Work Trips is part of the Rum Rum Caribbean Castaway Trip Report.
TPOL makes his millions from blogging and moonlighting as a lawyer because he loves the law. That is a lie. Instead of traveling for leisure, my off shore legal practice had me going to BVI for a few nights for work. I missed the first day because I overlooked the need for a passport (see My Duck Up: You Need a Passport for British Virgin Islands). Then I experienced the pleasure of flying on interCaribbean Airways. Upon arrival, I checked into an isolated hotel that was under construction (see Wyndham Tortola). Things were going great.
Over the coming days, I went to my conference which lasted from morning until the early evening. En route to the conference, I would see the beauty of BVI. From the conference room, I could see the harbor. After the conference concluded, there was a networking cocktail hour followed by a drive back to the hotel. Three days later I went back to Puerto Rico.
Apart from walking on the beach at my hotel the first day, I saw nothing of Tortola or BVI’s other 53 islands. Putting aside whether BVI is a country (see Is Hawaii a Country?), this begs the question, should I include BVI on my Country Count List? I don’t include countries where I don’t leave the airport even though technically the rules say it is permissible. My view is that I have to do something in a place to say that I have been there. Sure I was physically in BVI for 3 nights but what did I experience? I can’t write a Guns & Butter Travel Guide let alone recommend a restaurant.
I could have stayed in BVI after the conference and explored but after being there for days with nonstop presentations, that was the last thing I wanted to do. Hopefully, I will return to BVI for Christmas in July and experience the fun of the island. While I will include it on my list, two conclusions can be drawn from this trip: 1) Traveling for work is not travel. 2) Work is stupid.
#2 — FCQ agrees.except for I am required to work.
It’s not fair
Never understood country visited counts
Many don’t
I’m gonna go contrarian here. Travel to a place is by definition travel. What it isn’t is a vacation. Then again I don’t count having visited a place unless I’ve left the airport, so it’s not like my criteria are entirely consistent either. Nonetheless I’m going to say that you’ve traveled to the BVI. Surely you slept in a hotel somewhere and ate prepared food?
It is a country you have visited. As a thought, you could highlight a country visited for a conference or work reasons as per that.
Yes, you may not be able to do a Guns and Butter type guide or any of your other posts, but it is definitely someplace you have been.
True but I’m not going to make a habit of going somewhere for the first time for work.