What I Learned on the Road This Year

Traveling for business is a Zen practice: Keep your head down and take good notes.

At the end of each of the 30-plus years that I've been on the road, I come to the same conclusion: It's been another bizarre 12 months for business travel.

The trick to surviving, as I've discovered, is to not become too flustered by the ludicrous nature of being a business traveler. It's much better to learn a lesson or two from what has gone before and adjust your parameters and expectations accordingly. I've found it's best to just keep a low profile and take copious notes. Call it the Zen of business travel if you must. But I'm just a grinder and will make no such high-flown pronouncements.

Here's some of the useful stuff I've learned on the road this year:

Forget Progress, Carry Paper

Airlines around the world are racing to go totally paperless. Electronic tickets are already standard. Paperless boarding passes (think a picture of a boarding pass on your BlackBerry screen) are being tested by Continental Airlines and others. But what carriers want and what makes the world's airport security apparatchiks happy are entirely different things.

I watched with shock and disbelief this year as a traveling companion was denied entry into an airport terminal because he didn't have paperwork proving that he was booked on a flight. "But it's an e-ticket!" my traveling companion protested to the brown-shirted, pistol-toting security officer blocking his path. He allowed me into the terminal because I produced a paper confirmation of my e-ticket. So I sprinted to the ticket counter, convinced an agent to produce a boarding pass for my colleague, and ran it back to the entranceway. Only then did the security agent relent.

Lesson learned: Carry some form of printed proof that you're booked to fly.

Style Doesn't Matter at Security

Speaking of security, we still struggle to adapt to the Transportation Security Administration's 16-month-old rules about liquids and gels. Officially, the T.S.A. says our lotions and potions are fine as long as they are in a three-ounce (or less) container and fit into a one-quart zip-top bag. Unofficially, of course, every screener at a security checkpoint makes his or her own rules and forces us to adapt at a moment's notice.

More than once this year, I've seen a screener hassle a flier because she was traveling with unmarked bottles. This is distressing because an entire cottage industry has sprung up to offer stylish, sturdy toiletry kits that meet the T.S.A.'s so-called 3-1-1 rule. All of these cases include specially designed clear bottles and spray containers that have no labels. It's unsettling to learn that we're now considered potential terrorists because we've poured a few ounces of Listerine into an unmarked bottle.

Lesson learned: Forget the fancy cases and fly with travel-size toiletries as packaged (and labeled) by commercial suppliers.

Forget Human Contact

I've long urged business travelers to program their mobile phones with the toll-free reservation numbers of their preferred hotel chains and airlines. The theory: When you need a hotel room in a hurry or want to change a ticket quickly, the appropriate number and a helpful human being are at your fingertips. But this year I realized that calling the reservation number is a fool's errand.

One example: A colleague and I arrived at Newark Liberty International Airport after a 16-hour flight. It was the final stop for me, but my fellow traveler was connecting with a flight to San Francisco that was delayed for 15 hours. I pushed a button on my phone to make a reservation for him at the airport hotel. All of a sudden, I found myself drawn into a freakish, 15-minute dialogue with the phone agent. She did everything-demanded my frequent-guest number; required me to recite my address; asked whether I was traveling on business or for pleasure-except take the reservation. Finally, I yelled into the phone, "Look, I'm in the car about two minutes from the hotel." Her response? "I'm sorry, sir, I have to ask these questions first." I hung up without making a reservation.

When I subsequently called the chain's senior vice president of customer care to complain, he said he didn't believe me-until he found the recording of the call. (Apparently, they really do monitor calls for "quality-assurance purposes"!) His response? The agent was following "normal protocol."