A good work-life balance is something that many professionals seek to maintain throughout their career. One of the easiest ways to work towards that balance is by engaging in “bleisure” travel – the trend of adding leisure activities, often including family members, during business trips.

According to a recent survey of 1,000 U.S. frequent business travelers by leading car rental agency National Car Rental, 90% of Millennials, 81% of Generation Xers, and 80% of Baby Boomers engage in bleisure travel each year.

The survey also shows that 87% of parents engaged in bleisure, with 35% of them saying that they’ve extended business travel to include leisure activities in large part because it is less work than planning a separate family vacation.

Home-Away-From-Home Accommodations for Spouses and Children

Dharma Home Suites’ spacious, furnished, and serviced apartments are very well-suited for bleisure, especially when younger children are involved.

Compared to traditional hotels, our upscale apartments have living rooms, bedrooms, fully-stocked kitchens with refrigerator, stovetop, dishwasher, and in-unit washer-dryer – all for a price that’s comparable to nearby 4-star hotel rooms with just a bed and bathroom.

For a parent on a business trip that includes his/her spouse and children, it’s not difficult to imagine which type of accommodations might be more suitable for young, active, and excited kids. In an apartment, healthy snacks and drinks can be left in the home-sized refrigerator for children to consume at any time day or night, clothing can be washed and dried at any time day or night without paying expensive service fees, and just in case brothers and sisters get into fights (like most kinds tend to do), the chances of them making up quickly is probably better if there are separate bedrooms/living rooms where they can cool off, rather than having to see each other when tempers are still hot and it’s too easy to fight over who gets the remote control to the only television in the hotel room!

If the working parent(s) need to work or take calls after hours, it’s much more preferable to have a private bedroom where this can take place while the rest of the family enjoys the living room.

In short, Dharma provides a home-away-from-home experience while you and your family are on the road.

Not Just for Families, Also for Friends

For single business travelers looking to bring close friends along on their trip, Dharma’s apartments offer an attractive alternative to hotels for many similar reasons.

For significantly less than the cost of multiple hotel rooms of comparable quality, close friends can stay together while still maintaining suitable privacy.

A group of friends staying in a 3 bed 2 bath apartment for example, can buy groceries, cook together in our fully stocked kitchens with cookware, and then enjoy a meal together at the apartment’s dining table using our utensils. When the meal is over, the dishwasher makes cleaning up much easier. Later, people who are tired can wash up and go to bed earlier, while those with energy can play cards in the living room without bothering their sleeping friends.

Even if takeout is preferred over cooking, most larger parties would prefer a nice dining table to eating on a hotel room bed.

Next Time, Think Dharma

As travel for both business and pleasure increasingly become the norm, we invite all bleisure travelers to consider Dharma’s upscale serviced apartments, with modern furnishings and décor, as an attractive alternative – especially if traveling with family and core a group of close friends.

Here at Dharma, we certainly practice what we preach…when our own employees travel and stay in our accommodations, most of the time it’s for bleisure. We bring our family, we invite our friends, and we constantly work on improving this experience for ourselves and our guests.

We hope to see you soon.