As I write this, my co-founder Prateek is tapping away emails. Sneha is managing our question pipeline while Vinay is planning a couple’s trip to Istanbul. That is, another typical day at work. Except that Prateek is still dripping wet, Sneha is in a sarong and Vinay is trying to keep the tropical insects at bay as he peers into his computer.

This is mygola in Tangalle, a small fishing town in southern Sri Lanka. And this is our annual “workation” where we pack our laptops, spouses, kids, data cards and attitude to some small part of the world.

The view from our villa

It all started last year. After 6 days of rolling power cuts that left us working out of cafes, it suddenly dawned on us that we could easily be in any cafe in any part of the world and nothing would change. We packed our bags, boarded the train and hopped to Goa. Since we eat our own dogfood, we found an awesome (& cheap!) villa near the ocean and parked there for a week.

This year, we’ve had lobster, torrential rain, friendly fishermen, big waves, monitor lizards, pool party and a haunted house all mixed together.

Here’s a quick, fun video of the times (thanks Animoto!)

We’re still iterating on our workation model. For example, everyone foots their own transport expenses. Also, flawless data connectivity is a must, so we overprovision by having multiple backups in the form of data cards. It also makes sense to go for at least 7-9 days so we have time to settle in and be productive.

Even with this, we probably get only 60-70% productivity and could do better. However, the memories of the time spent together are amazing and will soon line up our Instagram wall.

Afterall, work-hard have-fun change-the-world is serious business.