This article was originally posted on LinkedIn on 25th Aug 2022.

In a busy world, time for families is a precious commodity. For tired parents of smaller children and babies, sleep also fits into that category! When parents are working and weekdays are long with school runs, extracurricular activities, homework and other commitments - any type of break and change of scene will do. Read on to hear about the ways you can combine remote work with a change of scenery for the whole family.

Summer 2022 in Portugal! - For context, our family is made up of two remote working parents and one full-of-energy daughter, who loves to travel and nearly always has her bag packed and ready to go! We are normally based in Zaragoza, Spain and we are raising our daughter bilingually, with her attending school in Spanish while we maintain English at home as the main maternal language. 

This summer finds us “down the road” from Aragon (well, a 9-hour drive!), in Sintra, Portugal. We are spending 6 weeks travelling. Our time in Sintra has been magical, it is a location steeped in history, culture and art. On this trip, we are combining our remote work and travel plans with a more structured and tailored solution for our family. Boundless.Life provides remote working families with everything they need; from family suitable accommodation to co-working and family curated activities combined with a world-class education provision for our daughter. Focused education support for her here has meant she has spent the 4 weeks concentrating on her English literacy skills in the mornings with an experienced teacher. The afternoons have been full of sightseeing and fun activities with the other families here. Whilst the kids have been learning and being educated, the parents have been remote working in a communal co-working space, enjoying the very best of both world.

Visiting family abroad - In 2019 we took a long summer holiday to see family who lives in Bali, South East Asia. In total the trip was 5 weeks long (enabled by the ability to remote work during our holiday), where we managed to tag-team plan our remote working schedules, ensuring either only one of us was working when the other took care of our daughter. The local co-workings on the beach in Sanur - like Genius Beach - were in fabulous locations and a pleasure to work from, with a beautiful sea view.

Furthermore, we sourced a local English childcare option; a day centre with activities and excursions, which our daughter joined in on with her cousin. We also noted that we weren’t travelling only in August, meaning our flights were taken outside the peak cost period for travel, reducing costs. We got to spend quality time with our relations, with the cousins spending lots of time enjoying the nature on the island (pictured admiring the rice fields!) All in all the trip was a perfect example of how, with some extra intent, planning and coordination, you can extend trips and make them enjoyable, worthwhile and more cost-effective.

Extending weekends to enjoy extra family time - The weekend itself can often seem so short! But once we add in either a Friday or a Monday to travel and visit a different location, we open up more opportunities for quality time to explore and spend time with loved ones. When we lived in Ireland and our daughter was young we would often travel to Galway (a 3-hour journey) on a Thursday evening, to add an extra day to our long weekend to see my family, working from Galway on Friday. Not only giving our daughter an extra day with her Grandmother but avoiding traffic too!

Now, based in Spain, we can use local school holidays - which are often a Monday - to plan trips to Aragon, the region we are based in. We love to hike and explore nature in the nearby Pyrenees mountain range. When we like, we often find a place to work if needed on the Monday remote workday for one of us, whilst the other can spend time with our daughter. Here we are hiking in the Riglos in Huesca.

Travelling with your family and alternating with some days remote working: it may not be the typical vacation, but it is also far from being a traditional stressing day of work. One of the perks of working remotely I appreciate the most is the ability to take advantage of any trip for multiple purposes at the same time: you can combine work with visiting your family, you can show your kids other countries, you can experience new tastes…  and by extending your trip smartly, you can also enjoy some well-deserved, real time off to fully dedicate to yourself and your loved ones. 

With the reality of the remote work lifestyle opening up, now is the perfect time to embrace this new flexibility!

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This article was originally posted on LinkedIn on 25th Aug 2022.