Working While Traveling

I’ve been in Manila for almost a week now. Although I’m on vacation I decided to spend a few days working on a side project. Beyond just making progress on the application, I wanted to see how feasible it would be to work remotely while traveling. Here are some things I learned:

The Internet Is Slow

The internet at the hostel I’m staying at is slow and intermittent. This can make frequent google searches take substantially longer when I run into a problem coding. I’m also almost always disconnected from services like slack, and gchat. This means that it sometimes takes me an extra few minutes to get a message, which while annoying isn’t the end of the world. Despite the internet being slow, I’ve had no problem pushing up code, which is what matters most.

Headphones Are Critical

I bought a pair of over-the-ear headphones for this trip. I bought these specifically because I wanted to signal to the world not to bother me while I was working. I didn’t even listen to any audio, but just wearing them did indeed prevent anyone from approaching me while I worked. This helped eliminate a lot of distraction, and allowed me to operate similarly to how I would when I was home alone.

I’m Surprisingly Disciplined

I was worried that I wouldn’t have the discipline to actually sit down to work, and instead that I’d be tempted to go out and do a million activities. However, I stuck to my guns, and set aside time a few days this week to work on my side project. This is probably the biggest concern of mine that I seemed to have quelled - for now.

I’d Need A Coworking Space To Remote Pair

First of all, the internet is just too slow to support video conferencing at my hostel. Coworking spaces, I presume, would have a much more robust connection. However, beyond just the increased bandwidth, I’d feel more comfortable doing remote pairing in a coworking space than I would in a hostel. It’s one thing to sit quietly by yourself in a hostel, but another to hold a day-long conversation with someone else. It’s just a bridge too far for me. While I’ve worked at different coworking spaces in NYC, I may check out some of the ones here in Manila before I leave.

A Week Feels Right

I have a lot of different ideas about how I would travel if I were to work remotely. While I’m still unclear of how fast I should travel, I think a week seems about right for one place. That’s not to say I wouldn’t want to stay a day or two somewhere, and a month or two elsewhere. However, when thinking long term my guess is that a week per city would be a good average. I think it’s enough time to get to know a place, and is a sustainable pace to travel at. By staying at the same hostel for the past week - I didn’t have to worry about packing, traveling to the next city, checking in, unpacking, etc. This allowed me to just work, wander around, and explore without worrying about the logistics of constant travel.