Business Travel Minimalism

Zen and the Art of Business Travel could be another title for this post, I suppose...

I am trying to become more of a travel minimalist.  Carry less stuff, pack less stuff, make getting around easier.  This is not a simple process.  One must consider many factors when going with the minimalist travel approach such as the clientele being visited, the events being attended, the weather, etc.

So, for two day trips I have myself down to one rolling briefcase that fits easily in the overhead bin.  Two days worth of mix & match clothing, shoes to work with any setup, travel size toiletries.  These are all tools in the art that is minimalist travel.

One thing I always struggled with was workout attire and reading materials.  I sort of defeated reading materials with my sony e-book reader.  However, I really want to upgrade that to a 3G iPad (more on that in a bit).  The workout clothes were always a bear.  Mostly because of the shoes, as hauling around size 14 running shoes is not an easy proposition.

Enter the Fivefingers.  They are totally going to be my new traveling workout shoes.  Let the minimalism BEGIN!  So, now I can get some treadmill time in at the hotel, or take a walk near the hotel, depending on where I am.

As to the iPad, I am looking forward to taking that instead of my laptop, whenever possible.  I primarily use a 15" macbook pro for work, but I have taken to leaving that at home and using an HP netbook on trips where I don't need the computing resources, which are most of them.  I could shave down the weight even more by bringing an iPad and leaving the netbook and the e-book reader at home.  Talk about chock-full-of-awesome.

However, I want to wait and see how the iPad fleshes out.  I probably won't go with the first generation product.  I will, however, keep reducing the amount of stuff I haul :-)

See you on the road!