This has been a busy year for travels– not that I’m complaining!– and the Windy City just made the list twice. My first visit was all pleasure for the fourth of July and my birthday, which I recounted here, but the second trip was all, ok, mostly, business.

I spent the first five days of the week in Chicago for a client’s tradeshow, which we’ve been planning since January. It was quite climatic finally seeing all of our planning come to fruition!

We headed out Sunday morning and spent the first couple of days in sales training, which was beneficial in terms of meeting the sales team, who we support year-round, and hearing the more technical details of the products and solutions that I ended up explaining to the media throughout the show.

This client does a nice job on engaging sales throughout the pre-show meetings through different games, panels and study session activities.

The show went by in a flash, with early mornings and long days of meetings, but we had some great meals in the evenings to relax and catch up. Some of my favorite eateries included Shoeless Joe’s and Pappadeaux. Our taxi ride to and from Pappadeaux was an event to remember:

• Five girls and a crazy cab driver
• Giving the crazy cab driver dessert from the restaurant after feeling sorry he didn’t get to eat his lunch
• Crazy cab driver rerouting the trip home because of traffic jams on the highway (this may or may not have included driving off on-ramps, flying through rest areas and almost wrecking into an oncoming Lexus)
• Five girls learning that cats do not like to eat 80/20 ground beef because it’s too fatty

What can I say– never a dull moment.

I made it home alive but tired Thursday afternoon and congratulated myself on having decided ahead of time to take Friday off to relax and work around the house. A friend once told me that she started enjoying her vacations and travels even more when she built in one extra day off following any activity. She said it helped her enjoy every last moment of the trip because she wasn’t concerned about getting home and heading right back to work– she knew she had a whole extra day to get back into the swing of things and then go into work and life positive and refreshed rather than hectic and regretting that the journey had crashed to a close.

Ever since that advice, I’ve been incorporating the extra day, and I have to admit, it changes everything! I highly recommend trying it on your next trip, whether it’s for work or pleasure.