Work From Home On A Workcation

If the view from your new office of choice opens to breaking waves and a palm-fronded beach or a wide-angle shot of snow-clad Himalayan peaks through an arbour of wild, pink-and-white bougainvillea, you are working away from home. It’s the newest trend catching on with a range of professionals tired of hunkering down in their bedroom/living room offices since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and a nationwide lockdown since March. As days turned into months and the nation slowly unlocked, the itch to go someplace got worse than the ring on a dog’s tail and people started looking for a way out of their Covid cages—keep the job and work (the pay cheque is important), yet be on a holiday. All one needs is WiFi, a fairly decent wallet and the will to get out—the kind of things exhausted and bored folks working from home shared when they were a few too many drinks deep into the night. Thus was born the workcation or bleisure, a portmanteau of work and vacation or business and leisure.

Call it the positive effect of work from home (WFH)—an Oxford English Dictionary top phrase of 2020—as it allows the freedom of working from anywhere. Family time is not compromised and kids can continue online classes uninterrupted. So long as there’s WiFi, a pool and a lawn at a fully serviced home, mountains or sea, since you can’t have both, people will spend weeks/months working out of private homes, villas, cottages and homesteads at a drivable distance from the city.

So who are these people? Take Megha Moorthy of Delhi and her partner for instance. Passion and work blended beautifully when the two travel bugs rented out a two-room furnished cottage for Rs 30,000 a month in Sitabani, Corbett, and started living there with their two dogs. “When I moved to the hills I realised I have more time to spare,” says Moorthy, who works for a wildlife conservation and biodiversity website. Her initial choice was Goa since it checked the first box on her list of priorities—a seaside spot. But travelling with two dogs from Delhi to Goa was a challenge. “We didn’t want to fly, but drive. Driving them for so long was a no-no. So we dropped the idea and rerouted our plans for the hills.” But internet is a problem in the hills and power is not stable either. They looked for an independent home, secluded but safe. “After a lot of online research, I found the right place.”

Passion also dictated Nilanjan Ray’s decision to ride out the pandemic in the forests of Kumaon, Uttarakhand. The global marketing director of digital engineering firm Nagarro, who is a passionate wildlife photographer and calls himself a digital banjara, found the days cooped up in his Bangalore home jangle like a gypsy’s tambourine. And off he went to the hills. “It’s wonderful waking up to the call of a jungle fowl and seeing a Himalayan sunrise over a steaming cup of coffee. I always dreamt of doing this and my company allows me to do this now. Imagine finishing a team call at 6.30 pm and you hear a barking deer. You go out for a drive and see a leopard crossing the road. And come back, do one more global call, and later experience the cold breeze, the smell of the pines and junipers, the Himalayan peaks on a full moon night…all over a crackling campfire.” For around Rs 25,000 for his homestay and meals, it’s a steal. Ray combines a full-time job and his hobby with immaculate time management. “For wildlife and nature photography, the most interesting moments happen during dawn and dusk.”

Finding a place that suits your taste and budget is not a problem as several companies—homestays, hotels and rentals—have cottoned onto the idea of selling home offices in exotic locations. “We pivoted our business and launched workcations much before it was a buzzword. People were done working from home, tired of cooking their meals and could definitely use some fresh air. Given that WFH and e-learning became the new normal, we opened our homes for long-term stays,” says Devendra Parulekar, founder, SaffronStays. People just want to escape the drudgery of stay-at-home in a city flat. They seek out WFH options in holiday destinations such as Khandala, Alibaug, Ooty, Goa et al. Being a digital nomad during the pre-pandemic days was more of a luxury, but not anymore. People are travelling to quiet destinations where they can sit with their laptops, mobile phones and coffee mugs closer to nature. And more people from the hospitality industry are trying to lure travelers to workcations. SaffronStay has packages between Rs 2 lakh and Rs 8 lakh a month, depending on the size of the group, type of home, and additional charges for in-house staff and variables. “At the start of the lockdown, our homes in Alibaug were completely packed. The ease of working from anywhere, switching the office background and better weekday deals led to a rise in occupancy. Compared to last year, there has been a 27.12 per cent increase in weekday bookings. This is likely to continue into 2021,” says Parulekar.

Occupancy is 100 per cent for Vista Rooms too, whose tariff ranges from Rs 40,000 to Rs 2 lakh a month for furnished cottages that includes food. The company’s properties are mostly located in Lonavala, Karjat, Alibaug, Coorg, Manali and Nainital—all salubrious, touristy, outdoorsy locations. Ankita Sheth, co-founder of Vista Rooms, says 48 per cent of its clientele are those working remotely. “This shift towards private and boutique stays for work has been unlocked by COVID-19, but it will continue as professionals have realised that this works well and is cost-effective too.”

The benefits are immense, so says those who have opted for a workcation. “The best part of moving to an isolated little cottage in the middle of a forested hill gives you a lot of positive energy. There are birds, rabbits, barking deer and we have even spotted a leopard. We see peacocks every day in the morning and you look forward to waking up early because the air is fresh,” Moorthy says. She never feels tired or bored these days and she has overcome the initial fears of mountain sickness—not the nausea that comes with locomotion on switchbacks but the “little depression” of being sequestered in a remote location. “I was unsure. But after the first couple of days, I got used to it and my whole cycle changed. Bedtime is at 10 pm. Wake up at 5.30 am, fresh and happy.” Never mind the occasional langur biting off the internet cable and the Zoom call blinking off. Experts suggest carrying a dongle.

The hills were the natural choice for Gurgaon’s Harish Thangaraj, his wife and daughter. Their temporary abode is a furnished two-bedroom cottage of the Gazaari Greenz resort in Kotabagh, Kumaon. The rental—around Rs 50,000 a month—is on a hillock at an altitude of 800m. Thangaraj’s daughter loves the hills. “She loves the freedom to run around, play outdoors in the mud and with the resident dogs, and touch the touch-me-not plants. She has picked up an interest in birdwatching. We are happy that birds mean much more to her now than the dull pigeons of Gurgaon,” he says. Logistics played a huge influencer in choosing the place—proximity to Gurgaon, hardly seven-eight hours away, warmer winters and nice views. Plus, familiarity as the Thangaraj family escapes to the hills every autumn around Diwali to avoid the pollution in the National Capital Region. Those were short shindigs, but work from home gave them the opportunity to stay longer. “We wanted to avoid flights and looked at locations that could be reached by road. We found several workcation options popular on the internet.”

He and his family couldn’t be happier. It’s like the early bird catches the most beautiful songs—wake up at 6am to the whistles of the Blue Whistling Thrush. After a couple of hours of birding outdoors, he gets back in time for work. They take their office calls outside the cottage, with the spectacular hills as the live background screen. Binoculars are at arm’s length for any flypast. Evenings are for walks around the resort and to soak in the crimson sunset over the valley.

Richa Babbar, a marketing and communications specialist in Mumbai, often missed the sunset in hometown Dehradun. “I have been in Mumbai for the past 15 years and have become accustomed to its tedious work culture. The pandemic has forced us to adapt and the companies are also flexible…we have the choice to work from anywhere. I shifted to Dehradun.” A peaceful environment surrounds her, there’s no time-bound travel, the weather is good and she is connected to the internet 24/7. “Most importantly, since the kids are having online classes, they attend school from Dehradun.” Most of those on a workcation agree that the refreshing environment has upped their productivity. And some don’t want to go back to what was their natural environment. That’s Chandreyi Bandyopadhyay, a digital content creator, who has moved into a heritage villa for less than Rs 20,000 in northern Goa with her partner because “we felt suffocated and tired of looking at concrete jungles” during the lockdown. Goa takes her back to the simpler joys of finding fresh vegetables every day, growing plants at home, and watching beautiful sunsets. High-speed internet ensures unhindered work—even at a beach shack, accompanied by a seafood salad and a cold beer on the side. “It doesn’t make sense to return to Mumbai,” she says. Of course, it doesn’t.