The nearly week-long shutdown of Northern Europe’s airports has left plenty of businesspeople stranded. And you don’t even have to be from Europe to be affected by the cloud of volcanic ash covering the continent.

Kara Goldin, CEO and founder of HINT, Inc., which sells unsweetened, no-calorie enhanced water, never thought she would find herself in the middle of a travel crisis.

After all, she runs her company from San Francisco, and with only 22 employees, having her business disrupted by a volcano in Iceland was the last thing on her mind as she was getting ready for a board meeting in New York City.

But thanks to an investment by AB-Inbev, maker of Stella Artois and Budweiser, 18 months ago, part of the board lives in Belgium—and needing to fly into New York for a meeting went from being a quick business trip to something short of an odyssey. “Nearly half of the people I’m supposed to meet with are stuck in Belgium because of the volcano,” Goldin said.

And while the Belgians, for the most part, were nonplussed, the American was anxious to find a way to get them Stateside. "I just wanted to make sure we got the meeting going so I can get back to the important job of running my company," she said. "Much as I’d love a day off, it’s not in the budget right now.”

The Ripple Effect of Being Stuck

Hillel Glazer is stuck in Ireland with nowhere to go.

The CEO of Timonium, Maryland, consulting firm Entinex, was scheduled to fly home on Saturday after spending a week in the country on business. But a black cloud of volcanic ash has grounded thousands of flights, leaving Glazer stranded with no immediate certainty for when he may return to his wife and four young kids in Baltimore.

As of Tuesday, Glazer was scheduled to return on Friday. The extra six days in Ireland, he estimates, will cost around $1,000. So who foots the bill? Good question. Glazer and his client plan to meet Wednesday to figure that out.

Meanwhile, not being able to depart Ireland means Glazer is missing a face-to-face meeting with a client in St. Louis. And assuming he makes it home this weekend, he’ll fly to Salt Lake City for a speaking role and return to Baltimore on the same day, losing four days of networking with his main client base. If entirely canceled, he’ll lose the cost of his flight.

A Steep Price Home

Ryan Allis, head of email marketing company iContact of Durham, North Carolina, managed to take the Eurostar train from London to Paris, where some flights were taking off and leaving Tuesday. Allis had been been stuck at London's Heathrow Airport since last week, he said in an email to Portfolio.com.

Getting home now, he's found, isn't cheap.

"The one-way flight prices to USA from Paris and Madrid are now $3,000 to $4,000," he said in his email. So he was planning on catching a flight to Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, Wednesday.

"It is an adventure," he wrote.

Allis said he wasn't overly concerned about being away from his 200-strong business for the extended period. "Fortunately our team at iContact in Durham is strong and can manage the business well," he said.

No Rest for the Concierge

For Lisa Grossberg's foreign guests at the Buckingham Hotel in Manhattan, the adventure has been an extra long one. And Grossberg, the general manager, and her staff, have been trying to work with guests extending their stays, as well as those who can't come take advantage of their reservations.

“In all my years this is not something that I thought I would have to deal with—volcanic ash,” she said. “There’s really nothing anybody can do.”

Steven Kipnis of the Affinia Manhattan Hotel said around 100 rooms at his hotel were occupied by foreign guests, and that his staff was trying to be as helpful as possible to those who have had to extend their stay as many as five or six days.

“It’s an unsettling time for them, and understandably,” he said.

“Our concierge is working night and day,” checking flights from New York to Europe.

Gig Gwin, owner of Gwins Travel in Kirkwood, Missouri, said he has about 20 customers stuck in Europe and about 10 who have managed to get back to St. Louis.

Several are in Frankfurt, Germany, and most are business travelers. He said he has at least 10 European vacation travelers who haven’t left St. Louis.

“I called our international department, and she told me, ‘I don’t have time to talk; I’m too busy,’” Gwin said. “This is the only time in my 40-year career that I’ve experienced a whole continent not flying.

“We’re trying to route people through Madrid and Barcelona, but it’s hard to get them there,” he said. Few seats are available on trains, and rental cars are almost nonexistent. “I had a guy in Madrid who found a moving van and drove it to Paris,” shades of John Candy and the Kenosha Kickers in Home Alone.