This week, I am asking for a moment of your time to talk about just one thing:
WorkationList
This week's newsletter is a special almost-end-of-summer edition.
We're just going to chat about one thing:
This month, I soft-launched a new product called WorkationList.
I mentioned it last week. There have been some structural and visual updates since then.
The catalyst for WorkationList was a growing (self-inflicted) pressure to provide even more direct value to readers. News and information are great, but when it comes to making decisions, people want tools. It's what I would want if I were planning a remote work trip, even more than a weekly newsletter.
If you're contemplating a remote work trip, a workation, a 'work retreat', a flexcation... you know what I mean... 'working remotely somewhere that isn't your home'...
...actionable and specific tools and services are what you need, even more than wisdom and information.
At least that's what I think — and now I am validating my hypothesis.
Here's the pitch for WorkationList:
(and yes, feel free to click the link and browse it, and then come back to this email)
❓The Problem
Increasingly, hundreds of thousands of people (millions?) are using their remote flexibility to work wherever they want.
It can be intimidating to transition from living at home with your simple commute into a new world with seemingly limitless possibilities for remote work destinations.
While many people will gamely book every detail of their own travel, others are seeking out package tours for remote work. Just as with regular leisure travel, many people book their own travel — but a significant minority opt to get tour packages that handle all the finer details of a particular itinerary.
Moreover, just like with regular vacations, some people might even need help deciding where to go in the first place!
Traditional travel booking aggregators accommodate leisure or temporary business travel. Few cater to the nascent location-flexible remote worker.
It's almost impossible to find information about remote workations, all in one spot.
➕The Status Quo
Group workation packages exist, and they aren't that hard to find, individually. Companies have evolved in the post-pandemic travel era to provide experiences for people who want to explore the world or just get a change of scenery (while working).
Here are some of them:
Noma Collective
Hacker Paradise
Wifi Tribe
Unsettled
Remote Year
All of these companies offer group remote work packages, often with options for multiple target cities and in various flavors, all around the world.
They market themselves (deservingly!) as high-quality, exciting, and professional opportunities for people to take a remote work trip.
It's a big investment to take on one of these trips. Most of them cost from about a thousand to several thousand dollars. You are risking between a week to several months of your time and well-being if something were to go wrong.
These programs aren't really incentivized to provide honest reviews of their packages. They need to market themselves and the positive qualities of the remote work retreats they provide.
Hmm.
When you are thinking about trying out a new restaurant, where is the next place you go after checking out the menu?
You head to Yelp or Google, and you look up specific reviews of the product.
Where do you go when you are thinking about making a big decision to work for a company after you've learned everything you can from the company website? Glassdoor.com.
You want to hear what some of the experiences and reviews of people who have worked at the company are – unfiltered.
✅ The Solution
WorkationList makes it easy to browse, filter, review, and read reviews about workation destinations — all on one easy platform.
Here's what it does now:
- 💽 Aggregates data on many of the major workation providers
- 🔍 Allows filtering and search by month, continent, and duration
- 🌇 Provides some city-specific pages to browse by city in popular locations
- 🔗 Links to the first-party site of each workation if you want to Learn More
- 💬 Allows people to leave comments and reviews
Here's what it will do in the near future:
- 📈 Provide cost of living information for each city
- 🚀 Have quadruple the amount of listings (50 -> 200)
- 📠 Provide direct booking availability with key initial partners
- 🎨 Start to look nicer and nicer
- 🗺 Provide search via a visual map interface
Or at least that's what I think are the most important things to do next.
I'm interested in getting more feedback.
If anyone is seriously thinking of taking a few weeks or a month to work remotely in the next year, I would love for you to browse the site and tell me how it is or isn't helpful in assisting you.
I made it myself (and I am not a professional software engineer...).
