Remote Working in Paradise

Hsien is not a professional surfer and he’s definitely not a social media influencer hustling stays at surf resorts around the World. 

Hsien isn’t even a weekend warrior, yet the London based Frother somehow manages to get on several exotic surf trips throughout the year and is on every decent swell in the South West Coast of England.

So for all the layman desk jockeys sat wondering how apparently everyone else online is living the dream, there is a way, a way where time-zones and afternoon onshore wind will combine to benefit you. Good old fashioned work.

With a passport and work that can be completed anywhere with an internet connection, Hsien manages to do his day job, it just might be at slightly different hours of the day to the norm.

Over the years Hsien and I have been on surf trips to France, Spain, Portugal, Morocco, Malaysia, Philippines, Sri Lanka and Indonesia, and on every trip he’s made the most of an afternoon onshore wind, bad day of surf, or skipped the offer of a night out to get on the tools.

This is a prime example of a common man reaping the benefits of surfing’s upper-caste system and is something we are seeing a lot of at our Surf House, but how does it work, trying to work, whilst on a surf trip in Sri Lanka?

Time Travel.

Firstly assuming you’re UK based you’re going to be ahead of time. Literally. Sri Lanka is 4.5 hours ahead of the UK during the Northern Hemisphere Winter. So a typical morning for Hsien in Sri Lanka would be 5:30am wake up and check the surf from the roof terrace, 6:00am coffee and plan aims for the surf session with his surf coach, surf 6:15am until breakfast, eat, go through video analysis, join the surf specific stretching class, grab lunch, then take a quick nap before waking up at 1:30pm to ‘check-in’ with his colleagues who are just getting to their desks for 9am…

Mobile Internet.

The most useful tool in Hsien’s digital nomad briefcase is his local sim card. Being somewhat of a developing country, wifi in Sri Lanka is temperamental but data is ridiculously cheap. Hsien gets a local SIM card from the airport when he arrives and buys the $20 tourist sim pack which gives him 50GB of data and that lasts him a month. He has a power-bank to survive the occasional powercuts and with everything charged up he’s fired up and good to go.

No Avo Toast.

Whilst all cafes in every quickly developing surf town across the globe have at least one digital nomad sweating over their macbook, whilst getting their macros in in the form of avo toast, Hsien scoffs at all these rookies. 

Trying to work under the tropical sun in a bougie beach-side shack, whilst obliterating your laptop with the salty breeze is as unproductive as it gets and stressful as it sounds. Given the right environment, most of us will be able to focus with clear intent and whilst the rooms at our Surf House in Sri Lanka have cold AC, a small laptop table, USB plugs etc and there is an air conditioned ‘coaching classroom’, there are also several co-work spaces in the town, which offer all the elements to encourage productivity at developing country prices. Co-Live, Focus Hub, Nets and Kaffi are all within 1km of each other.

So.

Hsien is like many of our guests who are living the dream, just a more realistic one. I asked him what it takes to get to this sort of freedom and he responded:

Firstly focus on what you’re good at and create a plan that helps you excel in your field, which will ultimately enable you to work remotely.

When asked the best country to be working remotely he continued:

Sri Lanka is a great place to work for anyone based in Europe as the timing is ideal. You might miss out on some dinner plans, but it’s a worth while trade and you can still go out in the evening after clocking out at 9.30pm!

So if you are looking to break free from the traditional office setup and craft your own version of “working remotely in paradise” come visit us at the Surf House in Sri Lanka to get the dream started…