Totally enjoyable and informative book. My wife, a frequent traveller is telling me much of the time about the escapades she has survived on tirps. This book will be one she will need to read.

I was really looking forward to reading “How to Avoid Strangers on Airplanes: Survival Guide for the Frequent Business Traveler” by Brandon Blewett. Being a business traveler myself, with 25+ years of weekly business travel, I was hoping to read humorous anecdotes, funny situations, and some tips and tricks that I could add to my arsenal. Based on the description (and the title), those were my expectations. However, that is not what this book is actually about.

Yes, we start off each of the six main sections with a “type” of annoying habit that one tends to run into at the airport: the gate lice who crowd the gate before their group is called, people who don’t realize that their backpacks are hitting others, the self-important person harassing the gate agent, the idiot who has to try to be the first one off the plane, and others. Mr. Blewett does present a humorous story for each habit, along with a quick paragraph about how to get petty revenge on each of those (although he admonishes us not to do it!).

But that’s it, that’s all we really get about traveling. The rest of each section is a combination of how to apply these annoying habits to your career path along with an extensive history of the author’s educational and professional journey. We don’t really learn much about navigating the airport, or making business traveling more relaxing/effective/efficient, or funny/interesting travel stories, or even how to improve your own personal traveling experience. We do learn a lot about Mr. Blewett’s schooling, his applying to law school, his early jobs and wanting to be an agent like Jerry Maguire, his consulting experience, and finally his dream job in M&A. His career path is really the majority of the book, followed by how the business travel annoying habits can be applied to business (and these are sometimes quite a stretch). Travel is just a small story to set up the rest.

So, I am disappointed in the book because this is really not what I was expecting. If you are looking for a history of someone’s career path and the lessons learned along the way, this might fulfill your need. But if you are expecting a guide for helping you navigate the pitfalls of travel, or even funny travel tales, you may want to look elsewhere.

I requested and received a free advanced electronic copy from Brandon Blewett via NetGalley. Thank you!