Sounds like sound advice -- except that I'm not sure I agree. I have found that sacrificing a little bit of free time to staying connected while traveling typically makes exit and re-entry -- when the most draining work of travel and vacationing takes place -- go much more smoothly. In the end, checking in a few times during your vacation is a small price to pay to avoid returning home to a chaotic swarm of neglected responsibilities.

Some folks wouldn't take a walk without all their devices, while others can't wait to jettison everything and get off the communication grid. When my own five-year-old cell phone suffered some water damage,

Laptop, cell phone, tablet -- take 'em along, leave 'em home, take your pick? Let's say most of us have three primary email addresses (work, home, alternate) and matching triple voice mails (work, home, cell). That's a lot of stuff to check while you're trying to unwind; a couple of hours can pass in a blink by the time you have gotten through them all.

Less to Do Before and After Your Trip

As mentioned above, I believe the most compelling reason to stay connected on the road is to reduce the strain of both leaving and returning. As comfortable as home can be, few things can diminish the glow of a good trip quite as quickly as arriving home to find that two weeks of the detritus of modern life has been accumulating in your absence and that it'll take days to clear it out.

I would say that the only thing worse than a pile of junk mail in a plastic USPS box and fading newspapers on your stoop is a "mail box is full" message on your voicemail and a couple dozen screens worth of email on your first login when you get home.

And it's not just when you get home. Leaving notes for dog walkers, putting your house in order and letting everyone who might want your attention know that you will be away is almost always more trouble than checking email for a few minutes in a hotel room every day. While traveling, if you can dispatch tasks and information with short, concise emails written in a few seconds during your trip, there is a lot less accumulated clutter when you return, and less to do before you leave.

Fewer Surprises

The only thing worse than returning from a trip to an inbox full of nuisance emails is finding out too late that a major problem has come up. Keeping in touch with work and personal email semi-regularly is the best way to keep on top of big events. It also gives you...

Increased Control

Trying to fix big problems from a hotel is not a fun place to find yourself. If you have a speedy laptop stocked with all your likely contacts, you'll be well positioned to deal with anything that goes wrong.

Lowered Expectations

An "away" or "vacation" auto response message followed up with an email with a footer that reads "sent from my cell phone" lets you get away with murder in terms of brevity and specificity -- folks are just grateful to get a reply so they can keep working on or stop worrying about whatever it is for which they needed your attention.

Motel 6 Salt Lake City

315 W 3300 S.

Salt Lake City, UT 84115

801 486-8780

www.motel6.com