Time Zones
The most obvious issue. It’s challenging to work several hours from where your coworkers work. Many of us have worked with remote teams, for example Hyderbad or Prague. There’s people that take meetings very early or very late their local time, and they do it every day. That doesn’t make it easy.
The city you’re living in may have more defined hours than in the United States. The rest of the world doesn’t quite have the 24 hour culture of availability. It’s easy to get a Chipotle burrito at noon, 2pm, 4pm, or 8pm. But there may be smaller ranges of hours these things are available. So if you want lunch, let your coworkers know what hours you are taking off for lunch.
Work Expectations
Set some goals ahead of time. Ask your boss what you should be working on.
When you’re far away and some time zones different is a great time to accomplish some of those tasks that you can do alone. Like some of those things you’ve been putting off when new problems get brought to your desk at work to deal with immediately. Think up some tech debt or a cool new feature that you’ve been meaning to finish when you get some time.
Just make sure it’s aligned with what your company, managers, and team members want from you.
Travel Planning
Do a lot of this ahead of time. You will be able to take some improvised trips to nearby attractions. But if things aren’t already planned you’re taking away time from your temporary home to plan things. So have the big things ready to go.
Do you want to take a train or plane to another nearby city? Have the transportation and hotels planned. Maybe even a day trip or museum tickets. Leave some room for spontaneous decisions, but having to work and be a travel agent takes up a lot of time.
Electrical Connectors
Your technology runs on different connectors than the rest of the world. Most AC/DC adapters, like a phone charger or laptop power supply, work on almost every power supply. You just need a safe way plug in a connection. Bring an adaptor everywhere and look up which ones you’ll need in different countries.
What it’s all like
It’s amazing. It’s tiring sometimes. You’ll get a bunch of stories. It’s worth it.
Meeting People
You’re not on study abroad anymore. This is tough now. It’s only getting tougher. We all have technology that connects us to the people we already know. If you’re traveling full time you have the energy and time and ability to seek out those places and times you can meet locals or other travelers. If you’re working and spend many hours in meetings or programming, you’re connected to home instead of where you’ve traveled.
I don’t have a great answer to this. But make sure when you put the laptop away that you’re off of work time. It’s worth it to make that clear boundary even if you don’t define work and home time as much at home.
