3 Pro’s and 3 Con’s of Working While Traveling
For the past few days I have been in Venice, California working in person with a client and their team as part of a company retreat. It has been SO MUCH FUN and has reminded me that one of my favorite #workperks of being a Virtual Assistant is that I can literally work from anywhere in the world with a good wifi connection.
Working while travelling has so many positive sides… but there are also some downsides that I don’t feel a lot of people talk about. And because I want to keep my blog for VAs as real and down to earth as possible, today I want to share 3 Pro’s and 3 Con’s of Working While Traveling. Check ‘em out below!
3 Pro’s and 3 Con’s of Working While Traveling
3 THINGS I LOVE ABOUT WORKING WHILE TRAVELING (The Pro’s!)
Being able to meet my clients in person. I’ve been lucky over the past decade as a Virtual Assistant to be able to meet a lot of my clients in person. Spending time together in person really helps cement your trust and working relationship and helps you connect in a way you just can’t online. So it’s always fun to get to meet and work with a client in person!
Experiencing new places and scenery. I love, love, love seeing new places I haven’t been to before, and so when I travel while working, I always try to plan days before or after the work portion of the trip to see the sights of whatever area I am in so I can experience as much as possible of the area.
Feeling refreshed and excited in my business as a result of traveling. Whenever I go somewhere new, even if just for 2 or 3 days, I always leave feeling refreshed and excited about my work. I think it’s a combination of getting out of my normal routine and shaking things up a bit, and partly because I get to be in inspiring and exciting places with people who inspire me and encourage me and who are just plain fun.
3 THINGS I DON’T LOVE ABOUT WORKING WHILE TRAVELING (The Con’s)
Traveling + working can be stressful. Trying to navigate different time zones, figure out where I’ll actually have a wifi connection, know what time I have to be at airport and figuring out when I can work around that, etc. All of these are considerations I don’t have when working from my home office and take a bit more planning. {Of course, it’s totally worth it… but it can be stressful at times.
You miss out on fully experiencing the place because you are having to work. Now, I LOVE going to new places, but if I had my choice all the time, I would rather travel than work + travel. Because when you are working, you aren’t getting to see all the sights because you are in front of your computer to fulful your obligations. So, you might only experience 75% or so of a new place when you are there. If you didn’t have to work, you might get to experience 100% of the place {depending on how good of a travel planner you are}. So it can be a little of a downside that you will miss out on seeing some things when you are having to work while travelling. Now, having said that, I would prefer to work + travel than not travel at all. Seeing 75% of a place is better than seeing 0% of a place. :)
It can be pricey. Ubers, eating out most meals, entertainment costs, new outfits {‘cause who doesn’t buy at least one new outfit when traveling?}, hotels or airbnbs, tips, plane tickets and souvenirs… ALL of these things can really add up when you are traveling. So while traveling and working is fun, it can get to be a bit pricey and so it takes some smart budgeting to make it work and worthwhile. {The good news is a lot of this is a tax write-off!}
All in all, working while traveling is still worth it to me - I think the pro's outweigh the con's here.
Do you agree? What would you add to this list? I’d love to know… Leave me a comment over on my Facebook page here!
