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| The Lauterbrunnen Valley, Switzerland; Looks Like A Great Place to Work to us! |
Inevitably when we tell people that we’re going to be in Europe the second half of the year, they respond with something like, “Wow, what a vacation!” What ensues is often a confusing and awkward explanation that no, we’re not going to be on vacation, that we have business there to pursue, that we can work on our business in the US from anywhere, but that we do intend to fully enjoy our freedom.
We can best summarize our new lifestyle as Travel-Work-Play. Any two-word combination derived from these three words is a recognizable and relatively routine occurrence of modern life:
Travel-Work: this is business travel.
Travel-Play: this is vacation (or holiday for our English friends).
Work-Play: this is having an enjoyable job, or simply good work-life balance.
But for us, putting all three together is what’s extraordinary and unique: having a balanced life anywhere we find interesting to work or play.
So we’ll do some marketing work with our friends who own a B&B while we’re in Portugal–and while there we’ll enjoy the local wine and cuisine. We’ll further our research into strategies on hiring smart people and finish another chapter or two of our book while in Madrid and Barcelona–and see the Prado, get some sun on the beach, and maybe do some ancestry research during a quick trip to Ibiza. We’ll confer with the Swiss government on a grant to support our research into recruiting and hiring smart–and get our fill of fondue and mountain & lake vistas.
And all along the way, we’ll still be supporting our US clients thanks to the wonders of modern communications technology. “Vacation” will only occur in late August when Susan & Randy come to visit for a tour through Ireland: that’s when we’ll set our (so-called) “out of office” notices.
