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The Pleasures of Academic Travel

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By Paula Krebs

A decade and a half into my career, I have realized that much of the quality of the work I do away from home hinges on the quality of my accommodations.

I used to travel mainly for research; now my work trips mostly center on conferences, meetings, and seminars related to administrative and professional issues. In the process, my travel needs have shifted, too, from the minimalist expectations of a graduate student to those of a business traveler. And I've come to understand why corporations don't house their traveling workers in a Motel 6.

I never used to need much more than a blanket and a pillow when I was on the road. As recently as 10 years ago, I attended a conference in upstate New York to which I commuted daily from a nearby Jellystone Park campground (the kind where Yogi Bear shakes your hand at the mini-golf course). The rain was a bit of a problem, as the showers didn't have hair dryers, but I turned myself out presentably enough for the conference. No one (at least in my hearing) commented on my dampness or the subtle wood-smoke scent.

When I was a graduate student, of course, it didn't matter where I slept, so long as I had access to the archives I needed. I frequented youth hostels and university dorms and slept on the floors of countless British friends and friends of friends. The work was the thing -- getting at those precious collections of letters, documents, and newspapers for as many hours a day as the library was open. A little stiffness in the morning was a small price to pay for the opportunity to spend eight precious hours with War Office records or Olive Schreiner's letters. I took notes all day and wrote all evening.

But the nature of my work-related travel has changed with my academic title. Fewer research trips, more business travel. And different sleeping accommodations.

In the first few years of my tenure-track job, staying in a Hilton or a Marriott for work-related purposes felt luxurious -- big beds, private bathrooms, city views. My family had stayed in such hotels a couple of times when I was growing up, for reunions of my father's World War II infantry division. Each occasion had been a thrill for us kids. For the four of us, hotels were so exotic that we spent the entire time while our parents were at the division banquet racing each other in side-by-side elevators. The annual convention of the Modern Language Association initially held some of the same excitement for me.

The thrill of the Hilton quickly paled, of course. It became harder and harder to get the most out of academic conferences, what with the endless waits for the elevators in convention hotels (crowded not with 6-year-olds racing in pajamas but with sweating 30-year-olds in interview suits) and the mildewed workout rooms.

Still, the work I was getting done at those hotels -- usually being interviewed or doing the interviewing -- was work that could be done only there. The giant hotels were the logical place for the giant conferences with the giant job market.

Then my business travel shifted again, and I started attending small seminars that focused on administrative aspects of the profession -- how to lead a department, revise the curriculum, handle diversity issues. Because those meetings are not focused on research or the job market, their organizers have to work harder to persuade people to attend, so they offer incentives: tourist destinations, boutique hotels, even resorts. Nicer beds.

Resorts are great places to get work done, I have quickly learned. At resort seminars, the folks in your working group are all in shorts and sandals, and your day includes plenary sessions, workshops, and pool time. Such seminars have become, not surprisingly, my favorite professional events. At the ones I've attended, great food is included in the registration fee, so attendees don't skip out to area restaurants but eat together and continue the work they start in the sessions.

In addition to offering fancy rooms, pools, and golf courses, the resort seminars I've known and loved interspersed the work sessions with scheduled fun (tours, beach time, nightcaps). Because the conferences are small and specialized, everyone shares the same professional concerns and can really help each other during those intense, productive weekends.

Now I've reached yet another stage of my career, and I'm scheduling events myself. Last summer I had to bring a small group of faculty members and administrators together from different parts of the country for a working weekend. A wise staff member at my college suggested that rather than have the committee come to our campus, I should schedule the meeting at a hotel, where I could let someone else worry about all the meals and logistics.

As I planned the committee retreat, I thought about those seminars I had attended, at which relatively luxurious accommodations and great food kept the attendees on task and coming back year after year. What would make my steering committee get the most work done in the small amount of time we had without making them wish they'd never volunteered?

I decided on a small, old inn, on the water, in a beautiful part of Rhode Island about an hour from our campus. It was risky: How would the committee members like sharing a bathroom on the hall? But I'd heard the food was good, and I knew I could build in some time for beachcombing and local ice-cream runs. And, sure enough, the participants loved it. More to the point, they worked incredibly efficiently, fueled by the good food, the beautiful views, and the knowledge that the sooner they finished, the sooner they could get out to the beach.

Since my doctoral research days, I've increasingly moved into work that has more in common with the business world -- or at least the nonprofit world -- than with the work I did as a dissertation researcher. Administrative work, networking, working on grant projects -- most of it is done face-to-face. You need to be in your best form so you can make the most of the time you're together. It can feel eerily like corporate travel; I have a corporate credit card, and I sometimes find myself on the cellphone at the airport having the same conversations with my young daughter that the salesman in a suit next to me is having with his kids.

The pleasures of academic-business travel haven't spoiled me for the other kind of academic travel, though. When I go to England for solitary archival research, I revert to my graduate-student ways, even at the age of 50.

I don't need to look particularly presentable to do research, and I am accountable to no one but myself all day long. There's no need to pack a suit, and the lodgings definitely won't have a pool.

This summer I'll be heading back to England for some longed-for time at the British Library, and I'll stay in a dorm room (the London School of Economics has good summer rates) and eat cheap Indian takeout quite happily. The dormitory is a 15-minute walk to the library -- just long enough to drink a coffee in the morning and process the day's work in the evening. I'll move the saggy mattress onto the floor, and when it's time to go to sleep, if past trips are anything to reckon by, I know I won't be wishing for either the Hilton or the fancy resort.