Business Search

When you spend your work days traveling the nation’s highways, finding a good meal is almost as good as getting a great hotel deal that saves you cash on your business lodging.

Whether your workforce travel keeps you in the cab of a truck, on your way to the next sales call or heading to another meeting, undiscovered road food treasures can make your day.

What Is Road Food?
Road food typically is defined as restaurant food served at a spot that is locally owned (often run by family members), features food made to order and served fresh (often with a grill as prominent fixture), and provides good value for the money. Whether you call it a mom-and-pop shop, a local institution or simply “good eatin’,” road food restaurants often are seen as gustatory landmarks in towns large and small.

Finding Hidden Food Gems
Some are always on the lookout for homemade fruit pies or the seldom seen pineapple upside down cake. Others want to taste an area’s best fried chicken, biscuits and gravy, or sweet corn just picked earlier in the day.

Thanks to the Internet, there are many portals to the restaurants that are dishing out great home-cooked dishes to hungry travelers. You will find bargains, curiosities and some that are sure to rate a stop every time you’re in town.

Web sites To Start Your Search:
1. Road Food – Jane Stern and Michael Stern have been sharing their amazing road food finds for years in magazines and on radio and TV. Now there’s a whole team on their Web site dedicated to “the most memorable local eateries along the highways and back roads of America,” you can feel pretty confident that the site will direct you to just what you’re hungry for. The Web site provides a state-by-state guide to great road food, along with user reviews, maps and directions so you can find a spot close to your business lodging. Check out the recipes they’ve picked up on their travels, too!

2. Diners, Drive-ins & Dives – The Food Network’s personable Guy with the spiky blond hair is Guy Fieri, and his sporty red convertible takes him to the nation’s “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives” across the U.S. Guy knows good eating – and what he doesn’t find on his own, he’s led to by TV viewers who urge him to check out local favorites. From new takes on old favorites to traditional comfort foods, this site lists the restaurants featured by episode, complete with addresses and Web sites. Read the rest of this entry »

If you do a lot of business traveling for conferences, seminars, and meetings, it makes sense to travel light. The lighter you travel the easier it is to get on off aircraft, in and out of taxi cabs, in and out of the super shuttles, and through the hotel lobbies. It is also easier when you rent a Rent-A-Car if you are traveling light. Not long ago, I was discussing this with an acquaintance of mine in the IT business, they do a tremendous amount of traveling.

Indeed, they said to me that they’ve been busy the last few days at their office and at home preparing for their next trip. The reality is you should be able to pack your things within 10 minutes and go, you should not need to prepare or anything, no prepping is required. There are certain things you must not forget for instance; don’t forget your “charging plugs” – Laptop, and cell phone. You should have a checklist, 3 X 5 index card taped to the inside of your laptop back or travel on luggage. That’s what I do.

If you are traveling for personal business, or going on a retreat to catch your breath, and perhaps, come back into psychological balance; you know, the old mind, body, and Spirit rejuvenation type vacation then you will probably be leaving your laptop and smart phone at home. Most people these days don’t believe they can get by without their smart-phone, so they take that with them too. In this case then you won’t need your charging plugs, so ditch that advice. But if you are really going unplugged, you need to ditch the cell phone too.

Now then, there is a big difference between traveling for business, and traveling for personal. Some people just can’t be out of the pocket that long because they have too many responsibilities at work. But in this new day and age of fast-paced business travel, you have to go light, or you shouldn’t go at all. If you are taking a complete entourage with you, which is the case if you are doing group collaborative consulting, high-powered meetings, or if you are going to run your entire company on the road, then you need to encourage all the people on your team to also travel light.

Perhaps you should make little checklist for everyone, put them on laminated 3 x 5 index cards, and have them tape these cards to the inside of their luggage, this way no one is traveling without the things they need, and that means no one on the team will slow you down. The worst thing in the world for an executive is to have members of Read the rest of this entry »