It’s Not a Vacation! We’re Working When We Travel

So we took this whole month of May to travel from our home in Wisconsin down to Phoenix, out to San Diego, up to Northern California, and end up back up June 1. The main purpose is so we can pick up more of our stuff from storage in Roseville, California. However, since we know so many people, friends and family, in Phoenix, San Diego, and Roseville, we are taking time to visit with them as we travel.

But it’s not a vacation! No, we are working while we travel. We are still doing all our usual stuff. I work as a Virtual Assistant managing client’s social media marketing, newsletters, and blogs and am continuing to do so. We have a web design business we are continuing to run and in fact have received new work as we’ve been traveling.

And Joel’s book coaching and publishing business, Someday Box, has continued. We have one client in the final stages of editing her book, another in the U.K. that we’re working on formatting the interior of his book (in fact we had an international call with him yesterday), and yet another that signed up for the Pathfinding Session and Road Map. We had an hour call with her last Monday while here in Arizona and have scheduled another one this next Tuesday while we’re in San Diego.

So for us it’s business as usual – we did spend 18 months living as nomads with no fixed place of residence traveling and working. It’s no different now except we do have a fixed place of residence and travel less than we did.

When we do take a vacation, we’ll let you know. We do take the last two weeks of the year off from work. This year we may just end up in Arizona for most of that time. Perhaps visiting our friends and family here and taking time to see Oak Creek Canyon, Sedona, and Jerome. We did spend out honeymoon in Oak Creek Canyon and this December will be our 10th wedding anniversary!

And this trip we are getting to connect with lots of friends and family – in Phoenix it’s been Terry & Virgie, Dan & Annete, Rod on Saturday, and Sunday Sue’s Uncle Phil. In San Diego we’ll see Sue’s mom, Joel’s brother Brett and his family and Joel’s sister Lynn and her family. Also our good friend Ken. Then it’s up to Northern California to see Tom Bentley, Dave Reffkin, Pam & Phil, the Stephens family, and of course Fiona’s big sister Rachelle!

The final four days of our trip heading home Fiona and Sue will get to drive through Idaho, Montana, and North Dakota – all states they’ve never been in before. Oh, and we’re driving through Yosemite. So that will feel like a vacation – though Sue does have a big transcription project she needs to get finished that week as well. That’s when having a colleague comes in handy. Sue is very grateful to Amy in New Jersey for all the assistance she’s providing in that area.

So, don’t ask how our vacation was! We weren’t on vacation! We were traveling and working and having the time of our lives! Don’t you wish you could do this?

Dinosaur Ridge, Timberline Park and Music in Colorado

While we’re in Longmont Colorado this week we decided to have a ‘vacation’ and spend some time seeing some things. This past Friday we took Mrs. Parker’s suggestion and went to Dinosaur Ridge in Morrison. Fiona had a chance to dig for fossils – though she never actually found any. We learned about dinosaurs in the Exhibit Hall. Then we took a walk a bit up Dinosaur Ridge.

It’s Work, Not a Vacation

Nice thing about believing that there’s no such thing as work/life balance is that we can mingle the two, or separate them, at will.

Sue wrote a great post at our Chief Virtual Officer site explaining that we want to add a more human dimension to our virtual work. Meeting folks in real life is enthralling; shaking hands and hugging and sharing a meal; seeing the look on their face when they grasp what you’re teaching; showing our daughter that there are real people out there, not just avatars on a Facebook page.

Our goal isn’t to retire with our immeasurable wealth in order to frequent the hotspots of the nouveau riche; our goal is to live, every single day; to work and love and share and learn and live.