What does your place count as an expense?

Unless you routinely travel to/from the likes of Cleveland on your days off, synchronized to when a local team happens to be playing there, travel time should be accommodated.

But counting hours? Both sides should be adult about it, and professional.

Best places I've worked, we basically went by "days." You adjusted the hours within that, and the week, as needed. When there was a union involved, bosses and I got into comp time when I clearly was working six or seven days in a week (sometimes even cash OT). Non-union, either no comp time or it was offered at a much stingier rate ("You worked a whole of season of six- and seven-day weeks? Sure, take a week of comp.")

So there were lots of long days and occasional short days, and I just dealt with that. I knew that if I tried to count every last hour at the airport, on planes, in rental cars, in my own car on the highway or sleeping in a hotel, I'd be incentivizing the bosses to have me do phone work. Or give the travel beat to someone who'd be less strident about the time devoted.

Never felt screwed over. Covered good stuff, had interesting trips. And no, I didn't eat travel time whole, as if on my days off or something. But I did have a lot of cover-practice-write-and-travel-to-next-city days that ran 12 hours but I willingly only counted as eight.