I have recently received several ads on LinkedIn regarding workation. I am not sure if I think it sounds stupid or not.
I get the appeal of going south (I am from Denmark, we just had the most rainy summer ever recorded) and enjoy the weather, but at the same time it sounds like the perfect way to not enjoy your time abroad.
I work in a position where I could easily ask to work remote for a week or two, thus the targeting ad is correct that I am in the segment.
Any thoughts, experience or opinion on this?
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Sounds like an expensive way to work with little reward. I’m all for making work as pleasant as possible, but paying to stay in a hotel just to work seems like a bad idea. It could be interesting in some ways in certain positions.
I was surprised when I looked into digital nomad visas last year, how cheap an airbnb was to book for a month out of season.
Edit, missed that they said a week or 2
Sounds like self funded business trip.
The idea of “work vacations” only exists because capitalism demands the entirety of our lives. I’m not working on my vacation, period.
I agree but it’s supposed to be the other way around: Have a bit of vacation while you work. You still get your actual PTO in addition to that which you can use on an actual vacation.
See it never works out that way. My experience has been that I’m stuck working more than I am vacationing, and when I’m not working, I’m thinking about work the whole time. It also means I’m not doing the same level of focused work as I can at home. I have hardcore ADHD and introducing more distractions is something I have to personally steer away from. So I’m either in (fully on a vacation) or I’m out (fully working in my own space). There’s no in between.
I also see it as having vacatio while you work, plus you have plain old vacation without working.
I think that’s a skewed way of looking at it. I can see the appeal if your family is able to take advantage. Like if your kids are off and your spouse doesn’t work (or maybe can also work remotely). That way you can enjoy some nicer weather and a different location and are able to stay longer. It’s definitely not for me because like you said I’d rather just have a vacation, but I think blaming it on capitalism is a bit of an odd way of looking at what’s essentially someone’s lifestyle choice.
The problem is that it gets presented as a way to take time off from your job with “unlimited” vacation time while still working, which of crap.
The idea only works as a more extreme form of remote work. So, remote work where some of the time is at Grandma’s.
not to say all the places that I’ve been to reliability of stuff like Internet, and so on has been very has been very bad in most places you would like to be.  Given you’re expected to perform your normal work. This might be quite stressful.
I’ve had multiple times where I’ve told employers I was working in a new location and 100% of those times I had some sort of new caveat in regards to workspace, internet, etc. that has hindered me.
Come to NZ, we also had a really shit summer!
I have 20 days a year to work anywhere from EU. I mostly use it to go back to my home country and meet friends & family, without having to use up vacation days.
I’m not one to judge. If it works for you, cool. It might be something I’d be willing try. I just don’t know though.
I worked remotely from Caye Caulker Belize for severalmonths and I was literally the dude in this photo, only much more stoned.
I enjoy combining some holiday when I travel for work to new cities (e.g. taking the weekend after a conference). However the idea of being productive away from my home office where things are setup for maximum productivity is silly. I’m 100% WFH but wouldn’t want to combine that with traveling even if I could (family etc).
Some people like the idea but to me that only makes sense if you are basically doing the nomad thing at a cheap location. You’d want to stay in the place for awhile as you’re still spending most of the “vacation” working all day. On your days off you could do more. On an actual vacation you would actually be enjoying yourself the whole time. Traveling to just spend all your time working seems like a waste.
Also just try to work on just a laptop for a week. It sucks. I’m not doing that.
We do it regularly - but from a much different angle than the US is sometimes promoting it.
We take 2-3 weeks off work as everyone does in my country. The problem is: Schools off much longer and neither the wife nor I can get more than 3 weeks off in a row (there are other school holidays to cover as well…). So we usually add another week or one and a half and work with reduced hours (accrued overtime, neither of us works for more than 5h per day) and usually mixed (half the time I take off work, half the time she is off work) time off periods. That works wonders as it is still much more relaxing than being back in the daily grind at home and the location away from home forces you to not do something about all the leftover chores waiting for you at home and often it’s easier to get the kids entertained at a vacation location. That helps a lot.
Actually my friends company explicitly promotes this type of arrangements as they found their staff satisfaction to be much higher this way.
If you just go somewhere else to work from there without time out…well… that’s a fucking business trip. Not a vacation.
One day here and there, sure. Going to another place to work for a week or more? Absolutely stupid. Work is still work, and if you have to work, you might as well work in the best conditions, not on some small screen that you can barely see because of the sun.
This really depends on the type of work you do, the deadlines, how far you go (timezone differences), how much you feel like missing out if you don’t go out to explore.
If all you want is get away from the rain, then it might suit you. Now if you also want to explore and relax, it might get a bit more complicated
How very dystopian
If I’m not being made to overwork, why not? Better than a dreading cubicle
if you work isnt stressful but your workspace is, then it might be interesting… but really shouldnt you just invest the energy and money into making your workspace better for you?
