Dora Hsu won't stop traveling until the whole world speaks Google....

As the company's partner solutions director, she's responsible for staffing Google offices worldwide with engineers, programmers, and salespeople. Since joining the company in 2001, she has established sites in London, Tokyo, New York, Sydney, Delhi, São Paulo, Frankfurt, Gröbenzell, Hong Kong, and Hyderabad—not to mention her own office at Google's headquarters in Mountain View, California.

These days her main focus is Beijing, where Google opened an office in 2006 with the hope of fielding more Chinese clients and pulling past local search engine Baidu.com. The Taiwan native didn't have to adjust to the local language, but the local aggressiveness was another matter.

"In the U.S., we have the luxury of people always queuing up," she says. "At the airport, I was standing in line for a very long time trying to change my ticket, and people just kept cutting." But after four visits, Hsu has learned to elbow her way into the airline employee's face. "People there are great at multitasking. They can help 10 customers at once, so they don't mind if you're crowded around their counter."

It was a rare case of being caught off guard by foreign quirks—Hsu usually studies for business trips like an honors student, while en route to her destination. And no run-of-the-mill travel guide will do. "I ask friends from each country to send office training DVDs from local companies and watch them on my laptop on the plane, so that I get the right accent," she says.

She's just as scrupulous when it comes to travel arrangements. Hsu learned how fraud-sensitive credit card companies have become when she had her card rejected on a recent trip abroad. "The day before I travel, I call all my credit card companies and let them know where I'll be traveling so my card won't be blocked," she says. And she always charges her cell phone the night before. After a long flight, she says, there's nothing worse than watching your cell phone power down as you wait for your luggage.

As for hotels in Beijing, it was love at first sight with the Shangri-La. "They have superb service. You feel like you're at home," she says, ticking off the hotel's amenities, which include slippers and, more important, a decent hair dryer. Hsu chooses hotels that let her leave a lot at home; a room that comes with appliances gets extra points, since it saves her the hassle of lugging along voltage adapters.

Needless to say, she first found the Shangri-La online. "I look online at what's popular, and get user feedback—using Google Local, of course."