ATTN people with fancy jobs who get to travel and stay in hotels

[wicked_sick]

WTF DO YOU DO IN YOUR DOWNTIME? My room is dismal, the nearby pub is a dive which woud be fine if the drinks were cheap, but they're not and I'm surrounded by strip mall hell.

and I don't have any work to do.

[farmer]

masturbate furiously

[The Reverend Floater]

I'm about to blow your mind:

Read a book.

[Hugh Conway]

get laid.

[wicked_sick]

Reverend, I forgot both books I'm reading at home, along with my shoes and toothbrush. I suppose I could find a library or a used book store or something. I guess I have no imagination

[dumpy]

Last time I traveled for work (doesn't happen often), I was right on the beach in a hotel with a sweet bar. Sucks to be you.

If I were you, I'd get in my car and drive around whatever town I was in, check out the sites, find the fun part of town. Or maybe hop a bus and do the same. Or rent a bike. Find out where the good bars are and take a cab there.

Or if the hotel has a pool or a gym, go use those facilities. Then hit on the chic working front desk. Or get an Craigslist hooker. Of course furious masturbation goes without saying.

[sfotex]

Where are you at?

[Daywalker]

Work late, go for a run, eat some food, answer some emails, surf the web for 30, sleep.

[Danno]

watch TV while surfing the web, in your underwear.

[Mofro261]

monkey porn.

[sftc]

I like days off on the road and I'm never bored while traveling, but you gotta create your scene. Below are a bunch of suggestions but some of them depend upon you bringing things to help keep you entertained and since you're having a hard time dealing with things like shoes and toothbrushes it doesn't sound like packing for travel is your forte. Also, some of these things may require you to spend some cash, but think of it a trade-off for not being at home and driving your personal car and spending money on day-to-day crap.

-Act like a stupid tourist and go visit some local historic shit or a museum.

-Almost every city or town has some sort of cultural event like a speaker or an art gallery opening (often w, free wine/beer and finger food) or a local sporting event going on every day of the week.

-Even if you're in strip mall hell there are usually cool things to take photos of like flowers, old buildings, cool cars, time lapses, etc. Practice messing around with the setting on your camera and learn how to use it better so that when you actually have something you want to get a photo of you'll know how to do it correctly.

-Use and abuse the hotel's pool, spa, gym, etc. Wear yourself out and take a long ass, hot-as-fuck shower on the hotel's dime and then go to bed early and wake up feeling like a champ. You'll look better and feel better and it creates a good impression if you're working with people you need, or want, to impress. There's a reason you always see those Type-A go getters heading to the gym.

-Play World Golf Tour (wgt.com) or some other online game. There are lots of decent free ones out there.

-Rent a video from Redbox for $1, return it in the next town or when you get home, or buy a couple of $5 movies at the local Target and watch them on your computer. Buy a new toothbrush and a cheep pair of shoes while you're at Target.

-If you have a food per diem, or even if you don't, go to some places you normally wouldn't eat at and eat food you wouldn't normally eat. Do it tapas-style and hit 2 or 3 places for dinner. Check the local entertainment paper for deals.

-Find a bar with free happy hour pool, shuffleboard or darts and play them sober, for once. It's definitely dorky, but I carry my own darts on the road and you can almost always find a dartboard.

-Lots of cool local coffee shops have stacks of old magazines and books that you can borrow or just take for free, or find a retail bookstore with a Starfucks and read some new stuff for free. Bring along your computer or ipod for better tunes, and they usually have fast and free wi-fi so you can download movies or TV shows to watch later.

-Call an old friend or a relative you haven't talked to in a while and catch up while taking a walk. My Grandma used to love to hear about where I was or why I was there for work. I miss those conversations. Or catch up on old emails that you forgot to reply to and clean out your inbox.

-If your feeling altruistic many soup kitchens welcome walk-in help for whatever amount of time you can spare.

-AND since you're in a strange town and you don't have to worry about running into the mom of one of the kids on your son's soccer team, GO TO A TITTY BAR for Christ's sake.

As I said, I enjoy down time while traveling for work. Yeah, there are often other places I'd rather be, but I figure I am where I am and I gotta make the best of it. I also like being able to do whatever I want without having to make sure my wife/friends/co-workers are all cool with my plan. The only place I really wanted out of ASAP was Canyon City, CO just because it's a strange place with a fun mix of armed prison guards and scary losers visiting their locked-up friends and family.

Where are you? I'm sure there are someone around here knows of something cool to do in almost every decent sized city in North America, or even around the world.

[wicked_sick]

Thanks sftc! you gave me some good ideas. I'm actually looking forward to tomorrow now!

[BeanDip4All]

check out chowhound in whatever city you're in and go to the coolest local eats.

same with roadfood.com forums- that website will give you the REAL downlow on awesome local-only places....

i like the go pitter around in a local bookstore suggestion.

[hop]

My current spare time is taken up by: snorkel, surf, fish the flats, forage for coconuts/breadfruit/bananas/betelnut, bungle in the jungle and look for WW2 artifacts, swat mosquitos, or on the rare occasions when the internet works... dork out on the internet.

[jgb@etree]

Go sit at a bar & get drunk. The company is paying for it, so you might as well do something productive.

[Tuckerman]

You must be in Buffalo. Good luck.

[RShea]

Since you are in the middle of strip mall hell, then get out and go purchase a new toothbrush, some shoes and anything else a rookie traveler forgot. Pick a few stores that look interesting that maybe you have never been in before to browse and check out. Gains you a chance to talk to some locals and get some ideas of further things that they may recommend. Exercise of some sort (even the walk up and down the strip mall) and then plot out a loop or a route for a good walk or run if you are into a run. Get to see further the flavor of more than the strip mall area.

You have your computer- so lots of things that can be done with internet - non-work related of course, unless you have reached the end of the world wide web already that is.
Download an Ebook if you forgot the ones you were reading at home as one example. Or hit up a few of your favorite things to do magazine web sites and read some articles.

Feeling particularly studious- pick a few Wikipedia articles on something of interest and read through them, just like sitting down with an encyclopedia but already indexed and searchable for many thousands of topics.

Take a nap is always good use of time if there truly is NOTHING else of interest to do.

[Tippster]

Find a bar with a pool table. Put your quarter down. Instant conversation starter.

With the notable exception of yesterday's Raleigh, NC trip I have been to a titty bar in every single city/town I have ever been sent to for work... as long as they had one.

[carvedog]

You must be in Buffalo. Good luck.

having only seen it the one time with a couple of natives I thought Buffalo was pretty dammed cool for a city. We did some great restaurants, took an architecture tour, went to a cool theatre down town and sat my daughter on top of a number of molded fiberglass buffaloes. the place is so old ( at least where we were ) that I didn't really see any classic strip malls. Went shopping at a pretty artsy street and scored a great dress that my wife looked super hot in. Buffalo was good to me.

My current spare time is taken up by: snorkel, surf, fish the flats, forage for coconuts/breadfruit/bananas/betelnut, bungle in the jungle and look for WW2 artifacts, swat mosquitos, or on the rare occasions when the internet works... dork out on the internet.

Sweet blog dude. I thought you were just a ski slut, sailing bum??? Who knew? Do you have a fancy job?

Other than the midget donkey porn I have nothing for the OP.

[beaterdit]

Where are you WS?

Lets have a Maggot contest of who can come up with, via internet research, the coolest thing for WS to do tonight. If this is any indication it should make for a pretty interesting TR. Gotta finish it in a timely manner this time though!

[hutash]

^^^That one is easy...sit around and whine on the Internet instead of actually thinking.

[Sinecure]

I like some of sftc's ideas. Here are some things I do:

Hotel Gym or local gym (if hotel doesn't have one, they may have a deal with a local place).
Read a book.
Waste time on TGR (start a flame war with DBT or Jer?).
Try to pick up chicks at the local bar. If you really want to make this entertaining, go through your stack of other people's business cards and decide who you're going to impersonate.
Go to a movie. Every town has a movie theater. I like this better than watching stuff on the hotel room TV.
Find some sort of local weird attraction. Museum? Car collection?
Go shopping for something or nothing.
Find a nearby big hill or tall building and hike to the top.
Track down some old friend/flame who is local and invite them to dinner.
Masturbate.

[irul&ublo]

I'm about to blow your mind:

Read a book....while you masturbate furiously...

..................

[DougW]

I've heard there is porn on the internet.

[stuckathuntermtn]

Reverend, I forgot both books I'm reading at home, along with my shoes and toothbrush. I suppose I could find a library or a used book store or something. I guess I have no imagination

yes
and depending on how nice your hotel is, the front desk may have ideas for you.