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I've done this kind of thing. It's OK, but actually significantly less fun than you might imagine (if you are working). The problem is that you are working al
by mikekchar 6y ago
I've done this kind of thing. It's OK, but actually significantly less fun than you might imagine (if you are working). The problem is that you are working all day 5 days a week and then you are tired during the evening. Everything is new and so you don't have a rhythm going so it's a bit tiring. You get your weekends, but again, it flies by pretty quickly. It's also really tempting not to travel on the weekends because you are tired and then you finish up your time and discover that you haven't done a quarter of the things you wanted to.
My biggest piece of advice is to "practice" first where you live. Empty your refrigerator and pantry. Work during the day and have the adventure of finding food by only going to ethnic supermarkets that you have never been to before. Go out to only restaurants that you've never been to before. Etc, etc.
On the weekends, travel -- even if only to the next town over. Don't use your car. Take a bus, train or whatever. Stay over night. Go hiking. Talk to the locals, etc, etc. Don't stay home.
If you get good at it and you can maintain your energy it will help you a lot when you travel and work. Before Covid, my wife and I would sometimes hop on a train on a Friday (we live in Japan). I would actually work on the train and then I would finish the day in a hotel. Then we would spend Saturday doing tourist things and come home on the Sunday. That worked pretty well for me. But there is no rest!
Also, if you want to work while traveling somewhere (in a car if your wife is driving, on a bus, train, etc) I recommend taking the day off and trying it before you try to do it on a real work day. It's actually quite difficult and requires some setup to get everything working well (good internet connection, setup of a laptop so you can work in a tight space, bright windows shining on your screen, dealing with batteries, etc, etc).
Oddly, I'm super productive in some weird spaces: the shinkansen (bullet train), MacDonald's, highway bus, hotel room, car (when I'm charging it -- electric car), sitting outside in summer in the shade at a Shinto Shrine. But I am completely unproductive in others: airport, airplane (can't open the laptop fully!), car (when it is moving), the beach (too bright and there is sand everywhere).
- em-bee 6y agonot being able to work at a beach is a problem only because of lack of demand. it's absolutely solveable. it's possible to make screens that work on very bright environments, and splash proof casing helps with the sand. when i was using an OLPC XO as my portable travel laptop, i was able to work at a beach just fine.
- mikekchar 6y agoYep. I'm personally waiting for the day when I can get an e-ink laptop. It would be amazing. I don't need color. Just grey scale and even 20 FPS would be fine. But that's not what the greater market demands, unfortunately.
- rconti 6y agoThanks for the input! I'm not sure how long you've been away for, but it sounds like quite some time. If you did it for 3 months, I can see it being difficult, but it seems to me a year or two would be enough to get into a new rhythm in your new place. Just like moving anywhere else. We already go out of town fairly frequently; seems we're away from home at least 1 weekend a month if not 2 or more. During ski season it's quite common for us to go shopping friday night, procure a weekend's worth of groceries, and then live off of those for the weekend. I wouldn't plan to work on the weekends, it would just be living life, but in a different place, and with the ability to travel when we want to. The secondary option of working remotely for a week, then vacationing in that 'remote' place for a week, then going home, would involve no work during the second week, and no 'fun' during the first. Other than seeking out new places in the evenings. I've done enough of that when traveling on business already, to know I'm pretty happy with it.