Fred Boyle // April 8, 2010

What is a workation?

Those of you who follow me on Twitter may have seen me use the word workation but haven’t been quite sure what I was talking about. I doubt this is a term I created, but I’ve not heard it before. So what is it? A workation is simply a working vacation.

I came up with the idea to do this late last year as a way to fulfill my desire to travel more and see more of the world. For most of us, however, taking expensive vacations and time off isn’t easy. Plus, a vacation isn’t quite the same experience as living somewhere for a while. You don’t do or see the same things on vacation as you would living there.

Taking a workation is really made possible by working somewhere such as nGen Works. Because of nGen’s “work where you’re happy” philosophy, our tight process, and the great team, I’m able to do my job from just about anywhere. We can chat via IM or video, coordinate project tasks in Basecamp or even go old school and use a phone. The only tricky part is working around time differences, but we’ve grown used to that working with Jeff Croft.

So why am I talking about all this? Well, at the end of the month I’m heading out to Seattle for my first workation! I’ll be there for about eight weeks to experience day to day life there. Why Seattle? It’s a city I got to visit while presenting at the EE Roadshow last year and enjoyed it a lot. I also have several friends there, new and not so new, that will help make my first workation easier. I’m sure I’ll meet many new people while there and make even more friends.

So what’s next? Depending on how well this first experience goes, I’m thinking of finally going to Europe and doing a workation in the London area late in the year. But one thing at a time.