“Living on the road my friend, is going to keep you free and clean
Now you wear your skin like iron
Your breath as hard as kerosene”
- Townes Van Zandt

Living on the road is harder than it used to be. Not just for itinerant musicians like Townes Van Zandt but for anyone who makes their living going from one place to another.

I just watched a documentary on Van Zandt, who had an interesting perspective on why some musicians make it big and some don’t. He said to make it, a musician has to show up in as many places as to get their name out.

The model for success in politics and business is the same.  Frequent business travelers are called ‘road warriors’.  Doing battle is their life.

They're battling high gas prices, increased airport security, crowded airports, delayed flights, traffic jams, road construction, higher hotel prices, decreases in customer service, and the general feeling that life on the road is becoming a struggle.

There are a number of stories about how people are coping with the changes.  Some make fewer sales calls, but most suck it up and travel anyway. Others use e-mail and the telephone more.

I was the ultimate road warrior.   In 1999, I reached elite flying status on three different airlines. It wasn't that hard to be a road warrior then.  It was easy to get in and out of airports. Planes were not as crowded, and with my elite status, I usually flew first class.  Even if I flew coach, it was in a large plane.

September 11, 2001 changed the concept of flying.  I flew within a few days after the attack. I flew from Memphis to Cincinnati on a completely empty plane and two days later, spent four hours in the Baltimore airport  explaining that I was not a terrorist.  My mistake was buying a one-way ticket as I had missed my earlier flight on another airline. 

I wouldn’t get on a plane for a couple of years after Baltimore. I drove thousands of miles to avoid air travel.  This was the first year when air travel was starting to become pleasant again.  

Now, I think that heightened security measures are going to push me back to driving. I flew to Chicago last month.  I am driving this month.  

It would be cheaper to fly.  With gasoline prices high and air travel inconvenient, businesses will be looking for new alternatives.

Video conferencing could fill some of the void.  Technology is getting better. If you look at hot web sites like Youtube.com,  you see that more people are learning to make video clips.

An idea that might develop more quickly is an airplane taxi service. Some companies are moving into using small private planes to ferry people.  They can go to small airports and places where commercial jetliners don’t go now.

If it becomes economical, the concept will work. It will allow road warriors to get where they need to go with more ease than commercial airlines now offer.

All this get back to Townes Van Zandt. He was a guy with a lot of personal issues, but he was dedicated to the craft of song writing. There were times when he did not really live anywhere; he just stayed on the road.

A lot of business people do the same thing.  Some break through in their fields like Van Zandt did in his.

Townes is not a household name although it seems like every performer in Texas and Nashville pays homage to him.   He’s best known for writing “Pancho and Lefty”.  It was a monster hit for Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard and a hit for Emmy Lou Harris too  (I like Emmy Lou’s version better).

Van Zandt persisted until he crafted a song that will stand for the ages. 

When that next generation of Townes Van Zandts, Bill Gates, or Bill Clintons come along, their success will have been won only after having spent years on the road seeing people, building an audience, and developing their craft.

There may be solutions on the horizon, but living on the road is not as free and clean as it used to be.

Don McNay is Chairman of the Board for McNay Settlement Group.   You can write to him at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it or read other things he has written at www.donmcnay.com. His award-winning column is syndicated on the CNHI News Service.