[am1m]

With a lot of offices shut and employees from some professions being able to work remotely, there seems to be an interest in remote working opportunities. A lot of people have gone back to their hometowns of course, but am hoping this thread becomes a repository for information on remote working possibilities for people who don't have family in those places.

*How easy is it to get to?
*Rentals/rates?
*Internet access and providers?
*How receptive will the locals be to outsiders coming there to work for extended periods of time?

Things and tips like that. All based on personal experience hopefully; there is enough paid-news in the media these days about 5-star hotels and resorts offering these sorts of packages.

Personally I'm hoping to use these next few months while my office is shut to work from different parts of the country. Or at least different parts within driving distance of Bangalore. Of course I intend to take all reasonable precautions and not take the pandemic situation lightly either. And goes without saying that all local regulations must be adhered to in terms of quarantine, etc. About the 'moral' aspect of 'non-essential' travel during this time, well of course there will be different views, but hope that does not become the point of this thread. People (and there are a LOT) out on essential travel are equally possibly asymptomatic carriers. Just my opinion.

Edit: Sorry mods, just saw this thread: https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/route...karnataka.html

So perhaps the two could be merged.

[GTO]

Originally Posted by am1m

With a lot of offices shut and employees from some professions being able to work remotely, there seems to be an interest in remote working opportunities.

My sister has a beautiful place in Pawna and just this morning, I was telling her to move there for a month or two!

IMHO, the best option is:

- Your own home, whether a family-house in your hometown or a holiday home

- Renting a bungalow or flat from Airbnb / similar services

I just wouldn't trust hotels right now. The risk is high due to enormous foot traffic, plus sharing of essentials & common areas. On the other hand, having / renting your own home means getting the same level of safety as you are enjoying right now in your main house.

How receptive will the locals be to outsiders coming there to work for extended periods of time?

At least in Maharashtra, this is not an issue basis recent feedback from Lonavla, Pawna, Mahabaleshwar & Devlali. In some of these towns, outsiders bring extra $$$ to spend.

My family has been thinking of spending a fortnight (or longer) in Devlali, but I'm hesitant (I LOVE Bombay life).

[2000rpm]

Most villages / towns have their own random interpretations of the lockdown guidelines. For example in my native town in Maharashtra, the gram panchayat is insisting on 14 days home quarantine within your home every anyone coming from outside.

I have a bungalow on half an acre land, still gives plenty of space, but I will need to depend on neighbours for my supplies!

[Dieseltuned]

I would stay put in the cities where the medical facilities are any day better than rural areas. God forbid if I catch the virus in my native I do not want to run Helter skelter looking for covid treatment facilities.

[ast.ggn]

Came across a post on facebook couple of days back by some gentleman on a Himalayan Travel group page. His requirements were - monthly budget of 25-30k inclusive of meals for couple of people and internet compulsory. There were lot of responses by homestay owners on his post.

Locals should not be a problem as most of the homestays in Himalayas are owned by locals, can't say about other parts of the country.

[iamahunter]

Thanks to the lockdown and good internet speeds easily available in remote villages, most of my team mates have moved to their native places already.
Some are really in remote places in while some in other metro cities. However, as they still have their stuff here, they still are paying rents. While some had to stay home quarantine, few need not.

Thanks to the removal of section 370, a friend from J&K moved back there, as high speed internet now available at his ancestral home.
Electricity, however remains to be an hindrance sometimes.

[haisaikat]

As the travel agents on any facebook vacation and outing groups have been marketing, Work from Home-Stay / Work from Himalayas seems very exciting to me. For folks who can work remote all they need is to ensure reliable connection of voice and data both.

However the other challenge is if your laptop goes kaput, you are dead into water and will lose the advantage to going to office for troubleshooting if you have gone far away from base location. May be take approval to use your own device and carry a spare personal laptop if office allows (BYOD).

Otherwise the rates are very lucrative. I recall seeing home stays in remote areas of Darjeeling with mountain view being offered for as low as less than 10,000 INR for just the stay. Food charges are separate.

[am1m]

Jotting down some internet speeds I have observed for reference:

Saw up to 10mbps (indicated by speedtest.net) using the Airtel and Reliance hotspots at Kaup and Marvanthe beaches (near Udupi). Was really surprised to see 18mbps indicated speed at the top of Agumbe Ghat. Even as recently as 5 years ago, from what i remember, all you got up there was BSNL phone signal!

[Jaguar]

Originally Posted by Dieseltuned

I would stay put in the cities where the medical facilities are any day better than rural areas. God forbid if I catch the virus in my native I do not want to run Helter skelter looking for covid treatment facilities.

Exactly. Not just covid, in case of any emergency you are better off in a familiar place with all systems in-place rather than a remote location.

People going back to their home-towns is not the same as working from a remote homestay. In the first case, they are most likely going to be with their family in a well established, familiar neighborhood where they will not be treated as an outsider. But in a hotel/homestay, you are a visitor and based on the socio-political situation, can end up becoming unwelcome overnight.

Moreover, how many folks can really work for extended periods on a 14" laptop screen? People and companies are investing in upgrading their WFH infrastructure with ergonomic furniture and large screens, which no hotel/homestay can match. It is ok to travel for a long weekend, but for software developers at least, I believe, extended holiday cum work will end up in reduced productivity.

[libranof1987]

I keep joking that if I had a holiday home, I'd have gladly moved there for the period of the lockdown, maybe beyond. But as romantic as the idea is, it has serious drawbacks: (I'm using Konkan/Lonavala as an eg. since I'm familiar with holiday homes/Airbnbs in these areas)

1) Electricity: most non-metro cities/towns suffer from lack of 24*7 electricity; there's only so much a genset can do

2) Broadband: Konkan barely has reliable consistent network, leave alone 4G / broadband. Without this, what work are you going to be able to do!

Given these basic infrastructural challenges, I don't think remote working is going to be possible, especially my work is entirely on high speed internet.

I'm not really worried about having access to basic necessities because these towns have permanent residents so everything would be in place. Medical facilities, *if* one catches Covid is a disaster even in metros.

I wouldn't rent a place though.

[silverado]

I have a beautiful village house( In Konkan ), but the problem is even the mobile signal is patchy and only BSNL, so internet is out of question.Electricity cuts are normal.
And thats why i like it so much.

Bottom line : Holiday Homes without assistance from domestic help, may not be like an holiday, but atleast you get to stay in pollution free environment and mobility is much more than in cities.

This idea sounds rosy, but believe me we are not wired to stay away from city life for long.

[clix22]

A view from the other side of the coin. I have a holiday villa with a large piece of land around it in Pondicherry. I do rent it out on airbnb and other sites. we continue to get enquiries for long term rentals from people who would like to use it as a base for Work from home.
We have high speed broadband and a full time caretaker so those issues are sorted. The main issue is that once you come here, you move away from your family and social circle which after a week or two does not work for most especially if they are young.
I personally would have loved to be there for the past 3 months but am stick in the city of dreams .

[bosem123]

By the way, isn't it a good thing that simply because of the pandemic situation. many homestays and smaller hotels will finally start paying attention to the establishment of better Internet connections on site? It would certainly help them attract customers at this time. I think I can see a silver lining here

[1:1]

IMHO it would completely depend on your type of work (and your reporting boss).

Few of my friends and colleague who have good internet speed at their holiday/ancestral homes are happily working from remote locations and are able to roam freely and enjoy time with their family which would otherwise be spent in traffic jams.

On the other hand, I know someone who lost his job as he was stuck at his hometown and could not come back. Company was ready to provide Desktop/laptop to employees but only till their base location. If anyone was out of the base location and was non billable (IT Consulting) were given pink slips after few months of non-billable activity.

One other company’s HR policy now allowed WFH but only in your base location and not your home town. Few of the other teams continue to go to office as if its BAU only because their Boss feels if they are not in his/her eyesight they are not working at all.

Given a choice I personally would love to continue working from home or a fancy remote location. Office visits can be once or twice a month at max. In most cases where teams are spread across geographies and collaboration is usually on calls or virtual meetings, don’t see why do we really need to spend few hours each day to get ready and travel to work.

[dicor]

I discussed the same idea with my better half few months ago, but it was slightly different. I have started executing it now.

Our plan was to stay in all major cities for a shorter period of time. Cover all the weekend destinations and move to a all new city.

So first we shifted to my native place, stayed there for a month and then we moved to Bhopal. Now accommodation is not a problem in Bhopal as we have our own apartment here. We've started covering lesser known surroundings and hopefully we will move to another city next month.

We pack up everything in our XUV5OO and it's a massive luggage hauler too.

Office connectivity
The mobile hot-spot works fine in any big cities. We have 3 providers Airtel, Vodafone and Jio. At least one of them works and give decent speed.

The other problem is that if we book an apartment in another city without visiting it, internet connectivity may not be that good. So far I have asked the owners for the screenshots from speedtest site.

I have to give-up on my triple monitor setup and living with dual monitor setup. Of course no printer as well. This is to save the space during transport.

Accommodation
So far I was lucky because I do have my own home in these cities. However I don't know what will happen when I move to a city where I do not have any own accommodation. May be I will find out a fully furnished flat for 2 months with help of broker / real estate sites. However I don't think so it would be a nice experience all the time.
The flats on rental site for short term are highly overpriced. 35K per month is the cheapest in Patna. Don't know what it will be in Noida.

During shifting
This is boring part as we have to do the packing again entire one weekend goes in this.
I do not have plans to stay in remote areas. Wherever I would be, I would stay in a big city and in a gated community.