IIT-Kanpur graduate dreamed of work trips, but her seniors warned her: ‘You’ll just travel from the client’s office to hotel’. She shares the reality of work trips

Work trips often sound like the perfect blend of career and travel: new cities, comfortable hotels, flights and the chance to explore places on someone else’s budget. But the reality can be far less glamorous. Kanak Agrawal, an IIT-Kanpur graduate, discovered this after joining an office her older colleagues warned her that long workdays could leave little time to experience a destination. Years later, she has embraced a radically different idea of what a work trip can look like.

IIT-Kanpur graduate reveals the reality of work trips

Kanak Agrawal, an IIT-Kanpur graduate, took to social media to recall how excited she was about work trips when she joined had joined a company. The prospect of staying in nice hotels, taking flights and travelling around the world at no personal cost seemed incredibly appealing to her. However, she was surprised that her older colleagues did not share the same enthusiasm for these seemingly glamorous opportunities.

For Agrawal, the idea initially seemed almost irresistible. Travelling to different cities, staying in hotels and seeing the world while continuing to earn sounded like the ultimate professional perk. Her older colleagues, however, had a very different perspective.

‘You’ll just travel from the client’s office to your hotel’

Agrawal recalled the warning she received from her more experienced colleagues: “The most travel you'll do is from client's office to your hotel. You'll be so exhausted at the end of the day that all you'll want to do is sleep.” As it turned out, they were right. Agrawal explained that although you technically travel during a work trip, that does not necessarily mean you get to experience the destination.

“You travel. But you don't really experience the place,” she wrote. The distinction is subtle but significant. A work trip may put you in another city, but your time there is dictated by meetings, deadlines, client requirements and someone else's schedule.

Traditional work trip- a missed opportunity?

According to Agrawal, that is what the phrase work trip has increasingly come to mean. “Someone else's city, their reason for sending you there and someone else's schedule,” she wrote. Instead of choosing where to go or how to spend the day, employees often find themselves moving between airports, client offices and hotels, with little energy left to discover the destination. The city becomes a backdrop rather than part of the experience. But Agrawal believes there is another way to think about combining work and travel.

IIT-Kanpur graduate proposes a different kind of work trip

Agrawal wants to offer a different version of the traditional work trip: one that you design yourself. In her version, you choose the destination, set the pace and continue working your normal hours. The difference is what happens around the workday. You could find a café with a beautiful view and spend hours working there. After finishing work, you could go for a hike. You might wake up early to see a mountain you've always wanted to visit.

Or perhaps there is something happening in town that you do not want to miss, so you take an afternoon off to experience it. The idea is not to abandon work. It is to allow the place you are living in to become part of your life.

‘Work still gets done. Your income doesn't stop’

Agrawal argues that this version of working while travelling is not simply an idealistic fantasy. “Work still gets done. Your income doesn't stop. But the place you're living becomes part of your life,” she shared. That distinction lies at the heart of her philosophy. Instead of squeezing sightseeing into exhausted evenings after long client meetings, the destination itself becomes woven into the rhythm of everyday life.

A morning hike, an afternoon exploring a local event or several hours spent working from a scenic café can transform the experience without necessarily putting work on hold.

She has been doing it for five years

For Agrawal, this approach is not merely an idea she has recently discovered. “That version is not fantasy,” she wrote. “I've been doing it for five years. Now I build these experiences for other people too.” Her five-year experience offers a different perspective on the relationship between work and travel. Rather than treating travel as something that begins after work ends, she suggests creating a lifestyle where the destination can become part of the working experience itself.

It is a far cry from rushing between a client's office and a hotel, and a reminder that travelling somewhere does not necessarily mean experiencing it.