"…after morning meditation, I sat down and worked with everyone else, as we all had something we were building remotely, and you could easily catch that productive "coworking" vibe. If you were feeling stuck with your work or needed another perspective on something, there was always someone to ask. Every day, we had insightful workshops. The founders carefully select coliving members so that everyone has something to equally learn and share."

In November, I passed an interview with Anastasia Klimova-Kuimova and Nikita Kuimov, and I joined a retreat. It was in a 2-floor house in the town of Weligama on the south coast of Sri Lanka where there lived 12 of us. We were working on our projects and tried to be as helpful to others as we could. On our retreat, there were writers, marketing specialists, video makers, photographers, IT experts, and managers in various niches. We were all different — yet all cool.

In the morning, we used to do yoga, then write morning pages and have breakfast together, then surf and work on our tasks. The most important thing to mention — every day we had workshops. Participants shared their knowledge and expertise. For example, someone was telling us how to edit movies, another person helped us to set goals for work and one more participant shared some secrets about how to adopt useful habits. In the evenings we used to take turns cooking dinners for the whole team and sing songs with a ukulele.

Seems like I unraveled a secret of my happy days: a team of like-minded people, 3 working hours a day, and a constant exchange of knowledge.

I felt what it’s like to be Truly Alive! From the first day, I was saying that these guys were a breath of fresh air but at that time I didn’t fully realize the meaning of it as I do now. For me, the project resulted in a true family. A friendly, caring, and interesting one where each member is brilliant.

Guys, friends, and family — I’m thankful to everyone for your support, knowledge, emotions, smiles, communication, trust, and motivation.

This project is a real journey towards your inner self. Here you can just sit and think over something you always lack time to think about. And, surely, there are people around you who will help you in this process.

For me, this retreat is a camp for entrepreneurs, researchers, digital nomads, and brilliant minds, with songs around bonfires, tricks, and stories that you remember for your whole life. The difference is that in this camp participants create a reality where they want to live and do things together. I liked the way the co-founders of the project Nikita and Anastasia said that there are people around us who we would like to raise children with.

Yes, it’s possible to work while traveling ad you can be productive if you’re disciplined enough. But there is another more important thing — being in a community of people who differ from you in terms of experience but share your values. I like the idea that we’re the average value of all people who surround us. Here’s my advice — look for people with whom it’s interesting and funny to create the reality. Look for the community to multiply sources, share your experience and learn something new about yourself. This way you’ll always have people with whom you can travel around the world, raise children, and create projects of your dream!

I thought that the project was a kind of forum for freelancers, a space for exchanging useful knowledge. In reality, it turned out to be something more animated than I had expected. We shared not only knowledge but emotions. Each participant of the retreat shared a piece of themselves, their souls, energy, and mood.

Someone told me, ‘Yachts, surfing, yoga — it doesn’t look like you are working there!' But we were. And we were enjoying so much these 13 days of fruitful pleasure. It’s a great example that it’s possible to live happily and work at the same time!