It can be tiring - and I don’t do it all the time. The reason to travel at all for work is fundamentally relational; I find if I am happy with the relationships the travel on balance is a net positive: it lets me work on what I want to and meet and befriend super interesting people.
That slight difference in agency and relational availability turns into a giant gap in feelings though, I agree. I’ve done the kind of travel you describe in my younger days and found it a mix of masochistically engaging and depression inducing.
Ah I see, I thought this was like a constant thing like it was for me. My flights were all regional so it wasn't so bad in terms of flight time, but it did take over my life. For example, I often had to be at a meeting at 10-11am monday morning in a country 3 hours flight away. So that meant leaving my house at 1am, driving 2.5 hours to the airport, hurrying through the airport, taking a 6am flight and rushing into a taxi to just get there in time.
By that time my whole weekend would be ruined of course and my week would start with a deep lack of sleep.
And I'm not a relationship guy, I'm a bit autistic so any business gathering means heavy stress for me, no positives.
I'm glad that "let's fly over and have a meeting" culture has been dampened a LOT since the pandemic. At least in the company I work at. It used to be basically a power move, for a manager to get a whole room of seats filled with people flying over to their meeting. Often there was hardly any need for us to be there in the first place. It was just a power move for someone to feel important.
But I'm glad you enjoy it at least some of the time!