Hi Aaron;
and I'll add that you have the same firstname/last initial as one of my colleagues! Scientists are often lucky to be able to travel to a wide variety of places for work, between observatories, attending meetings and workshops, committee meetings (groan!), and simply going to visit other scientists to work for a few days, weeks, or months. With two young children, I have actually not been traveling as much as I did before, and I'll say honestly that sometimes the scientists are working so hard when "on travel" that it becomes difficult to enjoy some of the fantastic places we get to go! We try often to limit our travel when not necessary due to pollution, cost, etc. Yet I have been to workshops in wonderful, beautiful places -- and all I got to see was a meeting room and a whole bunch of computers. Still, on the occaision when the travel is to an interesting place and you can get a little bit of time to explore, it is a wonderful benefit of this kind of work.