How to Work Remotely Abroad for a Week in Barcelona

Like any regular Thursday, I’m working away on the day’s tasks at Mikogo. But this week I’m abroad in Barce­lona, Spain, using online meetings and the Web to work remo­tely. Instead of going to Barce­lona for just a few days of holiday, I arrived in Barce­lona a week before my actual holiday begins. By prepa­ring myself to work abroad I have incre­ased my time in Spain but can still easily colla­bo­rate with my colleagues and get the job done. During the workday, I’m here at my laptop. Later I’m explo­ring the streets of Barce­lona.
These days just about anyone can do the same with a small bit of prepa­ra­tion. Here are my tips on how you can set yourself up to work remo­tely abroad.

What to Prepare Before Leaving for Barcelona

Prepa­ring to work abroad is not that diffe­rent from going on holiday: you book a flight, accom­mo­da­tion and pack. Here are the 5 things I had to consider before leaving for Barcelona:

1. Getting there
   For flights to Barce­lona, I used skyscanner.net which is a search engine for flights across Europe, to quickly find the best price for the dates and time I wanted to fly. Plus I could select my preferred airlines and airports.
2. Find a place to stay
   This was the only step that required a bit of thin­king. Hotels first spring to mind. However I opted for Airbnb because instead of just getting a hotel room, with Airbnb I got a flat inclu­ding living room, kitchen, bathroom, and balcony. I can stay here and work comfor­tably. Like hotels, prices on Airbnb range greatly, depen­ding on what you want and where you want to stay.Tip: whether you stay in a hotel, Airbnb, or else­where, enquire about the Internet before making any bookings. I conta­cted the owner of my Airbnb place and she wrote back: “I under­stand your worry about wifi. Yes there is a good connec­tion, never since 2008 that I rent this apart­ment had a problem.” Also similar to staying in a hotel, when selec­ting an Airbnb place I have read the reviews from others.If you need the office envi­ron­ment to work in, consider a “co-working space”. Such office spaces are busy with small busi­nesses, start-ups, entre­pre­neurs, free­lan­cers, etc. – it’s a very inno­va­tive and proac­tive envi­ron­ment. I looked up Barce­lona co-working spaces and will visit one during my stay. It turns out that Spain is the co-working capital of Europe with over 100 such spaces in Barce­lona alone. I used Share­Desk, which is a direc­tory of co-working spaces in Barce­lona, and instantly found several places within just a few minutes’ walk from my Airbnb flat. Very easy.Finally about picking a place to stay, check trans­port links, if there are local shops, restau­rants or cafes around. All such info was written on the Airbnb descriptions.
3. What to pack
   In my case, just about ever­ything I need for my work is already on my laptop which makes working from another loca­tion very easy. So all I need is my laptop and an Internet connec­tion. Before leaving London, I took note of ever­ything other than my laptop which I used during a work day: USB headset, wire­less mouse, USB drive, and pen/paper. For me that’s it making it very easy.
4. Get in touch with custo­mers
   If you are going to a city where you have several custo­mers, this is a great oppor­tu­nity to get in touch with them, tell them you will be in town, and meet up with them for lunch or a coffee. You can speak to them face-to-face, perhaps for the first time, and chat about their busi­ness and how your service comple­ments their work. Great feed­back to take back to your colleagues.
5. Ensure access to all online portals
   For me, most of the websites I use for work are online services and can be accessed from anywhere e.g. Dropbox, JIRA, Stre­am­send, etc. So nothing to do there. But there are others where we use the highest secu­rity measures to ensure only people in our company network can login. For those I’m using proxies unique to my laptop to access them remotely.
6. Set up an ncon­nect account with nfon
   Of course I use Mikogo first and fore­most for VoIP calls and online meetings with colleagues and others. But at times I just need to make a regular phone call without screen sharing. Nfon provides commu­ni­ca­tions as a service and with their Computer Tele­phony Inte­gra­tion (CTI) I can use my laptop to make calls. All infor­ma­tion about the call is displayed, along with a list of missed and past calls. The CTI can be used regard­less of whether I’m at the office, at home or here in Barcelona.

And that’s it. I’ve got ever­ything I need on my laptop and I have Mikogo to jump into online meetings with colleagues and others at any time I want. Of course, on a side note, it is also a good idea to do a bit of rese­arch on where you’re going e.g. buy a travel book, read up on the main attrac­tions, etc. But that is very much the same for any time you travel.

Extend Your Holiday and Work Abroad

There’s no doubt many Mikogo users who use the soft­ware to occa­sio­nally work from home for a couple of days here. So why not work remo­tely abroad from your holiday desti­na­tion? What is diffe­rent from working in your own house compared to a hotel/Airbnb? You have your laptop, Internet connec­tion, Mikogo to meet with colleagues/clients, etc. But you can do it from Spain, Italy, France, etc.

So next time you’re plan­ning a holiday and want a bit more time to explore the surroun­dings, consider working remo­tely and get more time abroad.

Discus­sion: Feel free to leave a comment if you have in fact used Mikogo, and other tools, to assist you in working remo­tely from another city or country.