What brings you here? Business or pleasure? For an increasing number of travelers, the answer is both. While there was a post-pandemic rush to travel ― dubbed “revenge travel” after seasons spent in lockdown ― that overall trend has recently softened as consumers have cut back on vacations to deal with a rising cost of living. For those still seeking a vacation, blended or “bleisure” travel is the perfect solution.
Bleisure travel ― a portmanteau of “business” and “leisure” ― is when you tack on a couple of days to a work trip so you get to have a little fun and explore the location before heading home. (The trend is like the kosher, work-approved version of “hush trips,” another work-from-home-inspired trend in which employees work remotely from a trip location without notifying their employer.) Sarah Stone, the editor-in-chief at the travel site Frayed Passport, traveled this way extensively back in her corporate days.
Her favorite bleisure trip was to New Zealand. After a work conference and some meetings in Auckland, her husband joined her and the couple took a weeklong road trip around the North Island, visiting Hawke’s Bay, Napier, Taupo and a few other spots. “If your company can cover transportation and accommodation, or at least part of it, that’s a massive portion of your trip that you don’t have to worry about,” Stone said.
How’d she swing it? Her employer was covering her airfare, hotel and meals during the conference, but b.