"Work-Hike-Balance": 5 easy tips for a successful summer workcation

It's only been a few months since I founded embassidy and started into the new adventure of my own Startup consultancy, while intensifying my event moderation work at the same time. As a consequence, a proper summer vacation just wasn’t in for me this year: I could not and did not want to be off for two or three weeks. Yet as I get “cabin fever” very quickly, I really wanted to get out of the city for at least a week, and I knew my body and mind would thank me for it. I decided to do a “workcation” in the mountains - and chose Seefeld, Austria.?

I was curious to see if the whole thing would pan out as I imagined: Going hiking a few hours a day, spending some time with a good friend from Garmisch and working the rest.?

For anyone who’s interested in doing the same, here are a few easy tips that I can share. And I can already reveal: Yes, it did work out perfectly for me and I would do it any time again.

But before we dive into the learnings:

What are reasons for even doing a workcation?

For me personally there are three big benefits do doing a workcation every once in a while:

Inspiration

Working in a completely different setting also helps to open your mind to new ideas. I really felt this - being outside of the typical work arrangement, that is also not doing any mundane things associated with every day life, really brought my mind the space to think creatively, outside of the box, come up with new idea for projects and partnershups.

Productivity

I found myself working a lot more concentrated in a hotel room or the cute cafe around the corner of the hotel than in home office. Even though I was working and got a lot of stuff done, it felt less like work and more like a treat than it ever does back home. (obviously, no laundry, dish washing or groceries to do helps a great deal). In particular because I knew, whatever would come after work - be it hiking or wellness, would be delightfully special.

Happiness

I felt very grateful for even having the chance to do such a work experiment and it made me really happy. There's something about the change of scenery, something about the newness of things (probably rooted in my nomad-DNA), that made me calm down, and feel less stressed, more like myself.

1. Find a destination that doesn’t offer too much and not too little

Obviously this is the most important and also most personal decision to make. I was looking for a place that wouldn’t overwhelm me with things to do (like for example Paris or other big cities), but also had a good amount of activities to offer. I also wanted nature; that feeling of freedom that magically come with mountains or the sea. In the end I chose the mountains because as I was traveling without my little one for a change (summer holiday separation split), and I wanted to do what is least likely with her: Intense hiking.

There were a few other items on the check list that Seefeld crossed: I wanted to be able to get there by train so that I could work during the long trip. I also wanted to be in a place where I would have infrastructure, small cafes, restaurants, supermarkets, etc so nothing too remote from civilization. Lastly as mentioned above, I wanted to be exposed to activities that I cannot usually do. Seefeld - check!

2. Find a digital nomad-suitable place

Now all the obvious things come into the game: I was looking for a hotel, centrally located since I didn’t have a car, with a wellness area (see above, things I don’t normally have) since I wanted to treat myself a little bit, it should be fairly quiet and have a nice, spacious room to avoid cabin fever. Of course the internet connection needed to be stable. Also: I preferred to have breakfast so that I didn’t have to care about that either. I found the amazing “Post Seefeld Hotel” that really offered all I could have dreamed off for the week.?

3. Organize the time (week in my case) in advance

if you can, organize the workcation time as much as you can beforehand (of course this is only possible with shorter ones like mine). What do I mean by that? I organized the week so that I only had one morning of calls, and the rest of the time I could work freely. It was important for me to finish all super important projects and all annoying admin stuff beforehand so that I knew during that week I could really concentrate on strategy, reading and creative work. In that setting, I really wanted to work on vision and innovation, not the boring, mundane stuff. In my case, since the workcation fell into "Summerhole", so many people were on leave, which made it a lot more relaxed.?

4. Set a clear agenda for each day

I can recommend setting a clear agenda for the day the night before - this at least worked best for me. I checked the weather, decided when I wanted to go hike, then wrote my to do list and knew exactly when I would start working on it. Typically, I’d start working after the hike to which I’d leave as early in the morning as possible. I’d do another break to go swimming and to the sauna, and would work the rest of the time. Admittedly, whenever I’m without Lou I’m surprised how much I can fit in the day (without stressing myself) just because I don’t have to get her ready, bring her to bed, etc. So I made fully use of that!

5. Be off when you’re off

The last and golden rule is: You’re still there to have a good time, so as much as you can - really enjoy the offline hours; the discovery of new places and the fact that out of the hamster wheel, things are also put (back) into perspective: What is important in life, and what is really not so much.

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