As you contemplate activities and goals for your engineering career, one aspect that becomes more necessary is travel. To get ahead, you frequently need to be willing to travel. Remote product development partners, technical support assignments, sales assistance, trade shows, conferences, and setting up manufacturing abroad are all reasons for traveling.
Travel brings on a whole different set of stressors.
And it's not getting any easier. Consider some of the latest statistics. There were more than 635 million passengers on U.S. carriers last year, and this number is expected to reach 1 billion by 2010, according to Airports Council International. More cities, more airports, more flights, and more people create more challenges. On top of that, rushing through airports with heavy luggage is a physically taxing activity.