🧑‍💻 WFH on a luxury yacht for $300K

Hey, remote work fam! This is Remote Insider your favorite spot to get up to speed on what's going on in the world of remote work and digital nomadism. In this email, we talk about...

• a remote worker who leased a $300K luxury cruise ship for a year

• why Uruguay makes for a great South American base

• the rise of “hush trips”

• why digital nomadism will thrive during an economic crisis

But first, let’s put something to rest - you can, indeed, be creative when working remotely, you just need to know how to do it…

💡Tips & Tricks

How to Stay Creative & Innovate When Working Remotely

In January Bob Iger, the CEO of Disney, made news when he announced a mandatory return to office for all employees. His reason was that in a “creative business like Disney” remote work simply couldn’t cut it because to be truly creative you need the “cross-functional relationships” that can only take place when working in person. But is this true?

Research by MIT and Microsoft supports this notion, yet research by McKinsey found that in the 2 years of the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a record number of awarded patents, and in 2021 global venture capital more than doubled from 2020. So clearly creativity didn’t grind to a halt when everyone was forced to work remotely.

This leads us to the only rational explanation - it’s all about how you do remote work.

With that in mind, here are some tips on how to foster a creative spirit in a remote team:

1. Set up “Idea Generation” Slack channels: Cognitive neuroscientist & consultant Dr. Gleb Tsipursky suggests creating a specific Slack channel dedicated to ideas for every project inside the organization where people can suggest different ways of doing things and receive feedback without derailing the main project conversation.

2. Create a diverse mentor program: Mentors are important for employee growth, but often times they come from the same department as the employee. To stimulate cross-functional relationships, every employee should have 3 in-company mentors, 1 from their departs, and 2 from other departments to create tighter bonds throughout the whole company

3. Embrace regular virtual coffees: Another great way to make sure remote workers know fellow team members across departments is by setting up a random virtual coffee program that assigns people to a 30-minute call with a randomly selected person from the company. There are even great Slack apps that can automate this process.

4. Host regular in-person retreats: Meeting people in person is important which is why all great remote companies regularly meet IRL. However make sure to use this time to do fun team-building activities, and not things that can easily be done remotely

5. Encourage doing awesome stuff: Creative ideas come from creative people, and creativity is ignited in people when they go outside their comfort zone and try new things so create a culture that supports and encourages doing awesome stuff outside of work.

🚢 This Remote Worker Leased A $300K Cruise Ship Condo So He Could WFH While Sailing The World

Would you pay $300K to spend 12 months traveling around the world on a luxury cruise? That’s exactly what Austin Wells, a Meta employee, is doing.

The MV Narrative is an 18-deck, 547-room, luxury mega-yacht that allows people the chance to live on board long term while sailing around the world. The MV Narrative also features 20 different restaurants, several different fitness facilities, pools, a library, a microbrewery, and much more.

You can either buy a condo outright which will cost you between $800K for a studio to $8m for the 2-floor penthouse. You can also buy a seasonal timeshare which starts at $26,700 per season and is all-inclusive.

The MV Narrative is scheduled to set sail in 2025 and I don’t know about you but I’ve had a new goal unlocked.

🇺🇾 Why Uruguay Is A Great South American Digital Nomad Base

When you think about South American digital nomad destinations you likely think about Argentina, maybe even Brazil, but what about Uruguay? If you’ve never considered it, you definitely should!

Tourists are given 3 months upon entry, and the best time to visit is between November and February so it’s a great place to escape the northern hemisphere winter.

While relatively small when compared to its SA neighbors, Uruguay has a lot of nomad-friendly qualities:

• recently ranked as the safest SA country

• the lowest cost of living in SA

• internet speeds comparable with Scandinavian countries

On top of that if you base yourself in the capital of Montevideo you have daily ferries to nomad darling Buenos Aires which takes just under 5 hours.

🤫 ”Hush Trips” Are Poised To Be One Of The Top Travel Trends Of 2023

A “hush trip” is a secret workation that you take without your employer's knowledge, and according to credit card reward expert, Becky Pokora hush trips are on the rise.

From an employee point of view, it’s a great way to flex your autonomy as a remote worker and spend time in a location that makes you happy and provides a great quality of life while still working towards your goals.

However, for employers, they can cause huge problems especially if they go on for too long since the company can take on additional tax risk. The best thing that a business can do is not to micromanage a remote employee’s ability to travel but clearly communicate travel policy so that employees know what can cause trouble for the company.

🚨Word on The Web is…

📍 Wizz Air has analyzed data to find the best European cities for remote workers

🇰🇷 South Korea is supposedly working on a digital nomad visa

🍝 A couple spent a month living and working in Venice in a tiny studio. Here’s their story

🏝️ With 1.6m sq. ft. of space, Miami is the new coworking capital of the US

🚀 Why digital nomadism will survive & thrive during an economic crisis

💼 These are the careers with the highest rate of remote work

📟️ Can This Tiny Clip On Help You Stay Productive?

The FOCI is a small device you clip onto your pants that analyzes the ebb and flow of your abdomen as you breathe. The idea is that through your breathing pattern, it can detect whether you’re focused, distracted, calm, or stressed and alert you through an app so you can better plan your work.

📆 Upcoming Events:

February 13-17: Convite [📍 Ponta do Sol, Portugal] - digital nomad conference exploring the movement’s impact on Macaronesia

April 25-26: Running Remote [📍 Lisbon, Portugal] - Largest remote work conference in the world for enterprises and SMEs

May 24-28: Vivel [📍 Multiple Locations, Turkey] - networking meets music at this one-of-a-kind conference for location-independent professionals

June 16-19: Camp Indie [📍 Kent, Connecticut] - adult summer camp & conference for digital nomads & those living an unconventional life

June 25-July 2: Bansko Nomad Fest [📍 Bansko, Bulgaria] - for digital nomads, freelancers, and founders in the mountains of Bulgaria

🏄🏻‍♂️ Austin Wells when Zucks reads this newsletter and discovers one of his employees is living on a luxury yacht…

🚨This Week’s WFA Jobs:

I've teamed up with THE remote job coach Jordan Carroll to provide you with handpicked work-from-anywhere jobs right here in this newsletter:

⭐️ Staff Data Scientist @ Zapier

⭐️ Principal Software Engineer @ MURAL

⭐️ Marketing Operations Manager @ Andela

Want help finding the right remote job for you? Join the Remote Collective and get introductions to dozens of remote companies looking to hire people like you!

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That's it from us this week, hope you have an amazing day!