I went on a Workation to Italy, and that’s how it was
After the first trip to Vienna wasn’t exactly what I was looking for, I didn’t allow myself to get discouraged. If at all I gathered a lot of experience in Vienna and so I was eager to try it out again and put into practice what I learned. So I was to went on my second Workation, that led me to some beautiful lakes in Austria and the no less lovely city of Triest in Italy. Let me share my experience with you in the following.
Destination (un)known
I knew already that I wanted to go by train again, as it’s the most comfortable, cheap, relaxed and eco-friendly means of transport (read more why here) to undertake such a journey. After the “how” was clear pretty quickly I just needed to figure out the “where “, which was a lot harder. I knew that it needed to span across two countries and multiple cities. First I wanted to make a trip through half of Europe but then I figured it would probably be better to start small — just one country was a no-brainer: Italy.
I love the people, food, mentality, climate. Other candidates were: Hungary, Czechia, Croatia, Slovenia, Switzerland, basically a best-of of Central Europe, but just too much to begin with. Luckily, I saw a report about the Austrian federal state of Carinthia by chance and it struck me. What a lovely spot, not that far away from home, easily reachable by train and with a lot of lakes. Especially the latter was important to me, as I absolutely wanted to have some sort of water next to the places where I stayed. In the end, I chose Klagenfurt (next to the Wörthersee Lake), Villach (next to a lot of lakes like the Lake Ossiacher or Lake Faak) and Triest in Italy, as the rail connection is perfect.
Where to stay?
What I thought would be hardest was nothing to what was in front of me yet: Finding accommodation. Although I didn’t have much success with Airbnb in Vienna I knew I wanted to give it another try, as I’m huge fan of the concept. I’m still pretty sure that this is the future of travel. (That’s why I will keep my Airbnb stocks as long as I can.) At least I had picked the cities, but: So many choices where to stay!!! To add to that, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to stay downtown or closer to the lake, so I made a compromise for Klagenfurt: Just book an apartment in-between. And luckily I picked quite a nice one, that made it easy to reach both destinations by bike.
For Villach I had the same choice to make, but living by the lake would have basically meant no infrastructure (yeah, the countryside of Austria isn’t all that developed) at all, and I love to go out in the evening, have a drink and some good food, so I decided to book a flat in the city center — and I didn’t regret it either. What a beautiful town with some proper Italian flair. I even made a bargain, as I found a place much cheaper at booking.com than at Airbnb (pro tip: Always check both!).
For Triest it was a bit easier as it’s located by the sea, but at the same time it was tougher, at it has a lot (and I mean A LOT) of choices for apartments. Again, I wanted to be close to downtown as much as possible to reach everything by foot. Also, I figured that one of the loveliest places in Triest must be by the Canal Grande, some kind of Marina that even extends the Mediterranean flair. OMG, what a place!
As an added bonus, there are a lot of great restaurants and bars there. In the end, I found a lovely apartment by the Canal with a typical Italian personality for both the place and host. Communicating was a bit challenging, though: Fabio, the host, spoke just as little English as I spoke Italian. But isn’t that part of traveling to a foreign country?
All the stuff
When I came back from Vienna, I had realized that I had been prepared quite well, but there were still a number of things that I had discovered I need to make the upcoming Workations more comfortable. The top item on this list: A proper travel bag with wheels (please read which one I chose here and what the criteria were), so have enough space for all my stuff and prevent my back from aching. Similarly, my work gear also needed proper storage and organization. I also talk about the backpack I picked in this article.
Another item that’s essential if you go on a working trip is an external battery. You never know how far the next power plug is away and you want to prevent running out of power while being in an important business meeting. Batteries with some proper performance aren’t cheap but worth every cent, this is definitely the wrong place to safe money (more information in this article). There’s most likely a lot of other seemingly unimportant things you might not think about to begin with, that’s why I will create a list of ALL stuff I usually take with me on a Workation. Stay tuned!
What’s the fuss?
Let me get back to my experience of the trip. It actually began at the main station of Graz where I took the bus (yep, not the train) to my first destination Klagenfurt. I’m usually more a fan of the train but the bus ride was quite pleasant with enough room. After I looked forward to this trip for a while I got more and more excited the closer I was to my first destination, I still couldn’t believe that I’m in the middle of something I dreamt about for such a long time.
As I want to travel as eco-friendly as possible, I took the local bus to reach my first apartment, which meant that I needed to take quite a walk with my travel bag afterwards, but I was so excited that I barely noticed. Then there I was: A rather small but cozy apartment, that had everything (except the toilet) in the same room, with just some separators. I unpacked everything and even prepared all the gear for my tomorrow’s first working day. But until that I had some free-time, because I deliberately chose to arrive on Sunday afternoon to leave me some time to explore the city (and lake Wörthersee).
I just ran into a small problem: The bike rental wasn’t open and I didn’t want to walk, luckily I discovered a scooter standing around. It was my first time renting such a thing but I was surprised how much fun I had — I just was a bit worried about my safety, as such scooters build up quite a lot of speed. Luckily nothing happened and after a 10-minute drive I was standing in front of the lake — it was the perfect moment, the sun shone, the water glittered and finally realized that I’m in the middle of this fantastic experience.
Next stop: Grab some food. There was this nice pizza place that didn’t have a vacant place on the terrace, but still a place indoors with direct view onto the lake. Which made me just sit there, relax and enjoy the pizza and beer (which surely wouldn’t be the last one, but this is another story).
WORKation
The fun can’t go on forever, so it was inevitable that the first workday came (who says that work can’t be fun too?). Usually, I have this habit to spend the first few few hours of the day in the apartment and only then go out — luckily I had prepared a plan what to do, to make make the decision much more effortless. Pro tip: ALWAYS think at least one day ahead. If you are in the middle of a stressful work day it’s close to impossible to raise the motivation to get your ass up and leave the cozy (but boring) apartment. Trust me: Such a habit makes the day a lot easier.
So, for this particular I decided to visit a cafè, have some breakfast and spend the first portion of my day there. I enjoyed it a lot, but it was time to move on as I wanted to go to a special place for the first meeting of the day. After driving around a bit, hoping for the big revelation where to sit, I found this cafè at the main square of Klagenfurt that provided the perfect background (to be honest: Isn’t a big part of a Workation about presenting your colleagues one amazing background after another?). I think I did quite well and achieved to impress my dev lead in our daily update call.
Unfortunately, a big thunderstorm was brewing and so I needed to get back to the apartment asap — and it came pretty hard, so I needed to spent a couple of hours indoors and just offered a boring wall as a background to my other colleagues I had calls with. At least: It was another wall than usual.
Another thing I learned this day: NEVER ever trust weather apps, no matter how much they cost, and no matter how many of them you have installed. Because otherwise I would have decided to stay in the apartment — no risk no fun and so it happened as expected. A couple minutes after taking the bike to the city the rain hit me hard and so I needed to make a quick decision where to eat — luckily, I made quite a good choice and stopped by a great burger place. The enormous size of this meal at least helped me to persevere until the rain was over and so I had the rest of the evening to discover the city.
Calm by the lake
For the next day I had big plans: Get up early and meditate by the see. In hindsight, getting up wasn’t the challenge, but sitting there at around 10° C (come on, it was at the end of May where it’s usually quite warm), so I almost froze to death until finally the fog cleared and the sun came. But it was worth it and I’m glad that I endured. As I had packed in my external battery, I was prepared to spend a large portion of my workday there — and boy, it was amazing to sit in this café by the lake and work my ass off. One of the best days I ever had.
Let me tell about the best part: On this day we not only had the weekly team call, which allowed me again to impress my colleagues with an breathtaking background, but for later in the day there was this big department-wide workshop scheduled, that all the big guys at Corel attended. First I was worried a bit how it might be perceived that all of them went to the office (usually we’re a fully remote company), while I was enjoying myself on the lake. As always, worrying doesn’t make any sense in hindsight and the reception was very positive. Unfortunately, it turned out to be one of these neverending calls and so I decided to find a good excuse (I needed to visit this old friend) and take off the rest of the day to explore the city.
The rest of the days in Klagenfurt were a mix of working, eating, cycling and having some drinks in the city (I love this routine) and then it was time to move on to my next destination: Villach.
Next stop: Villach
I packed in all my stuff, had a last breakfast in this lovely café (yeah, siting in cafè is my second-most favorite activity) and took the 9:30am train to Villach. Arriving at this city was quite special for me, as it’s my wife’s hometown and so I felt a little bit like at home there and the first thing I did after I arrived was to send a photo of the city to my darling (funnily, she didn’t recognize first where I am).
Another reason that made the stay in Villach quite unique was that I met with my mother in law for a couple times, who I usually didn’t have the best relationship with. But this time, it was different. I think it helped that I reached out to my (second) mum and surprised her with a request to meet, she didn’t even know that I was around or that I’m in the middle of a Workation. So I visited her in her apartment and we had the best conversation ever, it was very relaxed and we talked about everything an anything. That made me even schedule a second meeting the next day to have dinner and a long walk together. As I was so good with impressing her by now, I even paid for the food. We even went hiking together the other day and all in all it made me enjoy Villach a lot. But that wasn’t the only reason …
On the street
After arriving in Villach I had some time to kill before I could check in at the apartment, so I returned to my favorite activity (besides drinking beer): Sitting in a cafè and working. I found this lovely place that not only had a wonderful staff and marvelous drinks, but also delicious food and a comfortable outdoor area, where I spent almost the rest of my time in Villach — either working, eating, or having drinks. Yeah, I know, Workations can be pretty tough.
To bring some variety into my boring digital nomad life I decided to spend one of the many meetings with my team mates at a special place, which turned it into one of the best calls (not to say experiences) I ever had in my work life. Both me and my colleague felt that something special was going on, I was exceptionally relaxed, which moved the conversation to a very personal level, that we probably wouldn’t have reached otherwise.
Generally, I discovered when being on the road, sitting outside, I feel a lot calmer, open-minded, and fresh. Maybe it’s the vast amount of space around me, the sunshine, the fresh air, or just a slight shift in my perception. To date I still see this as the main reason to go on a Workation and spend as much time as possible outdoors. It’s just a very special experience to talk, work, and think outside. I don’t even care about the usual chattering that’s going on in public places, although usually the one who needs totally silence around me to focus. Not here.
Summer is here
The main reason why I chose Villach as the second destination of my trip was the proximity to a lot of lakes, so I started my last day in the lovely city with the goal in mind to spend the afternoon working by the Lake Ossiach and jump into the (still cold) water. I needed that desperately, since it was supposed to be an exceptionally hot day. After another call with a breathtaking (without exaggeration) background that made me sweat a lot (not because of the team mate but because of heat) I finished off my day, put some sun blocker on and enjoyed the rest of this lovely pre-summer day at the lake swimming, listening to music and relaxing. It was kind of surreal, having worked up until now and being able to chill out in such a lovely place afterwards. Workation at its best!
Bella Italia
Unfortunately, it was time to say good bye to lovely Villach again, so I packed my gear once more, checked out of the apartment and made my way to another country: Italia, arrivo! (Italy, here I come!) I deliberately planned my trip to have an entire weekend available in Trieste, without any work, just free time.
It was a lovely day when I arrived at the main station by train, it seemed that even the sun did its best to welcome me. So I decided to bring my stuff to the apartment quickly and take advance of the sunny weather. I began with strolling around the city center, just soaking in the Italian flair, hearing people chatter in this lovely language all around me and, most of all, pay a visit to the sea. Trieste is remarkable as a city itself, but being located at the sea makes it magnificent. I just stood there, marveling at the vastness of the water, listening to the sound of the waves, and enjoying the heat. Life in its simplest and purest form.
Meanwhile it must have been something like 2pm, so I needed some stamina and I stopped by a café and ordered an improvised lunch: an espresso and a panino (a sandwich). Nothing a typical Italian would eat at this time of day, but for me it was perfect and everything that Italy embodies. Now I was ready to continue discovering every corner of Triest and I’m sure that at the end of the day my smartwatch confirmed that I had covered quite a lot of kilometers by foot. It felt like I lost time and space in this lovely place.
Back at the apartment I took the time to check out all the small details. Fabio, my host, put a lot of effort into decorating the rooms with everything related to nautics and sailing. There were a lot of related pictures, models, and decoration. Generally, the apartment had a very warm, comfortable and welcome feeling and I highly enjoyed the time there, especially as the windows led to a typical Italien street. I spent the rest of the day in a lovely little restaurant and enjoyed my pasta and “insalata mista” (mixed salad), surrounded by a lot of chattering Italians. A perfect end to a marvelous day!
“Sun”day
The day did its best to live up to the name, as it looked like it was going to be another sunny and hot day. I started the it typically: With an espresso and a “cornetto” (a croissant). Unlike people from other countries, Italians don’t need more to get started. As it was Sunday, I had no obligations and so I made the most of the day and checked out as many different places of Triest as possible: I went to a castle with a beautiful view on the city, visited a museum about ancient weapons there, went for a swim in the sea (where I had an unpleasant but harmless encounter with a jellyfish), and took the bus to a magnificent mansion. The inside of the building was rather boring (I wasted 10 Euros there), but the view around and onto the sea was worth every effort to get there. I took a lot of photos and the bus back to the inner city and prepared for the evening. Just like I had started my day like a fellow country, I also ended it in a similar way: With a delicious pizza. This weekend was probably one of the best I ever had in my life. I was in love with Triest!
Work, after all
I still had two days left in Triest — weekdays — so I began my usual ritual to walk around, look for a nice café with enough sunshades, that allowed me to sit there for a couple hours. I found one with a good selection of breakfasts (another critical point for me when choosing a place to sit) on the main square of Triest — the Piazza Unità d’Italia — that gave me another lovely background to impress my colleagues (or maybe they were bored meanwhile).
Of course I didn’t spend the entire working day (come on, I was in one the most lovely cities of Italy) and indulged myself in my second-most favorite activity: drinking coffee. You probably start to see the connection between cafés and coffees a lot, that I both adore. Btw, my most-favorite activity is drinking beer (not to get drunk of course, I just like the taste and enjoying beers from around the world). Back to coffee: Triest has this nice little campaign, that you can buy a so-called “coffee pass”, that allows you to drink espressi on discount in a number of typical cafés throughout the city.
The nice thing is: They are very similar to the coffee houses you find in the capital of Austria (my homeland btw), Vienna, so I basically felt like at home, just with better coffee (not that the coffee in Vienna isn’t good). The nice thing #2 is that you get even more discount if you drink the coffee at the bar, like a typical Italian, which I did of course, and so I visited a lot of different locations, from a really old-fashioned café to a high-class hotel, which I felt a bit bad to enter with my shorts (at least I wore a polo shirt). But they served me as if would be Warren Buffett.
In another café I had this pleasant encounter with the owner, who tried to speak Italian with me (which obviously I didn’t speak as well as he), but still we managed to communicate and he told me that he has a restaurant close to the Austrian border and he wanted to know how I like it here, which I even managed to answer in Italian.
For the evening I didn’t know exactly what to eat yet, so I strolled around the city center a bit (btw, my third-most favorite activity on Workations) and found this mixture of a bar and a wine tavern that offered some delicious snacks that, you guessed it, go along perfectly with a glass (or two) of beer. Actually, I wanted to visit a proper restaurant, but I got stuck there and spend the entire evening there. As it was the last night in Triest (with a lot of wistfulness of course), and so I just stood there, watched all the people enjoy themselves in this lovely night and just appreciated how blessed I am to be here, while I just stopped working a couple hours ago. Again: The little joys of life!
Arrivederci
So it came as it had to come: Not only my last day in Triest, but also my last day on the Workation. But shouldn’t you stop when it’s best? I drank some last coffees, packed my stuff, said arrivederci to Fabio, my host, bought some travel provisions and went back to the main station for the 6h 30min ride home. I had a lot of work to finish and unfortunately a not so good internet connection most of the time (Italy is pretty bad here compared to Austria) but I managed to complete all the important stuff before I arrived in Graz. The last station on my Workation was 20-minute ride to my hometown, where my son and wife already waited for me.
In hindsight, this Workation was one of the best experiences of my life. Not only being able to combine working and having a vacation at the same time, but the freedom that this “way of living” brings is just astounding, almost unbelievable, and I still can’t comprehend how blessed I am to be able to make such trips. Not only, that my employer allowed me to do it, but that I have a professtion that gives me the freedom to basically work where, how, and most of all, where I want. A couple of years I could have never imagined that I would ever make such a journey, but a dream came true.
The biggest lesson I learned is still: If you’re a remote worker it’s SO important to get out and leave your comfort zone (meaning your cozy house) once in a while and go on an adventure. It doesn’t need to be an all-week Workation through different countries, it also helps to sit in a café for a couple of hours sometimes (here we are again) or maybe rent a hotel room in a city close to you and work there for a day. Just take some baby steps and get comfortable with being uncomfotable.
I’d love to help you with challenge and give tips about Workations, answer any questions, or even accompany you to plan such a trip. Interested? Send me a message on Instagram, where you can also check out some pretty nice pictures from my time in Klagenfurt, Villach, and Triest. I’m pretty sure they’ll trigger some wanderlust. See you on the next Workation!
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