We regularly share stories of people who have been on workation. This time the inspiring story of Samantha Tolboom, who works from her campervan in Australia. Hence: home is where you park it! First she left for Spain for 6 months for a big client and then she went to Australia. There she has been traveling around in a campervan with her husband for six months now, while doing her work online. Below you can read her amazing workation story.
It is 8:00 a.m. in the morning. The sun is shining through a crack in the curtains of our campervan, Daisy. I can hear the waves of the sea in the background and look outside: the pinks, lilacs, oranges and blues in the sky are breathtaking. I feel a smile come onto my face: I can’t believe this is actually my life. It still feels like I’m having an out-of-body experience. Time to make an oat milk cappuccino and land with another yoga session before I flip open my laptop and start my work day.
I didn’t come here by accident. I have (un)consciously worked toward this my whole life.
Burnout
I have been struggling with winter depression since I was 13 years old. This has been an additional reason for me to travel and seek the sun especially during the winter months. Especially when I was still working in the corporate world. Until one day things went finaly wrong. I am a hard worker and like to bite into things (probably also the reason I am so strong in sales and negotiation). I see this as my strength, but found out when I was 27 that this is also my pitfall. I thought burnouts were for weak people – but it’s the strong go-getters who often lose out. What I learned during this period: depression is the opposite of expression. And I didn’t find my expression in pay. I found this while traveling the world. So I made the choice to turn my life around.
I want to break free
After 30 years of living in the same city in the Netherlands (Amersfoort), it was crazy to break ourselves loose from the familiar. I went on vacation several times a year, including several workations. The goal: to explore the world. We can learn so much from other cultures, especially as Dutch people who are fairly developed in a lot of complaining – while we actually have it so good. However, we often forget this because of the delusion of the day. When one of my clients asked if I wanted to go to Spain to increase sales locally, I felt right away: YES. After 6 months I completed this project, which has been the start for me and my husband Hugo to continue doing business while we are abroad.
Vanlife in Australia
Especially while traveling in our campervan Daisy, I experience how little we need as human beings. In full disclosure: I love luxury. Just do me a jet-set setting in a five-star resort with a cocktail in my hands, where I’m lying in a sexy cut-out bikini on a beach chair by an infinity pool. What I find most extraordinary? I can experience the same sense of luxury with a lot less: all of our stuff now fits in a 2×5 meter campervan, my clothes are down to 10%, instead of 100 pairs of shoes I now have only 3. And I still feel happy.
My expectation was that camping and minimalist living would not fit. Would feel uncomfortable. But nothing could be further from the truth.
I now take in every gulp of life much more consciously. Am at one with nature. Live outside so much that I am getting browner and blonder. I feel more and more myself, especially now that I have so much less.
Level up with a workation
As human beings, we are terrified of change. After all, from prehistoric times, change is linked to experiencing danger. So we are naturally inclined to avoid change as much as possible. Which means we arrange our lives according to the expectations of our loved ones. Following the route of our society. Sometimes even going through life as a phantom. Endure work by living from vacation to vacation (or workation to workation). Until we are so far removed from ourselves that we become depressed or fall into burnout. How did we end up here?
Ultimate freedom on workation
I built my business to support my life, not the other way around. Why go on an occasional workation when you can also live your whole life as an ultimate workation? As a Business Mentor, I can work every day where I want, when I want, how I want and with whom I want. Which boils down to me and my laptop, in most beautiful locations where me and Hugo have parked our campervan Daisy, to work for inspiring start-ups and scale-ups whose mission is to make the world a better place. Changemakers. That’s how I see my clients and myself.
You only live once
Cliché, yet really so true. Did you know that the No. 1 regret thought of people on their deathbed is: had I done that after all? From the fear that something will go wrong, we stiffen. While, on the contrary, you can discover and experience so much more by acting precisely on what your heart desires. The best thing is: life wants to move with you. As long as you take the first step. Then you will be supported. Of course, this is not linear and you will always experience peaks and valleys. But when you look back in five years, I’m sure you will recognize a line upward.
What does your ideal (work) life look like? And how will you make this come true for yourself? Because if I can do it, so can you. Everything starts with a choice. What will you choose today?
More inspiration from Samantha? Follow her on Instagram @samanthatolboom or read more on her website.
