How to Meet Women Traveling for Work

To meet women while traveling for work, use the evenings. Skip room service and eat at the hotel bar. Take a cab out of the business district to the neighborhood where locals go out. Say hello to the women you pass in the lobby, at the airport gate and at the conference reception. A work trip gives you a few free nights in a city where nobody knows you, which is plenty of time for one good conversation and one drink. When she asks how long you are in town, answer plainly and suggest meeting while you are still there.

Most men on a work trip end the day the same way. Meetings finish at six, they order a burger to the room, answer email until eleven and go to sleep. Three nights in a new city disappear without a single conversation.

You do not need a different trip. You need to walk out of the room for two hours each evening. That small change is the whole difference between a work trip where you meet nobody and one where you have a date on the second night.

A seat at the hotel bar is the easiest table in town. You can talk to the bartender, the man on your left and the woman on your right without any of it feeling like an approach.

Plenty of women travel for work too, and many of them eat at the bar for the same reason you do. A simple question starts it. "What brings you to town?" "Is the fish here any good?" "Have you found anywhere worth going around here?" Two travelers comparing notes on a city is about the most natural conversation there is.

The hotel lobby, the elevator and the breakfast room are full of people with time to kill. A friendly hello costs nothing and often turns into a chat.

Conferences need more care. A woman at the reception may be a client, a supplier or someone your company works with, and your professional reputation travels further than any one night. Keep the event itself professional. If you click with a woman who has nothing to do with your work, swap numbers normally and suggest a drink after the event ends.

Airports are underrated. A delayed flight, a crowded gate or the lounge before an early departure puts you next to bored people with nothing to do but talk. Ask where she is headed. If you are on the same flight home, you have a reason to meet again.

Business hotels tend to sit in districts that empty out after dark. Office towers, a chain steakhouse and a quiet lobby bar are not where the city goes out.

Ask the bartender or the front desk where locals go on a weeknight, then take a cab there. A neighborhood with a row of bars and restaurants gives you more people, a better mood and the chance to see what the city is actually like. Even one hour at a busy bar beats a whole evening at the hotel.

You are not trying to start a relationship in three days. You are trying to have one good evening with a woman you like. Suggest a drink that same night if the conversation is going well, or the next evening if she has plans.

Keep it simple and close to where you both are. A wine bar a few blocks away, a late dinner, a walk along the water. If you come back to the same city often, she will know that soon enough, and a second date can wait for the next trip.

Some men are less interested in meeting women on the road than in finding a woman to bring along. The easiest travel companion is one you already know. Meet women where you live, and when you have been seeing someone for a while, invite her to fly out for the weekend after your meetings end.

Trying to recruit a stranger as a travel partner rarely goes well for either of you. A trip with a woman you have already had a few good dates with almost always does.

The skill underneath all of this is walking up to a stranger and starting a conversation, in a lobby or a bar or at a gate. Cold Approach teaches it in the field in Miami and New York, where a coach watches every approach and gives you feedback after each set. Group is three consecutive days, and no coach has more than three students. Private is 1-on-1 for one, two or three days and is arranged after you book, which suits a man whose work already takes him to one of those cities. No experience is required, and approach anxiety is where the coaches focus.