It sounds to me like this isn't a vacation at all: it's just a business trip, paid for by the employee's company.
<< Matej Hrescak, a product designer at Facebook, spent several weeks at the Surf Office on Gran Canaria in the Canary Islands, near one of the island’s noted surfing beaches.
“I really appreciate long uninterrupted periods of work time in order to dive deep into a particular problem, and having a destination where you’re far away from usual distractions made this possible,” he said. The high-speed Internet, fully stocked office, access to a kitchen and camaraderie of other guests at barbecues, biking trips and other planned group activities, he added, all contributed to his productivity. >>
I wouldn't be very happy if I were expected to contribute to travel or lodging while "co-working on vacation" - or if the trip used up any vacation time.
The use of the word vacation in relation to remote work is definitely odd.
I personally have been a full-time remote worker for over 3 years now (I'm Australian but sitting in an apartment in Barcelona right now) and work with a bunch of other remote workers. We very definitely have very distinct holidays/vacation time. Our work and personal lives are just as separate as a regular in-person worker. The only difference is that when I go on vacation I don't typically have to go anywhere as I have previously relocated to my desired vacation spot.
Did you have to obtain any special visa or permits for this?
Do you happen to know if it also works the other way round? For example, suppose I'm from the EU, can I travel to Australia as a tourist and legally telework from there?
These articles like to paint a rosy picture of just jumping a plane with your laptop to an exotic location. The reality if you want to be legal is different and much more difficult that that.
Those are actually rather interesting questions. The completely honest answer is I don't really know. The man in the street will typically say "of course you need a work permit" but I am not so sure.
The practical answer is no, you don't need any kind of special visa or permit.
Generally the notion of a remote worker (a foreigner who is employed in their home country while physically being in other countries) fits very poorly with immigration/visa rules. Those things move at a glacial pace and have in no way kept up with technology (generally speaking).
The assumption underpinning pretty much everyone's work permit/visa rules is that a foreigner wanting to physically work in the local environment will be employed by locals ie they will participate in the local labor market, will take money from a local employer and be competing with locals for jobs. Alternatively you might be a visiting business person wanting to do business with a local company.
However I am Australian, I am legally an Australian resident, my employer is Australian, 100% of the financials (bank accounts, all paperwork) is in Australia and I pay tax in Australia. I have never taken a cent from a local business or individual, I am not participating in the local labor market in any way and I have no interest in doing business with local companies. I don't even have a local bank account or a local permanent address. Even if I registered to pay income tax in another country the amount would be $0 because I am not earning any money here. My work doesn't touch the local environment anymore than someone on holiday checking their email or taking a phone call from home.
So in practice, as far as the host country is concerned, I am simply a tourist. If anyone asks about my plans (which they very very rarely ever do) I am simply taking an extended trip (which is the truth) and I can show sufficient means of support (ie money in the bank).
As for the legality of this I am uncertain. I certainly don't have any ethical concerns. Were I to not do any work while visiting a country the local labor market would not be affected in any way, some locals would be deprived of additional income on which they presumably pay tax and a company back home would be deprived of an experienced worker if I was forced to not do my work while visiting other countries. No one is harmed by what I do and a lot of people derive some benefit from it.
"I wouldn't be very happy if I were expected to contribute to travel or lodging while "co-working on vacation" - or if the trip used up any vacation time."
This is the kicker. It sounds like an absolutely fantastic opportunity...so long as you still get your normal vacation days to take as you want.
If this is meant to replace vacation time though then it's simply another contribution in the race to the work/life balance bottom.
Did Mr. Hrescak have a special visum for this, to be able to work in the EU as an US citizen? (I assume he's an US citizen because it is meant he's from Facebook).
It doesn't work the other way round. If I remember correctly, one is not allowed to telework from the USA on a tourist visum.
It is more the combination of having a desk with fast internet, being able to network with others and having fun.
The idea of combining work&travel is more applicable to location independent entrepreneurs and freelancers that can work from anywhere whenever they want.
If you are an employee then it's "just" like working from a coworking space remotely. But if you work on your own projects, it's really about the inspiring environment with like minded people.
Yeah. At one point in time I worked remotely in costa rica with the same kind of idea, to have a "working vacation", and it ended up just being plain old work because we were always too busy and pressured with our workload to enjoy our surroundings.
I'm wondering whether they would have to send people to the Canary Islands to do focused work, if they gave developers private offices instead of cramming them into their famous open floor plan.
I'm hoping to try the co-working vacation this year to see for myself if I'm still as productive in a new city or country without being distracted by wanting to explore this new place I'm in. I think having a space where other freelancers and startups are working would make it easier to get up do some work around like minded people and still enjoy a new place.
It's a different twist on traveling that doesn't bind you to trying to see as much as you can in the 3 weeks you have off a year. You can really get to know a city or country if you stay there for longer. I don't really want a work life balance, I want it more intertwined so that I can do my work while living my life and co-working might just give me a chance to do so. Joel at Buffer was right about not wanting to have a deferred live plan where we work to then enjoy life.(1) I think with today's technology and forward thinking bosses and company's its possible to do great work wherever we are.
I still need to test this out and see if I am actually productive. This fall I spent a week in Vancouver and a week in Fernie and was really productive even in a new environment. I think the co-working spaces around the world will just make it that much easier for me to do longer trips. I'll have the reliable internet and quite space if needed to do good work without worrying about the wifi at coffeeshops and worrying about my gear being stolen if I get up and use the bathroom.
Serious question, what is a "co-working vacation"? If you are working surely your employer doesn't expect you to use your vacation time.
I have been remote working full-time for over 3 years while my wife and I have traveled around and do not blur my work and my vacations so I find the term "co-working vacation" puzzling.
I agree putting the word vacation in there just confuses things.
I would often add vacations on after business trips. I was on the east coast if I go give a seminar in Colorado then I take a week vacation after than and then return. You could call that a working vacation but it is more confusing than anything. It is traveling for work, doing work, then talking a vacation, then returning home.
In the article my guess is some people might have a vacation planned and then they work out a deal to work remotely for a week. In that case wrapping work into a vacation. Which is fine if that is what someone wants to do, in my option. Take a week for vacation (perhaps in Northern California) then work for a week there, then perhaps a week in Oregon. Then back to work in Boston.
Certainly if you are working all day to call that a vacation is not the right word. That is working remotely.
It seems to me the article is really talking about short term digital nomads. And there are some interesting ideas along these lines. There are people that organize a group of software developers and designers to work in a nice location where they can be social together and have people to share work with and find collaborations. In my experience the people that join are essentially working for themselves or perhaps they and their partner go together. There really isn't a reason someone from some big company couldn't work there too. It is just usually the big companies don't take to odd arrangements like this would be.
It has all the aspects of a vacation except for the vacation part. Working from an enjoyable location does not make it a vacation.
It's remote work, not vacation. The ability to remote from various locations part or all of the year may be an interesting job perk, but if it burns vacation days you're just getting shafted.
If I'm doing remote work in Paris instead of upstate NY, I'm going to probably feel like it's at least partially a vacation as I'm going to be walking the Seine in the evenings and visiting landmarks on the weekend.
There's more than one aspect to a vacation. Many people specifically take vacation so that they can travel. The end goal isn't necessarily time not working, it's experiencing new things in new places.
Never said there was only one way to spend your vacations.
> Many people specifically take vacation so that they can travel.
So?
> The end goal isn't necessarily time not working
The point of vacation very much to have time off. What you do with that time off is up to you (possibly up to working at an other job), but if it's not time off it's not vacation.
> it's experiencing new things in new places.
And if you can negotiate to do that without taking vacations more power to you, but again vacation is time off.
How about a working-vacation, where your company pays you to go to a place you always wanted to go.. you work during regular hours, and enjoy the people,food,sites and other amenities the rest of the time.
> I don't really want a work life balance, I want it more intertwined so that I can do my work while living my life and co-working might just give me a chance to do so.
The latter part of that sentence seems like an apt description of a work/life balance to me.
At the end of the week I'm setting out on something similar. I work for a startup that lets employees work one month a year from anywhere. I'm flying to Hong Kong and then onwards to Koh Lanta in Thailand for a month. Beautiful beaches and (reportedly) decent wifi. There's even a coworking space. The company offers a cash bonus to cover some of the expenses and I used frequent flyer miles for the ticket so I'm only out a few hundred bucks from my own pocket for this excursion.
I've been to Koh lanta as well, mostly at Klong Nin beach which is a bit more off than the rest of the island but nice enough. Really liked the chill vibe of the island compare to some of the other places.
Don't forget to check out mong bar for their various "full moon parties" and Rasta baby bar which is really cosy reggae bar on Klong Nin.
If anyone has tips on where to work and/or stay on the rest of the island I'd appreciate it, might go back and remote work some later this year
I just came from Koh Lanta. Amazing place, quite literally the most beautiful one I've ever been to. I spent a few days in Ko Phi Phi, which is great for partying, then went to Koh Lanta to chill. It's incredibly relaxed vibes. I went to Hong Kong afterward and spent the whole time there missing Koh Lanta!
I've only been to Koh Phangan and Koh Samui before so I'm definitely looking forward to checking out the Andanaman Sea side. Since I'll be working I decided I don't want to move around islands, just pick one place and work there.
I wonder about the legal aspects of this. I guess one cannot come from Asia/Europe to the USA on a tourist visum and legally telework from there. Other countries seem to have trouble with foreign teleworkers, too. Wasn't there an article about a police raid on a Thai coworking space, a while ago?
But I guess it's allright if you're from Sweden and travel to Spain to enjoy the Mediterrean during the day and work in the evening (both countries are in the EU).
> I guess one cannot come from Asia/Europe to the USA on a
> tourist visa and legally telework from there. Other
> countries seem to have trouble with foreign teleworkers,
> too.
I'm not aware of any country taking enforcement action, or even attempting too, as long as you're not disguising employment in the host country. Who benefits, seriously? Make sure you're legally resident somewhere where all your business activities are being conducted via, and that you're paying tax there.
Who wants to be the first country to say that tourists can't check their work email while on holiday?
> Wasn't there an article about a police raid on a Thai coworking
> space, a while ago?
Yes, but it came down to a misunderstanding about what was going on there. Chiang Mai police later further clarified that they're fine with tourists tapping away on their laptops:
The people doing this also aren't likely doing visa runs, they'll just come in under the 30-day visa free entry and then go home once it expires. Much harder to get caught that way.
Though I did read rumors of Thai police cracking down on a coworking center in Phuket.
> as long as you're not disguising employment in the host country
Indeed, and they may well ask you if your trip is personal or related to your work. And deny you entry if it is work related and you don't have the appropriate paperwork.
Upon entering any country with visa requirements you are asked - what is the purpose of your visit? If you answer "work" then you need a work visa, simple as that.
This is completely untrue in practice, without resorting to maximum pedantry.
For example, when entering the US for a business trip under ESTA, you will be asked at customs for the purpose of your trip. If you say "I'm here to see some clients for business, and I plan to spend all my free time answering email and catching up on work", you will still gain entry, even though you plan to PERFORM WORK IN THE USA. This is also true of almost every visa-on-arrival country.
You are also making the mistake of thinking that governments are monolithic in caring about these things.
Border control only care about if you're planning to overstay your welcome, and care about employment only as a precursor to that. The relevant labour department cares about if you're going to seek employment while you're there, but generally they're not present at the border. The tax authorities don't really care about either of those, but want to know if you'll have income arising in their jurisdiction while they're there, and their definition of "arising" will stretch to many arcane pages. These can be competing goals, and tax departments/ministries will often make sure their data can't be accessed by other departments because they want to encourage illegal immigrants to pay tax...
I'm 99% certain you are wrong, at least when it comes to visits to the USA.
If you were granted a B1(tourist) visa, you almost definitely can't say to the border guard that "I'm here to see some clients for business, and I plan to spend all my free time answering email and catching up on work", because this is what the B2(business) visa is for - it doesn't allow you to work - as in, become employed - in the States, but it allows you to do everything you've just listed. It's a specific visa used for the purposes of conducting "business" - and working remotely almost certainly classifies as "business". So to re-iterate: if you've been granted a Tourist visa, but your reason to visit is conducting business, then yeah, you will be denied entry to USA.
It's totally illegal to work in most of South East Asia on a tourist visa [1]. It used to be easier to work in Cambodia but that's changed recently [2].
Even within the EU it can be a total pain to set up the proper taxing documents and everything. It's certainly simpler, but not that immediate, you still need an infrastructure to support it.
I work at Mozilla (I believe ~70% remote workers) and certainly see people do things like this all the time, though often on a smaller scale. For example, if they have a conference or meeting in Europe or Asia, they might extend the trip to visit other locations and work from either hotels, coworking spaces, coffee shops, trains, or "camping" in our other offices.
I certainly encourage it, for people who both want to do it and whose lifestyle supports it! Caveat international work and visa laws, where prohibited, of course :-)
does anyone know any other coworking retreats like the ones mentioned in the article? I'm writing a blog post about this for my remote work newsletter blog, and so far I found those:
Shameless plug: we're doing a trip with 4 weeks each in Da Nang, Vietnam, Bali and Chiang Mai, Thailand starting February 15th and still have a few spots left. If you're thinking of trying out the workaway lifestyle, check us out (we handle the hotel + co-working space with good Wi-Fi, snacks & coffee, etc + the trip is full of hand-picked, interesting people).
More broadly about the 'burgeoning industry' - from having interviewed hundreds of applicants at this point, I don't think the growing trend is developers going totally nomadic. There's some of that, but then there's also "I want to get the @%^! out of NYC/Berlin during the winter," or "I want to take a month off and see how I could work from here". My feeling is it's a lot more fun to take a month-long workaway than a weeklong vacation, simply because you don't have to be a tourist at the speed of light (just use the weekends to explore) and you get a much more authentic experience of the place you visit while avoiding the guilt of not being productive while the rest of your team is working hard.
I very often work on vacations (2 to 8 weeks at at time). I work whenever I feel like it or don't have anything better to do. It's easy to find a few free hours most days without sacrificing your vacation time. That way, I can travel longer, and it keeps me busy. However, I normally don't stay more than a few days at the same place, and don't work full days so co-working wouldn't really make sense for me.
However, it sounds like a good idea if you want to be at a specific place for some time and don't want to be alone at the hotel or in a coffee shop. That way, you could socialize with similarly-minded people or work in a more engaging environment.
Definitely check out Hubud in Ubud, Bali. I'm out here for 9 weeks teaching a Rails bootcamp and they have the whole work/lifestyle thing figured out... http://hubud.org
I've typically done some variation of the following in order to take long road trips with my family:
* Take two or so weeks of vacation.
* Work remotely (hotel, friend's house, coffee shop) for a week or so.
* Take another week or so vacation.
* Alternate working remotely and some time off.
Obviously, this requires a flexible manager, but considering mine often has a similar schedule, it's really not a problem.
1 and 2 make no sense unless it's a long-term business trip. But if you're working and expected to work, it definitely shouldn't count towards vacation (otherwise it's a vacation and you don't do jack shit for the company)
1 makes perfect sense. I can only afford 1 big trip a year. So of course I would spend it on a real vacation, and not some business trip. If my boss wants me to travel, my boss should pay.
As for 2 - You'd have to pay me a ton of money to abandon my wife for two weeks. Paying for my wife to go with me is just cheaper for my boss. :-)
Co-working spaces tend to suck, in my experience. First, there's the knobs on phones all the time. Even talking in loud hushed voices and walking outside, they're still distracting. Then, there's the people constantly talking trivia... hi, weather, lunch dates, coffee. Finally, the lighting is almost always crap: high glare or artificial. Every one I've yet seen has been centered on a massive open office cubicle type layout... the worst thing for programming. Finally, often they're not even cheap. I much prefer hotels.
Low but readable natural with access to personal (ie. non-intrusive for others), diffuse, ideally broad-wavelength lighting when required.
At no point should (1) a light be in anyone's eye while they are looking at a screen (2) window/skylight/outside be reflected on top of anyone's screen (3) major thoroughfares be located directly in front of anyone.
This requires thoughtful seating arrangements and non-crappy architecture/interior design.
I own HackAbroad.net and HackAbroad.com. I am interested in developing a program for college students to spend a summer/term abroad, hacking on their own projects. I want to use it as an excuse to go abroad myself. Would likely entail building hype, taking applications, then choosing a location and renting a place for a few months.
I just graduated from Yale and want to develop this in the next 6 months. If anyone wants to assist, please get in touch - miles.richardson@yale.edu
I moved to the UAE last year and feel rather disappointed there aren't that many techies or co-working spaces here. If anyone would like to come here for a popup retreat to the desert let me know, there are some pretty amazing places here, e.g.:
Please, somebody do this at a good skiing location.
I did it myself with 3 other guys back in 07-08 in Fernie, Canada, and it was awesome - but also a lot of work to get set up across the world before we arrived.
You're in luck! I actually have two friends who just started their own little space in Chamonix, might not be the most professionally organized office right now but really fun guys and awesome location
A friend and I have been skiworking in Austria over the past week, actually. We'll ski from ~10 to 12:30 then hit up a cabin at the top with good Wi-Fi, have lunch and work until ~3PM, ski until 4 or so, then go back to the hotel and have dinner & do a second work session after dinner.
It's been surprisingly great, though certainly pricier (even with the deal we got) than doing an equivalent attempt with Surfing in SE Asia. I also don't think I'd do it for more than a couple of weeks. Let me know if you're curious about a writeup and I'll put one together.
Generally we aim to make Coworking Camp affordable for early stage startup founders. The cost to attend consists of different components:
1) You need a Coworking Camp ticket. It ranges from €250 (1 week) to €650 (6 weeks). There are ealry bird discounts, so make sure to signup to our newsletter. Also there are volunteer opportunities available that get you a free ticket.
2) We haven't finalized the hotel for Tunisia yet, but expect about €30 per night for a single room with all inclusive food/drinks. Double rooms will be slightly cheaper and we are trying to also negotiate an early booking discount.
3) There are cheap flights around €200 to Tunisia from nearly all major European airports. For the cheapest option look for tourist charter flights leaving on weekends. It is also possible to fly to Tunis and then take a cheap bus or train to the hotel. More info once we decided about the hotel.
So the total for the ticket, the hotel and the flight should about €650 (1 week) to €2100 (6 weeks). If you share rooms, volunteer or book early the cost could go down.
<< Matej Hrescak, a product designer at Facebook, spent several weeks at the Surf Office on Gran Canaria in the Canary Islands, near one of the island’s noted surfing beaches.
“I really appreciate long uninterrupted periods of work time in order to dive deep into a particular problem, and having a destination where you’re far away from usual distractions made this possible,” he said. The high-speed Internet, fully stocked office, access to a kitchen and camaraderie of other guests at barbecues, biking trips and other planned group activities, he added, all contributed to his productivity. >>
I wouldn't be very happy if I were expected to contribute to travel or lodging while "co-working on vacation" - or if the trip used up any vacation time.