Is it frowned upon to have family tag along on a business trip?

[Anonymous]

My husband’s firm encourages it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I always wonder why this appeals to people. You still have to buy all those plane tickets and pay for all your meals and activities. You're only getting a deal buy not paying for the hotel. I know that can be significant but it comes with the cost that the working parents is tied up and pulled between work and family the whole time. If I have an important meeting the last thing I want is to be sharing a hotel room with my kids the night before.

PP that has tagged along my spouse's trips before. As I mentioned it really depends on the trip. My husband has an annual conference in a resort town not far from my parents. Twice we've gone the weekend before to visit my parents and then left the kids with them while I got to enjoy a luxury resort hotel. We had time before and after the conference to have a few nice meals and hang out.

Once my husband had a work trip to Orlando and they booked him a condo at a timeshare resort near Disney. The condo had a full kitchen and separate bedroom. I took my DD by myself to Disney World for two days. She was under 3 so her Disney tickets were free. We had a great time and it was a lower cost way for us to enjoy Disney. We also used points for our flights. I'm glad I got to do that because now traveling to Disney is so expensive and crowded. We'll do a full Disney trip later but I'm glad I got that visit in before.

[Anonymous]

I do it on my DH's trips. I don't travel much at all for work but my firm encourages it. I think they believe more people will come if they can bring their families.

[Anonymous]

We did (just the 2 of us) prior to having kids but ow it's a nonstarter.

[Anonymous]

The opportunity to tag along with a spouse going to London, Paris, Stockholm, Austin, or San Diego sounds pretty awesome. Would love to know the company! I just joined my DH on a work trip to Austin last week. It was the sort of set up where I was expected to attend work social events. We had a great time despite the ridiculous heat, but it was definitely not as fun as trips where I have no obligations. One other downside was that they put us up in a hotel that was really nice, but not the location we would have chosen. I prefer the trips where he has to go for business meetings but the rest of us do our own thing.

[Anonymous]

It’s only fun and doable if you can ditch the kids and just bring your spouse solo. Little kids would be entirely too stressful.

[Anonymous]

I’ve done it where I take a couple days off after and have spouse and kids meet me in the location. But never brought them along. My business trips are too packed/intense as generally I am trying to get back home!

[Anonymous]

It sounds like you’d approach it from the right frame of mind OP so go for it. You won’t get in his way or in the way of business. Not sure how transparent he needs to be to disclose that you are along for the trip even presumably on your dime but he needs to gauge whether he needs to disclose it. Definitely he should not try to hide it. I had a former employee who on a business trip to Florida decided to bring his wife and four kids on the sly. Not only did he try to hide it, the scchlep didn’t set expectations with his wife. I arrived for early dinner meeting with the group for a pow wow in the lobby, and half way through, here’s the wife with four kids, pissed off that he is late for dinner, glaring at him and I’m the boss like WTF is happening here. If you go, please don’t behave like that. Business trips are all day and evening affairs assume he is gone from bfast until midnight.

[Anonymous]

I brought family on a business trip once and all I can say is, never again. It was not a disaster, but it was not fun.

[Anonymous]

My MIL travelled to London a few times when my FIL was there, but she never brought the kids along.

I think it depends on what his business is like. When I travel for work I have early morning meetings and I host dinners in the evening. I would not want to have kids asleep in the hotel when I got back from dinner and needed to do email. Nor would I want kids in my hotel room and underfoot when I was trying to get ready in the morning while also talking on speakerphone to US colleagues.

Maybe I’m a grump, but staying in a hotel room with my own two kids on vacation is already not fun - we always rent a house or apartment with multiple bedrooms. Mixing kids into the hotel + jet lag + client demands equation sounds awful.

[Anonymous]

I would honestly only do it if you got a separate hotel room - your DH will presumably want to be rested for meetings and sharing a room with toddlers will not provide that.

[Anonymous]

Definitely depends on the office culture. I travel globally and don't think it would work for me personally. My days tend to run long and, although I enjoy the cities I'm in, it very rarely feels like a vacation. Depending on the team dynamics and duration of the trips, I usually do meals at least once or twice with colleagues. It would be bad form to miss these.

Say I'm 5 full days in Paris. Day 1 & 2 I'm usually slammed and don't want distractions. Days 3-5 may have more flexibility, but usually will have some kind of team meal on day 5.

Basically you'd get maybe 2 evenings of my time, but I'll probably be tired and thinking about work.

I'm also constantly waking up stressed about oversleeping. I'd hate to have to share my room at the W with kids.

[Anonymous]

Who give a shit? Bring family have a good time.

[Anonymous]

Don't plan to do this on his first few trips until he gets a sense of company culture and how busy and stressful his trips will be. Then, ask him how he feels about you all tagging along. He might prefer having the time to concentrate on his work responsibilities. Respect his wishes.
If he and the company both approve of you going, pick a trip or two and have fun! My advice is to make yourself near-invisible to his work colleagues. Don't bring the kids to dinners or receptions and don't have any expectation that your husband will be able to join you for evening activities. When my husband traveled, we would often come on the last day or so of his trip so that we could vacation as a family after his work was done. Usually we would move to a cheaper hotel, though.

[Anonymous]

Depending on the office, there can be a team dynamic on the road that bringing a family can mess with. We often travel for multi-day intense negotiating. Because of the time the team spends together, we all get closer and more trusting during the process. It makes for a more cohesive unit that can push a bit harder IMO.

Add the family into the mix it may impact this. Everyone misses their families when traveling across the world. That shared adversity is part of what bonds the unit.