Remote work didn’t just survive the last few years — it quietly settled in. Families are now booking months-long stays in places that make sense for both Zoom calls and school runs. Not a vacation. Not a business trip. Something in between, and harder to pull off than either. Here’s what actually works.
7 Special Ways to Make Holiday video With Friends and Family
1. Pick a Base That Works for Everyone
This sounds obvious. It isn’t. Most people book a rental based on aesthetics or price, then spend the first week troubleshooting everything else. The bedroom count matters more than the view. You need space to disappear for a 10 AM call while the kids eat breakfast two rooms away. A shared studio won’t survive it.
Families who do this regularly tend to anchor around private villas rather than hotels or apartments. A well-chosen Bali 2 bedroom villa with private pool, for instance, covers the core requirements most families overlook: separate sleeping areas, an outdoor space where children can exist loudly, and enough square footage that two adults aren’t finishing each other’s sentences during calls.
The private pool isn’t a luxury item here. It’s what buys you two uninterrupted working hours while the kids are occupied within eyeline.
What to Actually Check Before Booking
⦁ Fiber internet — not “fast Wi-Fi.” Ask for the actual Mbps number. Minimum 50 for two working adults
⦁ A dedicated workspace or at least a solid table that isn’t the kitchen counter
⦁ Proximity to a local school or daycare program — even a few mornings a week changes the whole equation
⦁ Backup power. In Bali specifically, outages during wet season (November through March) are real and regular
2. Set Work Hours Before You Land
Most workations fall apart in the first two weeks. Not because of the destination — because nobody agreed on a schedule.
The romantic version: work when inspired, explore when free, let the days unfold. The actual version: your partner is on a client call at 9 AM, you have a deadline at 2, the kids need lunch at noon, and none of this was discussed before the flights were booked.
The Rule That Actually Helps
Write down your fixed work hours before you book anything. Not rough estimates — actual blocks. Then check if they overlap with each other, with school drop-off times, with local time zones. And check whether your main client is in New York, which means it’s 10 PM there when it’s 10 AM in Canggu.
Asynchronous tools make this manageable. Loom for quick video updates, Notion for shared task tracking. Teams that went fully remote between 2022 and 2024 sorted this out by necessity. You don’t need to reinvent anything — just borrow what already works.
3. Don’t Improvise the Kids’ Schedule
Children need structure more when everything around them is unfamiliar. This is just how it works.
Parents on workation often assume the novelty of a new place will keep the kids entertained. It does — for about four days. After that, you have bored, disoriented children and two adults trying to work simultaneously with no plan and nowhere quiet to go.
What experienced workation families actually do:
⦁ Enroll kids in a local activity within the first week — surf lessons in Seminyak, half-day cooking classes near Ubud, or morning programs at one of the international schools around Canggu that accept short-term enrollments
⦁ Keep meal times and bedtimes consistent, regardless of what the adults are doing in the evenings
⦁ Designate one parent as “on duty” during work hours on alternating days — both adults being half-present is less efficient than one being fully available
The mornings — roughly 7 to 11 AM — are the most productive window in most tropical locations, before the heat peaks and before children hit their afternoon limit. Build the day’s structure around that window. Everything else follows.
4. Connectivity: More Complicated Than You Think
Fast villa Wi-Fi is step one. It doesn’t solve everything.
Working with a European or US-based team from Bali means a 6–8 hour time difference, minimum. That’s workable, but it requires an honest conversation with your employer or clients before departure. Not after. Before.
The Practical Checklist
⦁ Get a local SIM immediately on arrival. In Bali, Telkomsel and XL offer the most consistent 4G coverage outside Denpasar — don’t rely on an international roaming plan for video calls
⦁ Keep a mobile hotspot as a backup. Villa internet drops during heavy rain, and in wet season that means regularly
⦁ Test your company VPN with the local router before your first scheduled call. Some consumer VPN configurations throttle video significantly — finding that out mid-presentation is unpleasant
⦁ Use World Time Buddy or a second clock on your phone. Sounds basic. Missing it causes real missed calls
One thing families consistently underestimate: the mental weight of being permanently reachable. Set notification windows and communicate them clearly. A three-hour no-notification block each afternoon isn’t slacking — it’s how you make it through a two-month stay without resenting the whole thing.
5. Understand the Visa Situation for 2026 — It Changed
This is the part most travel content skips entirely.
Bali updated its remote work visa framework recently. As of early 2026, the Second Home Visa is technically the cleanest option for stays over 60 days — but it requires demonstrating roughly $130,000 in accessible savings, which eliminates most families from the start. The Social-Cultural Visa (B211A), extendable once in 60-day blocks, is what most remote workers actually use. It doesn’t officially authorize work for Indonesian clients, but is widely used by people servicing overseas employers. That distinction matters.
A few things worth knowing for 2026:
⦁ B211A extensions now process through licensed agents in most regions, not directly through immigration — budget 7–10 business days and around $100–150 in agent fees
⦁ Overstay fines are enforced at $20 per day, and enforcement has tightened over the last 18 months
⦁ Thailand’s Long-Term Resident (LTR) visa is worth considering if your employer is uncomfortable with grey-area work authorization — five-year term, clear remote work permissions, Bangkok infrastructure — but it operates on an entirely different pace from Bali
The point isn’t which visa is objectively better. The point is: don’t assume the rules are the same as when you read that post in 2023.
Practical Tips That Make a Family Workation Actually Work in 2026
A workation with children is not a vacation with a laptop open. It’s closer to temporarily relocating your entire life while keeping it running at the same pace.
Families who make it work aren’t exceptional. They planned more carefully, had the logistics conversation early, and picked a base that handled the structural problems so they didn’t have to figure it out on arrival. That’s genuinely most of it.
The rest is being willing to admit when something isn’t working and adjusting — which is a lot easier to do when you’re not also arguing about the Wi-Fi.