Summer 2026 in numbers

Hari and Aaron took 13 Times on the road for 33 days in July and August 2026. Here’s some of the insights that came out of working while travelling.

Insight 1 - Nobody wants in person training in August

At least in the northern hemisphere August is a time of school holidays and staff absence. In the UK state school kids have six weeks of time out of the classroom so many parents take their holidays when the kids are off school. Even if it is peak time. This understandably makes it harder for employers to to run well-attended training courses as people often drop out in favour of a family holiday.

It’s about the only trend we’ve noticed in our 6 years of training and coaching - no one buys training in August. People may plan training, discuss ideas, have meetings - but no one wants to be in a training room when they could be on a beach.

Mostly.

We did lose one in-person engagement this Summer. There was an in-person opportunity for coaching which we ended up passing on to another public speaking coach - the request was for some in-person work in London when we were already on the road. But we had no idea that one was coming - so it’s a shame, but I know the client got what they needed even if we weren’t the people who were able to provide it, so that’s the most important thing.

Insight 2 - working while parenting is harder than working while travelling

As we were mostly travelling by train we had lots of opportunities to get the laptops out - but we also had two kids with us who wanted, snacks, entertainment, help with wifi issues and much more. That meant we weren’t able to pick up as much impromptu work time as we expected to.

Insight for next time - plan ahead and schedule working hours. Try to protect at least two half days a week, planned in the diary with appropriate kid distractions to cover that time.

Hitting deadlines while parenting while travelling without protected working hours meant Hari was replying to an RFP at 4am on the morning before a day at DisneyLand Paris - not ideal. (This may be why she enthusiastically embraced the mouse ears and the Disney branded champagne later that same day!)

Insight 3 - not all wifi is equal

Some of our accommodation had great wifi. Some claimed to have great wifi but we never saw the evidence. Some was wifi free and this proved a welcome vacation from trying to work.

We’re so used to the strong wifi in our office that we almost forgot everywhere doesn’t benefit from that.

Insight 4 - travel inspires, Rest enables

We had planned the time to take best advantage of our 2 month / 10 travel day Interrail passes. That meant we didn’t stay in one location for longer than 3 days for the first 2 weeks of the trip. When we finally did have a location we were in for longer, the weather turned and we spent 36 hours watching a massive lightning storm from our Airbnb window in Cinque Terre.

But this was a blessing in disguise. Not being able to venture out led to reading time, board games, and a family movie. After being on the go for nearly 3 weeks it turned out what we needed were a few days doing nothing.

Next time; fewer locations, longer stays.

The Summer in numbers

18 trains - we caught 18 trains across Europe included 2 night trains.

6 countries - we went to Belgium, Austria, Poland, Slovenia, Italy & France.

33 days - we spent a month Interrailing - which meant we couldn’t treat it all as holiday, there had to be working time.