Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 0:00
I would probably start by saying that working from another country, one that's not as developed as the country that you live in, is not really for the faint of heart. It's got to be for someone who loves and adventure and I love and adventure, I love traveling. And that's something that my husband and I have in common. As a matter of fact, we have often said that we are not happy. Unless there is a adventure or a vacation on the books that we can see that we can anticipate and work towards. It's like how we benchmark our years and how we feel like we reward ourselves for the hard work that we do every single day. So traveling is really important to our family like super, super important. Now, right after Mike proposed to me in 2007, we took a trip to Malaysia. And it was undeniably the least comfortable traveling experience that I have ever had. We were young, we had no money, we traveled like nomads. And there just wasn't a whole lot of spaces in between where you felt like you were like just soaking in a vacation. Right? It was an adventure. Now as we were flying back on the airplane from Malaysia, I was journaling about the trip just kind of processing how I felt about what went on. And I realized that I only had like one good fight with Mike while I was there. One fight that was it. And we were there for two weeks. And we were uncomfortable the entire time. And the reason that we got into a fight was because we were looking for a hotel room because booking a hotel room in in 2007 was not like you jump on booking.com You like you you went to the town that you were going to and you showed up and you saw if they had a hotel room? That was it when we were there. Okay, and I was hungry. And so we had a fight? Yeah, we did. And what I took away from that journaling exercise was that if we can go through that trip, and not fight and instead lean into each other and support each other through the discomfort, we're going to be able to make it through the long haul as a married couple, even with a family. So even from the beginning of our relationship, we knew that travel was going to be a major part of our life together. So then fast forward many years, about six years ago, when Abilene was out of diapers and extremely portable. And by the way, we traveled with our kids, even when they were babies, we've taken them all over the world. They are amazing travelers, I can still remember the day we were in an airport. And Ellis was like to at the time carrying her own luggage, and loading it up on the scanner and taking your shoes off and doing a whole ball of wax all by herself. While there were like full blown adults just freaking out going through the checkout line, you know. So we've never shied away not from a challenge. So about six years ago, when Abilene was like super portable, like, you know, totally potty trained all that stuff. She's nine now. So she was like three, then I was like Mike, I really want to take a month long trip, I want to go to a different place and not just a vacation there, I want to experience it. Like I want to be in a spot long enough that I start to understand the nuances of the culture and really just learn about the other people and the other places in this world and appreciate them. But I feel like I have to be there long enough to do it. And so I want to take a month long trip. So this became my goal. Now notice though I'm calling it a trip, not a vacation. Because when you work when you travel, it's not exactly a vacation, right? You can do vacation like activities, but you're still working. Okay, so we called it a trip, not a vacation because I didn't just send myself by the beach all day every day. That's not what I was doing. So this experience was a trip and not a vacation in the same way that maternity leave is a leave of absence and not a vacation. a sticking point that I've gotten in many conversations with people about because when you're leaving because you just had a baby because you need to get your organs back in the right place. It's not the same thing as a vacation friends. You're not just setting yourself on the beach all day. Okay, and actually a trip is way more fun than maternity leave. Way more fun. Now in 2020 We all know what happened then. I was minutes literally away from clicking book now and reserving an Airbnb down in Tulum, Mexico for a month and enrolling my kids in language school for the summer and working remotely. I was so excited about it. And then you know, the universe imploded with COVID and that dream was laid to rest for a while. Eventually it just all came together and we were like, Alright, now is the time Mike was ready to take a short sabbatical from work. He wanted a break, and we had fully weaned off Are kids from all inclusive resorts and been dragging them up mountains all over the universe for the past, like two years now. So we felt like yes, our kids can handle hanging out in Costa Rica for a month. Now. We chose Costa Rica because both Mike and I had been there before I actually studied there. When I was in college, and we understood what it was like there, it wasn't like we were going in blind. And so I think that made the trip a lot easier. We had also been to a lot of areas in the country, we just hadn't been there for very long, we were just there for a day or two. And so we knew what parts of the country we wanted to spend more time in and experience. So we booked our tickets, and we went out on May 29, right after school got out. And then we stayed actually extra time because our return flight was canceled, and we got to stay for an extra three days. So we came back around July 3, and I would totally do it again. I would. I did learn a lot though I learned a lot while I was there. And I feel like that itch of needing to go someplace for a month and not be where I normally am has been scratched. And I came back with a lot of gratitude for the things that I have. And I think that's one of the most powerful things about taking a trip or a vacation where you put yourself out of your comfort zone, and you're in Adventure mode. But in this adventure mode, I still had to get things done. Right. Okay, so enough of the backstory, Let's get to business. And I'm going to explain to you the things that I learned and the things that I feel like you need to do and have in place before you leave on a trip like this, based from some of the experiences that I had while I was there. You're on a mission, and you just need more people to know about it. And whether you're brand new to marketing or a seasoned pro. We are all looking for answers to make marketing decisions with purpose. I'm Monica Pitts, a techie crafty business owner, mom and aerial dancer who solves communication challenges through technology. This podcast is all about digging in and going digital. I'll share my marketing know how and business experience from almost 20 years of misadventures, I'll be your backup dancer. So you can stop doubting and get moving towards marketing with purpose.
Speaker 1 7:27
So the first thing that I learned is that I am addicted to electricity. Yes, I am an electricity addict. And I 100% take it for granted all the time that it's always going to be there. And it's going to work like the number of power outages that I faced living in mid Missouri is negligible, I can count them on one hand, and I can also count on one hand, no, I might be more than one hand, the number of power outages that I had when I was in Costa Rica. And I heard that this was this could be a thing. I heard this. But I didn't quite understand how it was going to impact the flow of my day. So on the days that I was writing, it wasn't a problem, because I didn't need to have power or internet to be able to write Okay, for the most part. If I needed to go out and find something online, I could just pause for a second and just keep writing. Yeah. So the act of charging my laptop every night became extremely habitual. It had to be fully charged so that we in the morning I could use it right because I could only work if the power was out. I could only work until my laptop died. Now what was interesting though, is that the Internet there is awesome. I didn't stay at a single place where the internet wasn't great. And that was surprising to me because I'm from mid Missouri and the internet is not always great here. As a matter of fact, we have a little house on the lake and it has for multiple years we had the crappiest non existent internet there ever like to the point that I couldn't even work remotely from the lake house because the internet was so terrible. Like the internet is so terrible there that people have an office in town simply because they can't get internet at their house. Right. And it's not like that in Costa Rica. There's great internet everywhere. But the you have to have power to have internet and there was one day I had this huge storm and it knocked out all the power from about six o'clock at night until three o'clock the next afternoon. Yes that long. So after waking up in the morning and enjoying watching the monkeys outside my window jumping from tree to tree it was pretty magical. I sat down with my three quarters charged laptop and I worked until it died. At which point in time I loaded it up in a backpack and my kids and I went up and down the road until we found a coffee shop with power In town, and I'm using the word town very loosely here, because in that instance, we were in malpighia, which was a just a collection of a few homes, some horses, a coffee shop that turned into a pizza restaurant at night, and a, at a school and a soccer field. Okay, so that was the town. That was all down, right. But the coffee shop had power. And while I was there, I learned that there's actually a lot of other people that are doing the exact same thing. See, up until that point, I had done most of my work at home, and I wasn't out in public doing my work. So maybe the universe just wanted me to go out without power for for a long period of time. So that way, I could see that there were so many other people who were experiencing the same thing. And even while I was at the coffee shop, the power would go out intermittently, and everybody would be kicked off of their virtual meetings, they would have to like go and jump back on when the power came back up. And everybody just had to be like patient with you and patient with yourself. Right? So there were times where it was like, Oh, my gosh, I was just in a groove here. This really sucks. I guess I'll make notes about where I was. And I'll go for a walk. Because what else can I do? Right. And so you had to be able to go with the flow. And I think that was a really big lesson learned and take away from it is not only am I addicted to power, I'm not alone in my addiction to power. Thank goodness, the internet is amazing. So it does afford you the opportunity to work from Costa Rica. And you have to be forgiving of yourself. And the situation that you're in when the power goes out because it's completely outside of your control. And when it comes back on, it comes back on. Yep. That's how it works. Okay, so another thing that I learned that I think kind of like spins off from that go with the flow type thing is that traditional work schedules are not a mandatory thing to get great work done and to get work done efficiently. As a matter of fact, I really am beginning to believe that the traditional go into work at eight o'clock and leave at five o'clock actually hinders your ability to get work done efficiently. Like I've heard people say that and I'm like, oh, yeah, you were just so spoiled. But I don't know, friends while I was there. I didn't have kids in school. So that meant that my kids could do whatever, right? Like we could do whatever we wanted. And so there were places that we stayed, we stayed in Sumatra, and we learned how to surf there. And when we took surfing lessons, we also got access to their surfboards for the next five days. And so I would get up super early in the morning. And I'd work out like the sun rose so early there that okay, I'll get to that in a second. So I would go work out super early, because it was hot as Alston like so incredibly hot. And I love heat, but that he made me wish for fall, okay, I was like, Oh my gosh, I don't know if I could do this. I don't know if I could live in a place that always has this level of heat. And it wasn't even the hot season. Okay, this was like the okay season in Costa Rica, we were there. So I would work out super early. And then I would you know, shower in the outdoor shower, because it was so hot. But I'm like, I'm not even going inside and using hot water. This is ridiculous. And then I would just sit down and I would start working by say six or 630 in the morning, which was great. Because I was uninterrupted my family wasn't up yet. And I got to have this time that was dedicated to my work. And then we would schedule our surfing time with the tides. So we would sometimes leave around like 11 o'clock, and we would go down to town and we would serve for like an hour or an hour and a half. And then we would come home. And I would work again until like, you know 530 Or six o'clock at night when it was time to make dinner. And those were some of the best days. Those were days where I had a lot of creativity that I could dedicate to writing and doing my creative work. Because I had this break in between and it felt like I was on vacation those days, even though I woke up early and it worked. I felt like I was on vacation. Because I took this time for myself. Like I promised that to myself when I took this trip that I was going to take the time that I needed for myself and I wasn't going to feel guilty about it. I was still going to get my work done, but I wasn't going to feel guilty about not being tied to my desk because I do feel like we harbor that as like responsible people. I mean, I was brought up by people who are like they act like boomers but they're Generation X so they have like this very specific work ethic that they ingrained in me. And I feel like sometimes I have to let that go. Not the I don't want to produce amazing work, I always want to produce amazing work. But I don't have to do it under the same constraints that people have drilled into me my whole life. It doesn't have to be like that. So I felt really awakened by that. And I feel like I've taken that out with me. And there's still, you know, times where I feel myself slipping back into that pattern of, you know, oh, now that my kids are in school where I need to be at my desk the second that I put them on the bus, why put on the bus at 705. So I need to go and get in front of my computer, I need to start working. And I need to be working until the second that they get off the bus at four. Well, maybe not friends, like some of my best days are the ones where I work. Like I take some time for myself in the morning, I read, I listened to a podcast, I talked to my husband. And then I start working around eight. And then I'll go downstairs and I'll make myself lunch. I'll take the dogs on a walk. So and then I go back to work. And I feel like those can be some of my most productive days because I've allowed myself the space in between for my brain to rest. And I'll get the idea that I was working so hard on but couldn't find the answer to just magically pops in my head because I allowed myself the space to do it. So I am trying to continue to work like I'm in Costa Rica, even while I'm at home. But I do feel myself slipping into some different patterns that
Speaker 1 16:23
maybe aren't going to serve me as well. I feel like because of that less traditional work pattern, my body hurt less. I did more physical activity like during the day. I'm a very active person. I work out at least five days a week. And you guys know I'm an aerialist, I'm a runner, I do yoga, I'm always moving. I love love, love moving and working out and challenging myself. But I don't usually do it during the work day. Usually I'm very, like sedentary, I'm sitting at a desk. And so I loved that when I was there because I allowed myself this extra freedom. I was moving during the day and that made me hurt so much less like sitting in front of a desk every day. I don't know if you guys feel like this, but I sit in front of a desk every day and the back of my neck and my right shoulder which is I'm right handed. So that's my mouse arm, you know, I like have pain there on a very regular basis. And I for years have said that I have a Tuesday, hangover. I come to work on Monday and I feel pretty good. And then on Tuesday I have a hangover. And it's I didn't know it's not because I'm, I'm a drunk and and I like overindulged on Monday, not saying that I have never done that before, but that's not usually my pattern. Okay, so I will come to work on Tuesday, and I'll have a headache. And I'll have some brain fog. And I have pain. And as the week goes on, like my neck pain and my shoulder pain, it gets worse and worse to the point that like, there have been many, many months where I've gone to the chiropractor four times in a month, like once a week, okay. But when I was in Costa Rica, I didn't have access to a chiropractor and I didn't go to one at all, I did get one massage on the beach, like my second to last day there because quite frankly, I was afraid to put myself in an airplane and in a car for like the 12 hour journey back home without having at least some part of my body in its right spot, right. So I feel like I felt better, because I moved more. And I allowed myself to have that flexibility in my day and didn't force myself into the desk into the chair for you know, 40 hours a week. And I know what you're thinking right now you're like, but Monica, you called it a trip and not a vacation and you were supposed to be getting things done. So you should have been working 40 hours a week. Okay, so friends, it don't you don't have to work 40 hours a week to get lots of stuff done. You can get lots of stuff done even while not doing that and I am making it my life's mission to prove it to myself that this is all possible. Okay. And what I did find is that there was actually plenty of time for everything, there was plenty of time for everything I just had to be okay with the different way I was working. Okay, so it's like like I said earlier, you just hold on to these beliefs that it has to be this one way. And I feel like by having that complete pattern interrupt and putting yourself in a completely different environment. It was easier to adjust and and let go of some of those beliefs and then take some of that reassurance back home with me that it could be different because I had time for everything. I had time to hang out with my kids, with my family to do the touristy things, but also to get my work done and be a productive member of my team. I got a lot of things done while I was in Costa Rica, like a lot of things done things that I've been putting on For a long time that I really was like not wanting to do, but I knew I had to be a Monica level activity. I was there. And even when things blew up, and I had to go through and fix things or, or troubleshoot things for my team, I could still do it. And that was, but I also had plenty of time for my family. And I really enjoyed the quality time that we got to spend together. So I felt like it was a really good balance of work and life, I very, very much enjoyed it. Now, having said that, Mike did not spend all day working, he took a sabbatical from work. So he spent a lot of time reading and journaling and staring at the birds and taking the kids for walks. So I did have a very supportive adult in the home helping with the kids every single day. And so it wasn't like I was single momming it and working from home, that that's tricky. I could do a whole podcast about that. I did have Mike and Mike was really, really instrumental for for little things throughout the entire day. And then so I think that's part of the reason that I did feel like I had time for everything is because I had an amazing backup dancer, I had Mike and I also had the kids who were really, really helpful as well. Now, as I mentioned earlier, I definitely felt like I needed some seasons in my life. I felt like for years, I thought, me and I just need to move someplace where it's warm all the time. And I tell you that after being slammed Blaze where it's really really hot. I did eventually, like adjust to it. Do it being really hot. But i There were days, especially when I was working out and it was extremely hot. I thought to myself, Wow, I can't imagine a life without fall and winter. So that was a huge takeaway for me, right is that I thought I could be hot all the time. I really am not maybe used to that. Maybe I could get used to it. I don't know, I'm still not going to say I'm not going to move someplace hot. But I am going to say that I have a newfound respect for fall and winter seasons after being in some really extreme heat. And like I said, it wasn't even the hot season friends it was the rainy season, which Okay, small side note. One of the things Mike and I are is inclement travelers, we have like coined ourselves inclement travelers, which means that we go to places when people aren't there. So when we took our trip to Chicago, we went in February. Why because it's super inexpensive to go to Chicago in February, because it's cold, really, really cold friends. I don't know if that was the best decision. But we had a grand old time in Chicago. And it was really affordable. When we went to Ireland, we went in like February. And people aren't there's not a lot of people there in February because they go in the summer because it's really rainy there in February. And it like the weather is super temperamental in Ireland. But we went super affordably. And we actually really enjoyed all the weird seasons that we went through, like literally in a 20 minute phase of time. Like we say in Missouri, if you don't like the weather, don't worry about it, it will be different tomorrow. And in Ireland, you say if you don't like the weather, don't worry about it. Wait 20 minutes, because it'll change in 20 minutes. I mean, so that's how we travel, we always travel in the off seasons, almost everywhere we go. And this was no exception. This was the offseason. So it was really easy to find a place to go to book a trip to like book an Airbnb and to get them super cost effectively because they're available. Right. And so I would tell anybody who's thinking about going to Costa Rica during the rainy season, get her done, and realize that you are addicted to power, even if you don't already know it. And because it's the rainy season, they might not have as much power sometimes. But guys, it only like I'm counting them on one hand over here the number of power outages that I had. So it's I didn't have a billion. And the other thing that I found really cool about Costa Rica is daylight. So their days aren't as long and I was worried about that. Because in the summer in Missouri, the days are really long, the sun doesn't set until you know, eight 830 at night. And there the sun sets at like 530 or six o'clock at night every single day. And I was worried about that because I thought oh my gosh, how am I going to get all this stuff done in my day. And what I found and I really miss right now as it's fall and my days are getting shorter and the sun rises later and later every day is that the sunrise is super early in the morning in Costa Rica. And it's a beautiful time of day and it's easy to get out of bed there at five talk in the morning because the sun's up. I didn't realize that I am actually a borderline sun worshiper, I should have known this, you know, I'm addicted to electricity. I don't like patterns of normal people telling me what to do. And I worship the sun. Okay, so now you guys know all the things about me. But I really I just do so much better getting up when the sun is out. And I felt so incredibly productive in the mornings. It was awesome. And it wasn't hard to do. It just It was not hard to do to get up hours before my family and work because the sun was up greeting me and like ready to go.
Speaker 1 25:36
Okay, so now what do you need? So let's say that you're gonna go do this thing. You're like, Okay, you want to cut that seems like you learned a lot. This seems like something I might want to do. Or maybe it's on your bucket list. And you're trying to convince your husband to do it. Who knows? All right. So there's a few things that I felt like, were instrumental in making this trip a success. And the first one is having a good workstation. I feel like people neglect their workstation. And what I mean by workstation is your computer, your monitors, your keyboard, your mouse, your microphone, your video, camera, all those things. Right. Okay, so that makes up your workstation. I go into businesses all the time, and I see their workstations and I want to be like, What are you doing? What are you doing my friends, you need multiple monitors. You need you need an actual mouse, not a trackpad, you need to have a keyboard that's not wired to something that you can move wherever you need it to go. Okay, and the same is true. So so I feel like there's a normal businesses, right, I asked myself, How do these people even get their jobs done efficiently? If they don't have at least two monitors, there's a lot of people in my company that have three or four monitors to do their jobs. Yeah, because it makes such a big difference in your efficiency, if you can see multiple things at once. Such a big difference, okay. So the same is true when you travel if not more so, because you need to be able to sit down and set up your workstation and work for more ever your app. And it needs to be efficient, time spent, you don't need to be like dinking around on this trackpad or in an environment that you're not used to. It needs to be easy to use, and something that you can set up quickly. Okay. And so for me, what that looked like is I had a touchscreen laptop. I love a touchscreen because it means that I can get around quickly. And even if I don't have my mouse, which, oh man, I am a mouse. I'm a mouse worshiper too. I love my mouse. It's like an extension of my body. I'm not talking about like, creature I'm talking about, you know, the thing that I use that my computer my mouse. Okay, so anyway, I have a touchscreen laptop. And I also bought a travel monitor, and the travel monitor that I eventually went with doesn't need external power it plugs right into my laptop, which has some pros and cons. A pro is that you don't have to find extra outlets to be able to power your monitor. This is very good. Another pro is that it sets up super fast, like click click Done. Okay. And it had its own stamp. So it stood up by itself. I didn't have to travel with a stand because some of them you had to like have an extra piece where it sets up which no. But the con is that because it didn't have its own power jack. Yeah, it sucks the power from your laptops, your laptop power. Remember, we were talking about you know, the internet, no, no electricity and all that stuff. Okay, so your laptop isn't gonna stay charged for as long if you're using the external monitor, and it's not plugged into the wall. Okay, because the monitors sucks power from the laptop. But that was instrumental because it gave me two monitors to work from all the time. Also, from an ergonomic perspective, I need to have a separate keyboard because I need to be like further away from my monitors, my monitors need to be propped up. So I had like a couple things that I continually propped them up on. And I had a separate keyboard so that way, I could sit in a better position as I worked. So make sure that you take note of what a good workstation is for you. And then plan on finding lightweight, easy, compact things that you can pack and bring with you. So that way you can have a good workstation because you are dedicating your time to working on your trip. And sometimes you're not going to want to work sometimes you're going to want to play so you need to work very, very efficiently. Don't take that away from you by packing some antiquated laptop that doesn't work and not having a mouse and all the accoutrements that you need. Okay, so the next thing that I feel like everybody needs is a communication plan. Yeah, because if you've got a team, or if you've got clients and most of us do, you're going to need to communicate with them what's going on, you need to let them know when you're working when you're not working, like set all those boundaries for yourself ahead of time. And have you know, we check in meetings regularly and but even know that. So we regularly work apart from one another, it may create, we work all over the place, right, we're not just always sharing the same office. But there were still times where communication was harder than it should be. And it's because we're all over the place, right and in slightly different time zones. And so just know that even the best laid plans can be forwarded, right? But you need a plan to start with. So that way, you know how you're going to communicate with people, they know when you're available, and they know that you know, you still care and that you are doing your job. So the final thing that I feel like you really need to have in place before you leave on this trip is boots on the ground, like at home, like people that you can call out home. I mean, unless you're just leaving, you're not ever going back, and you're bringing your dog and everything that you want to keep in your life with you. You have responsibilities back at home. And I felt very grateful that I had a team at home that can help take care of these things. Like, for example, if you were going to drop your kid off at school, they would ask you for an emergency contact? Well, you need to establish your emergency contact at home, and let them know what their responsibilities are. Okay. So at work, I had Stacey she was my emergency contact. And when something went wrong at the office, because we own our office building, she could help me and did help me sort through it and get everything situated, but without her at home willing to do that for me. And knowing that that would be her responsibility, that would have been a really difficult situation for me, because how am I going to solve it? Like, really, and it's my responsibility as a property owner to get these things taken care of. I would also suggest delegating someone to take care of your mail. And I don't just mean
Speaker 1 32:02
the neighborhood teenager. That's not what I'm talking about here. Because the neighborhood teenagers were like what I did when I took care of mail was I just went to your mailbox, and I took the mail out of your mailbox, and I brought it into your house that is not the surface I'm talking about here, you're gone for a month. And some companies don't do electronic invoices, you're following me. So like, for example, we forwarded our mail to the may create office and Cara took care of it for us. So one day Kara saw our life insurance bill was coming due in like a matter of days. So she because she had opened the mail for me because I told her to look at it right. And she was like, Oh my gosh, Monica, you have to pay this bill. Well, I mean, I feel like life insurance while you're traveling halfway, you know, around the globe is probably an like a good thing to have not expiring. Oh my goodness. So I was really, really thankful that Cara was keeping an eye on our mail, and kept me informed of responsibilities that I would not have known about had she not accepted and agreed to the task of being the Pitts family male manager while we were gone for a month. Also, like if you have an apartment, if you have a house, like having somebody check on it, like we had people come over and check on our house once a week just to make sure it was okay. I mean, your basement could flood and it could ruin everything you own, you're gone for a month. So just just realize that you need to have these emergency contacts in place. And they need to know what their responsibilities are. Because even when we got stuck in, I say stuck, I don't really want to say stuck because I feel like in the end, it was actually an opportunity to experience yet another really cool town in Costa Rica. But when our flights were delayed, and we stayed in Costa Rica for a few extra days, I had to call up everyone and I had to reschedule appointments that were scheduled, I had to find new people to watch the dogs. Because those responsibilities were only able to be fulfilled for a certain time period. So it was important that I had these people that I could call on to help me with these responsibilities. So make sure that you get all your emergency contacts in order think about all your responsibilities at home, and let people know and set those boundaries with them. But then also let them know what you might need from them. So that way, they're ready to take that task on because when you leave for a month, you're you're gone and deep but you still have things at home that need to be taken care of. So I obviously I learned a lot I learned a lot about myself. I learned a lot about how I can work differently. And I feel like I took away a lot of really positive things from this travel and work experience. The one question that people ask me all the time is what part of Costa Rica did you like best and surprisingly while I'm working in in a spot at Like, the place that I like best isn't necessarily the place like right on the ocean. I know it seems weird. I did. Okay, so I really, really loved Malpighi use. I love being really close to the ocean and being able to walk along the beach all the time and the beach there changes, literally hourly with the tide, you find something different on every walk, even though you're walking the same path. It's really cool. It's a really neat place. And we rented an apartment that was on the second floor of a building. And I set up my office out on this really neat covered patio. So that was a really cool working environment, especially with all the monkeys jumping around in the background. But I really, really enjoyed our time as a family in Palmeras. It's so it's, it's on the side of a mountain. And you can see San Jose in the distance. And you can also see a bunch of volcanoes. It was so beautiful, where we stayed because it was on the edge of town, you did not feel like you were in town. But you were really, really close to town. So it was easy to get there. And the community was just extremely tidy and just incredibly clean. And the weather was ridiculous. It was so cool. So cool and warm all the same time. It was really, really neat. It's like I got multiple seasons in the same day. So I would wake up, and it would feel like spring. And then by noon, it felt like summer so it was someplace in the 90s or like high 80s. And we had a pool at the house we were staying at and so we would swim and hang out on my lunch break. And then by two o'clock you could see all the clouds rolling in over the mountains and you knew it was going to rain so around two o'clock it would just open up and downpour rain and you would watch it just roll in and and happen and it was pretty freakin magical. So at that point, I would move my whole workstation out to the patio, and I would watch the clouds roll in and start raining. And I would work then in the rain filled amazing weather. And it would cool down to you know, 65 degrees at night. So I thought that was such a neat experience. Because even though we weren't on the ocean, I felt like the pattern of life was just really easy there to work and spend time with the family and everyone in the family had something to do. And what's funny is that we almost canceled that reservation because we had made a reservation in Monteverde, which is up in the rain forest. And we managed to book not such a great spot like not a great spot the views beautiful and it was pretty amazing. Having the clouds just roll in right past you and so many birds, so many crazy, colorful, beautiful birds right from the patio of this home. But it was kind of not awesome. It was not an awesome home. And we felt really uncomfortable in that house, like to the point that I was like, Okay, now I'm ready to go home. And I hadn't felt like that yet. Not in the whole trip. I hadn't felt ready to go home until I was in a bed that was completely uncomfortable with crappy bedding. And no, like air circulation bugs everywhere. We were like, Oh my gosh, this is it's barely glamping right? This was not what we signed up for after walking in the rain forest. All day long. We wanted something that was more comfortable that I know that about myself. And so we we were like this was a bad choice, like whatever next choice was equally as terrible. So I was looking through the pictures. And I was like, Oh my gosh, I don't know, maybe we should cancel it. And so I was going to cancel it. And I looked to see if I could cancel it. But I couldn't. And I was like okay, well, I'm not going to just waste $1,000 Like not doing that I've already paid for it all for the entire time. We're going to be there. We're just going to we're gonna see what it is. And we got there. And it was a little nerve wracking because you know, you had to drive all the way through town and there's not a straight road in Costa Rica, I swear. So we're winding and winding and winding and we just end up on the side of this mountain. And somebody met us there and let us in the house and we walked in and we'd said oh my goodness. We are in like a paradise on the side of town like how did we how do we get so lucky with a we felt so incredibly lucky because the place before it was so terrible. But it was such an amazing place and it wasn't fancy. It was just super well kept and it had everything that you needed including actual washers and dryers which was a really big an awesome present for us because we hadn't had a washer and dryer in like a week and a half and and we travel really light the pits family is not heavy packers, we bought three suitcases for four people. And they were not huge suitcases as a matter of fact, one of them was a carry on. So we were running out of some real key items and In our wardrobe, like, you know, underwear, and we were washing them, and hanging them to dry in the rain forest. And they were not drying, things were not drying. As a matter of fact, some of Mike shirts were literally molding. So it was not great. And when we got this washer and dryer, and we saw this pretty cool, and we saw the view over the city and the side of the mountain and saw the grounds of this home, we just so we felt so incredibly lucky and so excited. But we wouldn't have felt that way. I don't think if we wouldn't have had such a big blunder with the one before it. So everything is about perspective. And I feel like the whole trip just made us really appreciate what we have at home to things like power all the time, like, Hey, I haven't had a power outage the entire time I've been recording this podcast, it's amazing, right? And, and then the little things too, like being able to take care of stuff yourself and not having to have someone else there. And last, but not least, the thing that I was so incredibly grateful for is when I sat back down at these enormous monitors that I have, with my super fast computer, not being on a laptop on a 13 inch screen and a 17 inch screen, but having to like 27 inch monitors. I was like, This is heaven. I felt like I was gonna get lost in my monitors. I was so pumped, I actually, I like chatted the team on Slack. And I was like, Hey guys, today, I am so grateful for my workstation. It is awesome.
Speaker 1 41:42
So I'm super glad that we went, I will totally do it again some time. And yeah, you should try it to give it a whirl, see what you learn about yourself. But as I started out this episode, saying this is not for the faint of heart friends, like if what you like is an all inclusive, like everything's sorted through for you scenario, then maybe first try working remotely from an all inclusive resort. But it doesn't matter where you're at, there's still going to be scenarios that you're going to have to work through. And part of the beauty of working remotely like this on a trip in a different place is the adventure of it and learning about yourself and, and learning about different situations to find some perspective and some appreciation for what you have. So thank you so much for hanging out with me today and letting me share this story with you. And as always, until next time, go forth and mark it with purpose. Oh, one more thing. So if you just really want to live this Costa Rica trip and hear all of our misadventures as a family, we did record a podcast to document the travels through Costa Rica. It's with my kids and my husband and I and it's called Pitch family travels, the podcast is public. But you can't find it on any of the major directories because I didn't know I just didn't know that I needed to put it all out there. But I'd love to share it with you if you're interested. So I'll I'll put a link to it in the show notes. And and you can check it out. If you want to listen to all the different things if you're considering going to Costa Rica and traveling with kids. I listened to so many podcasts before we left to really get an idea of what it was going to be like and they helped me out immensely. And so you put this together, one to tell our family what we were doing because they all wanted to know and then to so that people like you if you're thinking about doing a working trip or if you're thinking about traveling to Costa Rica with your family that you could learn from our own misadventures and come out with an awesome adventure. So look for that link in the show notes.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
