This story is part of The New Era of Work Travel, a collaboration between the editors of WIRED and Condé Nast Traveler to help you navigate the perks and pitfalls of the modern business trip.

“There are always surprises [on the road], so I carve out time for myself,” says Kelly Wearstler, the design eye behind Proper Hotels, who might have a mint tea before bed or a double macchiato before dawn; or apply face oils that tell her body it’s morning or midnight—small touch points that carry a whiff of life at home, keep the beat of one’s internal rhythm, and make a hotel room feel less borrowed. Christa Cotton, the New Orleans-based founder of El Guapo Bitters, takes a similar tack. Wherever she touches down, she unpacks fully, even if she’s gone by morning, then lights a votive candle—from her own brand, of course—and walks a local grocery aisle. (“Even unfamiliar shelves can spark my next million dollar idea,” she says.) And for Mauricio Umansky, founder and CEO of The Agency, a global luxury real estate brokerage, a fitness routine is the key: He packs a jump rope wherever he goes, and stretches with resistance bands between calls. Even a fully populated Netflix queue—much of which he’ll doze off to, he admits—is part of a routine designed to hold him steady, wherever business takes him. All this, Umansky says, “helps me feel human.”

That instinct for ritual is also felt by people in the tourism industry working behind the scenes to meet travelers’ evolving needs. Tim Harrington, who shapes boutique hotels along Maine’s coastline for