Early in March, before things in the United States started to escalate, I took my first business trip. Today I would have been leaving for another. This year is supposed to be full of those for me, but with the state of things I won’t be travelling for work until travel is safer. Now I’m not going to dwell on the fact that I’ve had to cancel trips and postpone booking others, instead I’m going to reflect on my first trip and how much I enjoyed it.

This trip was my first one of many but different from what my next ones will be. This trip was scheduled around my boss’s already scheduled trip for the property’s annual meeting of the owners. My boss is the Vice President of Resort Operations for the mountain region for my company which as of right now includes Colorado and Utah. As I live in Colorado, I am able to do the tasks that are set in place for my property visits whenever I want. So the only other place that falls under her region is our property in Park City, Utah. Since this was the first property visit outside of Colorado, it made sense to schedule and travel with my boss.

I’ve always been excited to travel and explore new places but when I began college traveling, and flying in particular, suddenly became a stressful experience for me. I didn’t know why it was so sudden but anxiety began to ruin any fun, travel experience I was going to have. Since then I’ve traveled a few times and without fail any time I’ve flown, I’ve become extremely anxious to the point of being physically ill. After travelling last summer to visit friends I decided I needed to speak to someone about my anxiety and get it in check so that not every flying experience was racked with full-body stress. Thankfully, I was able to get some help with that anxiety and my first trip was a success and felt like a major milestone.

I’m glad my first trip wasn’t solo and that I could experience travelling for work with my boss. Being in an office of just four people, my boss and I are close which I believe helped a lot in both a professional and personal way. We have a lot in common even though there is an almost 30 year age difference so there were never any dull moments. What surprised me the most was that we pretty much never stopped talking. We had a lot to talk about, both work related and non-work related which passed the time.

Aside from having a great travelling companion, this work trip was not a meeting-oriented, spend lots of time sitting in a room kind of trip, it was a fun-filled, get creative and explore kind of trip. My job as the Marketing and Communications Manager on these site visits is to explore the area so I can accurately market the property and the attractions that draw people to the area. I also took along my standard camera and 3D imaging camera to collect content. Of course, I had to monitor emails and be available if something came up that needed my immediate attention in addition to having fun so there was some down time in the room that I sometimes welcomed. Because the trip was only three days I had to use my time wisely.

Day 1:
I have passed through a few airports but I will always love DIA. I don’t know if it’s purely because it’s my home airport or if it’s because I love the odd layout, but it is my favorite airport to fly out of. Because our trip was short we didn’t check any bags and with my boss’s TSA Precheck we zoomed right through to our gate and had extra time on our hands so we grabbed breakfast at a cafe and continued chatting.

Typically I fly with Southwest but they don’t offer a direct flight to Salt Lake City so we took Delta which I was pretty happy with. It’s a quick flight so we arrived a little after noon and went straight to get our rental car. After getting our rental car it only took about 45 minutes to get into Park City and to our property Park Regency. Because it was still early we went across the street for lunch at Einstein Bagels and then settled into our rooms. After we unpacked we headed to Main Street to walk around, shop and enjoy the beautiful early spring weather.

After walking up and down Main Street we headed back towards Park Regency to grab dinner. Thankfully across the street there are many dinner options to choose from. As my boss has been to Park City before she knew which restaurants I had to try while I was there. One of them being Sammy’s Bistro which was featured on Guy Fieri’s Diners, Drive Ins and Dives. We ordered take-out from Sammy’s, headed back to our room and decided to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer and have some wine together to finish off a long day.

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Day 2:
The day started with breakfast at Einsteins and then I began my trek around the property taking photos and scanning rooms for online tours. My company purchased a Matterport 3D camera to create virtual tours that can be shown on our booking platforms so potential guests can see what our rooms and common areas look like. I really like the camera and how it can bring our websites up a notch. On top of the 3D scans I also took regular stills to be used for other parts of our website and for third-party booking platforms.

Wandering around the property and taking photos allowed me to get familiar with the resort and gather content for social posts. It makes my job much easier if I’m able to put together a collection of photos to use later. I hope that I’m able to go back in the summer when there’s a whole different type of scenery and activity list.

The best part of dinner though was getting to speak with the board members and seeing what they thought could elevate our marketing for the property. For most of my trips I won’t be there at the same time as board members so this unique aspect gave me a bit more to work with.

Day 3:
Back to Einsteins for breakfast because it’s so convenient and I could probably eat bagels every day for breakfast. This time we were joined by our CEO who came in for the annual meeting scheduled for later in the day. It was nice to catch up with him and chat a bit about business. After breakfast I walked around a bit more to take photos and spoke with the front desk staff about recommendations they give to guests. This helped me to get an insiders/local opinion about where to eat and what activities to do.

After the very short annual meeting we set off to a potential new property with a board member. This wasn’t necessarily something that needed my presence but I got to see into how things like new contracts come together. I liked the insight and getting to understand more about how our company’s development process.

Afterwards we went for lunch with the board member to wrap up our time in Park City. We ended up at a nice bar and grille called the Boneyard Saloon. After lunch we headed back to Salt Lake City for our flight home. We were a bit ahead of schedule so a glass of wine and a small snack helped pass the time. My boss and I continued our long chats and before we knew it we were getting in the car at DIA and heading home.

We left on Thursday morning and came home on Saturday night and even though it wasn’t a long trip, we packed in a lot of work, play and plenty of food. I enjoyed the trip and got to gather a lot for the marketing department while exploring a new place. I’m happy to have had this opportunity and I hope I can continue these trips to explore all these great areas in the future.

I also learned a lot about how to pack light and how to maximize the time I spend in an area which will be beneficial for all my future traveling. My boss of course had tips and tricks that I hope to use in my future business trips. It was a great trip and a great introduction to business travel.

I really enjoyed the Park City area and I hope to return to explore even more in the future.

Other places I hope to be travelling to this year:
– South Lake Tahoe, California
– Big Bear Lake, California
– Long Beach Peninsula, Washington
– Sedona, Arizona
– Ruidoso, New Mexico
– Destin, Florida
– Pensacola Beach, Florida
– Gulf Shores, Alabama
– Biloxi, Mississippi
– Nags Head, North Carolina