Hi Jane,

What I've learned in more than 35 years of travel (personal and professional) is that taxis, airports, hotel rooms, and conference centres look pretty much the same all over the world. If you don't set aside time to see a place, it doesn't matter where the travel takes you because you will never experience it.

I've made it a personal policy to try as often as possible to book at least one day before and/or one day after an event to go exploring. Not only does this let me see and understand more about a place,  it also gives me "thinking time" to either prepare for an event or to digest and integrate what I learned.

In my experience, it is rare for entrepreneurs to do this. I think that is a mistake. You are already taking a lot of time to travel to a place, the incremental cost of one extra day is small in comparison. What I typically hear is "I'm too busy". If you are that busy, why did you do the trip in the first place?

Cheers,

David