Travel Partners

Some people travel better solo. Others settle into a comfortable routine with friends and/or business associates. In my early days of the corporate world, they used to ask the women to bunk together. I don't think they do that anymore.

I travel well with many of my girlfriends. We've shared rooms from Manhattan to Florida to Arizona to the Caribbean to Mexico. My first question in the morning is, "Did I snore?"

Traveling with the husband is my favorite. (He already knows we both snore.) We've traveled a lot this year but our trips together have revolved around funerals.

The only traveling I did with the oldies was driving them back and forth to Mississippi. I wish I had taken a girl trip with the Belle. It would never have happened. She would've insisted that Hangdog tag along.

The Golden Girls travel well together but it took a few years or decades to get that in sync. Plus, we're used to each other's quirks. We may get on each other's nerves but we recover quickly.

I just returned from Manhattan and a great conference. Abby and I have attended it multiple times. We did not share a room, although we often did that in our early business relationship. We both love NY. We both love this conference. We have a long-standing friendship which includes a profound respect for each other's opinions and each other's space. We manage to strike a balance of what we want to do together and when we need separate time.

Although I talk to her almost every day and we collaborate on many things, this conference weekend has often been a reconnection of our friendship. We're not afraid to say things. Maybe it's being out of our usual surroundings. Maybe we're both so pumped with ideas and excitement that some of the walls come down.

It's a business trip and we work very hard to absorb as much information as we can. We toss ideas at each other over a glass of wine. We have the luxury of discussion time without the nagging pressures of daily commitments. We talk about business. We spend some time on Memory Lane -- my favorite street. We make comments about each other's lives that we wouldn't say in our normal, time-pressured conversations.

She helped me sort through some things. I hope I was a sounding board for her.

Then, we shared our enthusiasm and excitement about attending next year.