How to Navigate an International TDY Visit

After almost ten years of military service, I finally got to visit my husband while he was on an international TDY. It’s something I’ve wanted to do since we first started dating. So when the perfect opportunity came up, I decided it was now or never. Since we’ll never be stationed overseas, visiting during an international TDY was a way to get a taste of all the amazing places my husband gets to go while I hold down the fort. 

Depending on your partner’s role in the military, this could be done during any variety of trips, from an unaccompanied tour to a deployment. While the general considerations will likely still apply, my husband’s an Air Force pilot and I visited for two weeks during a five-week TDY to New Zealand. If this is something you’ve been interested in doing, here are some tips and takeaways from my trip. 

Things to Consider:

1. Who’s paying for it

The military won’t be paying for your time there. In my experience, travel costs can spiral so it was important to think about how the expenses fit in our budget and within the per diem my husband was getting. For us, the most expensive costs were boarding our dog for fifteen days and the cost of a rental car, since the cars provided during the TDY were not available for our personal use. The currency exchange rate in the country you’ll be visiting will also be a budget consideration, so make sure to consider the “real” cost of the trip.

2. How to get there

Depending on the length of the TDY and the certainty of it, it might make sense to book flights well in advance or to travel using stand-by tickets. For some locations, flying Space-A could be an option as well. What I ended up doing was booking a flight with flexible change and cancellation. I ended up changing my flights twice before actually landing in Christchurch but liked that I had tickets booked because I’m a planner.

3. Where you’ll stay

Depending on the TDY, there are three options for where to stay. You can stay with your partner in their provided lodging, you can stay together in a hotel you’re paying for out of pocket, or you can stay in private lodging while your partner stays in the provided lodging. These choices will impact the cost of the trip and how much time you can spend together. Your partner should know which option will make the most sense depending on the location and the TDY’s mission.

4. Who will (or won’t) be working

Your partner will be working while you visit, and if you have a flexible or remote role, you can work too. Working while in New Zealand allowed me to stay longer without having to burn through paid time off. Still, TDYs are unpredictable. While I was visiting the jet “hard broke” for almost six days. Because of these unknowns, keeping your expectations low and planning day-by-day is the way to go. It’s also important to remember any time off your partner has is still within the parameters of work, so there will be limits on things like how far they can go for a day trip or if they can drink alcohol.

5. Who to bring

While my husband and I don’t have kids, this trip would have been pretty kid-friendly. Whether bringing your kids along makes sense will really depend on the location, the length of the stay, your budget, and the type of mission being done. This could also be a good time for your kids to spend quality time with their grandparents or godparents if it’s an experience you want to have one-on-one! Alternatively, this could be a great opportunity to show your kids what their mommy/daddy does and what is happening on the other side of those “see ya laters.”

Things You Get to Experience:

1. The crew life

The most important thing to realize about this trip is that it’s not a romantic vacation with a bunch of your partner’s coworkers. Instead, you’re crashing their work trip. Getting to experience first-hand the “crew life” was the most exciting part of my visit. We went on hikes and to dinner in big groups. I learned so much about my husband’s crew, who’s involved in getting the mission done, and what their roles are. I learned a lot about the dynamics and closeness they have on the road. It’s a unique part of my husband’s military career that is difficult to compare to “corporate” coworker dynamics. Hand-down, this was the most valuable experience of the trip. 

2. Shop talk

There will be no getting away from shop talk on a TDY. Every day there’s some new aspect of the mission to consider, from maintenance to timeline and beyond. Instead of being annoyed by the constant chatter about work, I leaned into it and took it as a learning experience. I am much more knowledgeable now than I was before about my husband’s skills, and also about the whole underlying ecosystem of the military that works to support missions. If you’re one of those milso who doesn’t like shop talk, this kind of trip might not be for you. 

3. Work-life balance on the road 

Another thing I got to experience was how my husband balances work and life on TDY. Routines are hard to keep up on the road, including diet, exercise, and sleep schedule. It’s easy for us at home to get frustrated when a phone call is delayed or canceled for a schedule change, but it’s even easier to get frustrated when your partner is golfing with their crew or out for a run instead of checking in with you. However, managing the time differences and different responsibilities is challenging and I have a better understanding of how my husband balances work and life on the road. On the road, there’s work, life, and life back home, and all three need to be taken care of. 

4. It can get old!

I know. How can summer in New Zealand get old? It’s easy, from my rainy home in Tacoma, to feel jealous or annoyed when my spouse says “I can’t wait to get home,” when he’s at a bucket-list vacation destination. But regardless of where he is, it’s not home and it will always get old eventually. There’s the whiplash of schedule changes and alerts. There’s the flurry of messages that need responses, the tasks from the desk job back home that still need to get done somehow. There’s the lack of a real kitchen and fresh food, not to mention you’re wearing the same pants over and over. Of course, there are still exciting aspects of most TDYs, but a long trip can become tedious, especially when the mission isn’t going as planned. 

5. The back burner

Your brain can only process so many things as urgent, so when on a TDY, a lot of important things go to the back burner of the brain. The problem with the back burner is that sometimes those things are boiling over and need our attention, but they just can’t get the prioritization that they deserve. I was able to talk with my husband about how his priorities are managed while on TDY and saw first-hand how some really important issues we were dealing with back home just had no space on the burner. This experience will make me more thoughtful in the future. For example, during his next trip, I might not casually bring up a big decision we need to make on a good-night phone call. Instead, I might text, “hey, we need to figure out XYZ. I know that’s not top of mind right now, but if you can give it some thought, maybe we can discuss it tomorrow when you have time.”

Final Thoughts 

My time in New Zealand was really priceless. It was worth it not just to experience all the beautiful things that the area had to offer, but to experience the amazing crew of pilots, loadmasters, maintainers, and Reserve personnel, all working together to complete a really exciting mission. If you’re a milso who can get stressed out or jealous of your partner’s constant travel, I highly recommend this experience to refine your understanding and expectations of a TDY.