Overcoming Remote Work Fears: My Family’s Adventure on Hvar Island
Why have I never tried remote work until now and what were my fears vs. reality. How is it different being at some beach destination but not on a holiday at the same time? My fear was about my productivity, I feared that I wouldn’t be able to do as much as in my home office, where I have my ergonomic table, chair, etc. I’ve chosen Stari Grad on the Island of Hvar in Croatia, and this is the story:
My goal was to check whether it is possible to be more relaxed in a different environment and if I can work and concentrate the same amount as at home.
My secondary goal was to check if I would like it enough to buy some property here as a second home.
The Beginning -> Planning
I chose a city called Stari Grad in Croatia. The city is not well-known, but for me it has value. It was one of the first trading centers on the island of Hvar, and there was the first open theatre in all of Europe for the public, not only for the nobility. At the same time, Hvar is an island, so it is not as boring as the mainland. We were also considering going to Italy or Spain, but we didn’t want to go so far, especially as it was our first long trip with our daughter, so we decided that Croatia would be great for now.
Polako— meaning, Take it easy…
Do Your Research
Once we found a good apartment with air conditioning and where I could imagine that I would be working without any issues, I reserved it. Then we started to realize that if it were only me and my wife, we would have been ready to go within two hours. But we have a 10-month-old child, and she needs almost everything, from toys to some kitchen utensils, etc. Once we realized what we needed, I started to be afraid of the capacity of our car, so I began to research roof racks and roof boxes.
Preparation at home
Then we needed help from our parents one weekend so we could do some shopping for the child from sun creams to some beach gear, etc. And then we needed to pack all of this. Honestly, the preparation took 2 weekends instead of 2 hours. I started to wonder if it was worth it.
Decathlon came to our rescue though; we found everything we needed in one place.
It might look like I am overthinking the problem, but in reality, it is really different to travel with a small child. Once the child is able to walk, eat, etc., you need much less stuff to carry with you. We hadn’t realized it until we started packing.
Remote work is far from what you see on Instagram unless you are alone with really simple tasks in your remote job.
The arrival
When we arrived at Stari Grad, on the second day our daughter started to have fewer, she got sick for the first time and on a new place. We told ourselves, that we would wait one more day if it got better, otherwise we’ll have to find a doctor. So we had to unpack everything from the car, buy the groceries, and find a doctor while I had to work on a complicated task. Thanks to our preparation we managed everything I just want to point out, that things can get pretty hard and if you are not prepared, you will probably take some more days off than planned.
Why do I still love the experiment and why those things haven’t affected my state of mind?
Actually, I was expecting that it could be hard and that some of us could be sick. But once I was in a new place since the first day I’ve finished my work day I closed the computer and didn’t think about the work. Basically, I was on holiday all afternoon. I enjoyed walks in the island cities and I enjoyed swimming at the beach.
For one month I worked for 2 and half weeks of regular work the rest I was doing some research on the surroundings and checking the reality market.
The groceries and prices
I wanted to have a rough estimate of the prices in the restaurants on the islands, but when I searched for restaurants on Google most of them didn’t have websites or menus with prices online — when I realized it I started to feel a bit anxious that during the season there’s gonna be high prices — I wasn’t wrong. Pizza Capriciossa — 15 eur, Fried calamari — 22 eur. Even in small villages where I had homemade food, the prices were usually from 15 to 30 euros per main course.
Of course, we realized quickly that we needed to be cooking at least 2/3 of our time so my tactic was to try to cook as much as possible while I was working, and then during the days off, we will be visiting some restaurants but we will still cook or prepare at least some salad at home.
The prices in the store were also higher and I was surprised that it wasn’t possible to buy fresh fish. When I found a market and I wanted to buy 1 L of olive oil, the cost was 20 euros -> I was shocked because in Italy or in Istria (north Croatia it is 10 euros per Liter from a homemade market)
The actual work and working setup
- Learn the shortcuts
Take your time to learn your shortcuts in the IDE and on your computer. It will make your life happier when you are just with a notebook without the external monitor (I took one just in case anyway).
Learn how to select some string in your IDE and update all strings at once. How to youse multiple cursors.
- Plan to work Less
Take your time to learn your shortcuts in the IDE and on your computer. It will make your life happier when you are just with a notebook without the external monitor (I tMy reflection after one month. - Plan to visit and gather as much experiences as possible
I met a guy from Slovenia after my daily work with whom I grabbed some bears for 2 afternoons and we had a very nice conversation (maybe my wife was a bit annoyed haha). Then we planned to meet some real estate agencies to learn about the prices and about the business on the island → it is also great knowledge to understand the business and how people are living in the place you spent some time.
In Conclusion, Would I do it again, do I recommend you to travel with a family and a young kid for a longer period?
It depends, next time I would prefer working from nature or from some other place as it was quite hard to concentrate on the technical part of the project. But it helped me to find new ideas, new inspiration and I already started a draft of a new project. Overall I recommend you to try it, but for the next time I will prefer going to the nature.
