To think DH cant come to this

In your company maybe but in the vast majority of others it's fine 🤷‍♀️

Maybe for your industry work trips aren't a jolly but not true for everyone. I've known people being paid to attend conferences held at ski resorts for example. Totally normal to take a spouse and tack on a few days at the beginning or end.

😀 you’re floored that someone living in Thurso or Lerwick might never have visited London.

The UK is more than the Home Counties.

ha! What an untrusting person you are

i travelled for work for over 20 years. Uk, short haul, long haul, sometimes away for 3 weeks. I certainly never had time for “social” pleasure or site seeing. The “downtime” I had I was so flicking knackered I just wanted to slob in hotel room with TV and room service.

very few companies can afford to “bulk out” trip lengths to keep to normal working day hours. I was expected to use as much time as I could at the workplace and ask people at sites I travelled to to “stay late” to fit in with my crashed schedule.

sadly, I’ve travelled to some really interesting countries and even then had very little opportunity to site see. A bit in china as they are very hospitable hosts, same in Japan. But elsewhere you’re lucky if you see anything but the hotel and office and a string of eating places they’re takin*you to in the evening for more meeting talk.

therew were times, frankly, when on a different time zone, I had to step outside of meetings just to quickly touch base with my family or kids.

The deal is, they paid me generously, I banked huge goodwill that I could call on at any time no questions asked.

but if I’d have had a spouse that had raised questions about why he wasn’t invited, or why I couldn’t speak to him that evening, our marriage wouldn’t have survived. Thankfully he was more mature than you and trusted me and understood what was needed.

men who travel might be different form me, but the idea of hooking up one night stands with either colleagues (ugh,idk) or random strangers (wtf) was about as far from my mind as possible- too bloody knackered and sleep deprived.

I travel to London alone regularly. It's not difficult! Good grief.

But yes it is fine in the Premier Inn.

But you have to clear passport control. Whichever method you use to travel, that adds time. Those places are great. The ones I haven’t visited I want to. I’m just confused why you don’t include London in the ‘cities worth visiting’ list in your head.

Where did the OP say they were from England? 🙄

Wine depends on your company policy!
As does travelling down a day ahead. London hotels are not cheap. As a company I’d be trying to get you there or back on same day as training so only one night away at max. I was always expected to travel home in my evening of last day, even if that meant arriving on Saturday morning or even Sunday form long hauls
you are making it sound like a jolly. Work travel is rarely a “jolly” or glamorous . You’re there to work, that’s it. If you can enjoy it, if the companies is fine with partner joining you, then great…but remember you wouldn’t be there at all if it wasn’t for fact you’ve work to do. Sorry to be a grouch, but set some realistic expectations.

sound like you don’t want er to come. Just say you’ve got long days, high stress, work to do in evening, and it’ll stop you doing the job you’re paid to do, so no, he can’t come. It’s not a lie. Then tell him to book and plan a weekend away for both of you to really enjoy London together.

@SofiaSoFar maybe my negotiating skills over my trip perks were just better than yours

This sounds quite patronising, I travel loads and London is one of the easier cities to navigate. I wouldn't personally take a partner as I'd be expected to work remotely on the shorter day or log back in when I got home but it sounds like you work somewhere more relaxed. The question is do you want the company or a bit of free time.

Whilst it isn’t any of their business who you share a bed with , it is their business to make the most of your time while you are being paid to travel.

as I said in my previous post, there is a huge expectation for people who travel a lot with work to cram as much into every day your away as possible, to keep cost for extending a visit to a minimum. Literally doing 8days work in 4-5 . That’s done by very long days, meeting into the evening over dinner etc.

the benefit of that as an employee to me was that I’d get similar flexibility form those “banked hours”. I’d look after the companies interest, they’d make sure they didn’t question when I said I needed time off in lieu for whatever. I was working mum, it was bloody hard travelling when kids were younger, but no one ever, ever “dared” to questioned when I need to stay off work for kids sickness, or attend a school do, or just take a day off becuase I’d just come back form 2 weeks away.

it’s about trust. And it’s about give and take. If the OPs visit is very limited to set time and guarantees that she’s not needed in evening, then yep it would not make a jot of difference to the company. As long as h&S polciies followed re insurance, fire safety etc. and as long as company won’t incur any additional costs.
but, If they’re paying her to travel and stay in London to attend training, mix with colleagues socially etc outside of normal working hours then I’d be checking in with her as a boss , to ensure she realises if partner going she won’t see him except in bed! (Not quite put it as that , but certainly I’d be laying out policy to a member of my team travelling for first time). If she doesn’t want to travel on those terms then she can say no, she doesn’t want to go . If she’s signed a contract saying she will have to travel and she refuses, then that’s a contractual issue.

Ignoring Edinburgh, Dublin and Belfast, the closest other capitals (Amsterdam and Brussels) are closer in distance and time than Paris and about the same as London

This is bollocks. I went to London with a girlfriend when we were 15. She’d never been to London. We stayed in Kent with a distant relative, got old green line bus in each morning and used underground. We were both Yorkshire lassies but we didn’t get lost or scared once. I’ve been countless times since. My dc now lives in London, I take tube, busses etc all over when I go to see him.
it is really very hard to get lost in London. Tube is virtually foolproof as if you miss your stop, get out, cross over, come back. London public transport is a doddle compared to other cities or rural areas.
yes, there’s an element of safety on your own. But unlikely during the day and even in early evening loads of people around. You even have London transport police, the equivant of that doesn’t exist on my rural train line.

he’s just putting blocks in your mind as a “helpless woman”…I’ve travelled all over the world with work even in places like Brazil. Get yourself informed about area you’re the selling though, plan your journeys, take the sensible precautions almost all women do whenever they’re out on their own.

if he wants a cheap visit to London, fair do, but jeez to make it about protecting you is sheer gaslighting.

fwiw, you need to read your companies travel policies. Or speak to HR, AND your manager or whoever is going to approve your expenses.. You need to be very clear what you can and can’t do. Some companies are sniffy about partner travel as travel then becomes a “perk”. Others are more “you’re doing us a favour to agree to travel so if you can get something back- fair enough”. It just depends on company.

my company was ok but certain rules

1. they would not pay for any extension to stays beyond business need (applies whether partner going or not)
2. they would not pay anything but my airplane seat according with policies. That meant I couldn’t change times or pre book special seats to sit with partner, e.g. local cheap Europe (eg pre booking seats I’d have to cover of wanted to sit togther)
3. they’d pay for my meals only - partner would need to pay for theirs. Simple as just ask for split bills. But my meals had to fall within company rules around alcohol etc. more complex if eating in hotel.
4. double room supplement would need to be paid by me. Separately. And that could be an absolute pain as our booking system at work only allowed single occupancy. I’d have to then call hotel direct and make a seperate payment /booking for double occupancy

NEVER, EVER, just try to “sneak” a partner into your hotel room or a business trip. That certainly would be disciplinary event. Be upfront, ask and gain approval before you go . Sneaking someone into your hotel room is a fire risk anyway - my company would have had my bollocks for that as a health and safety breach.

BUT, in the 20 odd years I travelled with work partner only came with me 3 times (literally I must have made over 150 journeys/stays within uk, Europe and intercontinental all way to Australia, Japan etc ). And all 3 were when I first started out with work travel. I learnt very very quickly that work travel is exhausting. Your days tend to be long, packed full to get through agenda needed in shortest possible time to reduce travel costs. There’s often a lot of evening work social contact needed- again becuase you’re trying to cram building relationships into as short a time as possible. Having to “worry” about what your partner will do, whilst you’re just trying to get through day, and potentially evening and be as flexible as possible is a stress that’s not needed. There’s nothing worse than you have a tough day, arriving back at hotel at 7pm, having left at 7:30am, just exhausted, to have a partner who’s been bumming around all day enjoying themselves and now wants to paint the town red.
we soon realised that it is NOT a pleasure, there’s literally no time for leisure and we were better leaving our travel and break times to planned holidays we could both fully enjoy together.

Surely the issue is when the room was booked it was booked for one, not two? Fire regs, etc.

I'd have agreed except for OP's update that her DH thinks she couldn't/shouldn't negotiate the London underground solo. That's a very odd reason to accompany her, especially when he supposedly doesn't know London either. Controlling men very often hobble women by exaggerating the dangers of doing things independently.

She also mentions that it would be "bliss" to come alone and be child-free, which suggests they have children. If he's planning to join her in London so he doesn't have to do any solo parenting in her absence...well, he wouldn't be the first on MN and it sucks. And if he's planning that they should bring the kids too for the same reason, that would be totally unacceptable and would suggest he doesn't have much respect for her career imo.

When a guy brings his wife it also says "cheater and she does't trust him" in my view (have definitely seen this with at least 2 of my managers).

Bit of a weird take. Every time I have been with Dh it's because he has invited me. Sometimes I fancy it, sometimes I don't. Same with DH's colleagues. DH will let me know which of the wives are going, if any. They have the same take as me, yeah, if we know it's a great hotel and a place we fancy going.

I was fine until I mentioned it to DH, he was like do you really want to get on the tube to central London by yourself, I wouldn't recommend it!

Because this, after the OP said no to him going, is absolutely not “it’s nice opportunity to see the sights…”

There is more to arts and culture than tickets to the Lion King.

PS I love the Lion King.

Actually, I’m just thinking about it now and I can’t see how any company can say no to this.

If one of my team members asked if their OH could join them on a work trip I would be hard pressed to find a justification for telling them what they can and can’t do outside of their working hours.

How can a company say whether or not you can spend an evening with your husband and even if they tried, how could they monitor that? You are entitled to a private life. They are paying for a bed in hotel as you can’t sleep at home, it’s none of their business if you choose to share that bed with someone.

😂😂
Why the fuck is everything 'controlling' on here?!
Maybe he thinks it's a nice opportunity to see the sights and have a couple of nights in a hotel? Loads of people do it and how would anyone know?

As I and others have posted before, it’s fine for him to accompany you, but I am now inferring that you don’t necessarily want him to? It sounds as though he is trying to undermine you, both as an individual (London is unsafe LOL) and even as a professional. If you can bare the white lie, I would say that company policy doesn't allow it as you have a single room booked and that there will be a couple of boring evening functions you need to attend, so he would be on his own anyway….

And while you’re away, building your confidence, raising you professional profile, you can have a think about the subtext of his wanting to come and what that says about you and your marriage.

And how long, including the check in time, does it take you to get to the closest mainland capital, Paris? And how expensive is it?

But I was telling you that it was entirely normal for people in the insurance industry who used to come from London to our part of the world on work trips.