat at a Chili's, TGIF, Cheescake Factory, etc (and be summarily disappointed that I didn't try something different) at home - I can't eat at City Steam Brewery unless I'm in Hartford.
5. If I don't know what's best, use UrbanSpoon. I like this site better than most other review sites because you have two choices (stars are so subjective and reviews are all over the board) and only two choices... you either like it or you don't.
6. Bring a good book (you can check out some of the books I've read and reviewed on Amazon by clicking here). This is one of the things that keeps me a little sane when I'm eating alone. I don't like to sit at a bar and I (generally) don't like to talk to my waiter / waitress - unless they have something good to tell me about the menu.
7. Cash. You wouldn't believe how many places don't take credit cards. Just a thought - but I often wonder if these same places claim my cash meals on their taxes...
8. Extra Underwear. I'm just sayin'.
9. Your own [drinking] cups. If you don't know why, then you're one of the few people I know who haven't watched this. There's usually a simple trick to find out if your glasses are being replaced (and they should be replaced - a maid shouldn't be washing out glasses in the bathroom or with glass cleaner). Many times, there is a sticker on the bottom of the glass - write your initials on the glass and fill it with tea or something else - leave it at least half full. When you come back the next day, check the glasses to see if any of them bear your initial. On a strange side note... I've also marked glasses with a permanent marker because it was all I had. By the way, if this (see the video) happens to you - tell the front desk.

There are other things to take into consideration depending on my mode of transport. These are the foundations of what I do when traveling for business though.