Got a remote job. Tips to make use of my time?

Hey everyone!

So I wanted to give a little bit of context. 2025 was a crazy year. Didn’t enjoy my old job. Went on a four months sabbatical. Traveled across Southeast Asia in Japan for three months. Came back to that same working environment, which got even worse so I ended up quitting with no job. Had two months of stress and anxiety lol. BUT I secured luckily a fully remote job. It has a work abroad program for 1 to 2 months and 25 days of vacation.

I really wanna make this work because it’s basically what I wanted, especially after coming home from traveling. That experience changed my entire outlook of life and now I don’t really care about going up to corporate ladder. I want to buy myself something that’s more important. Time and freedom so I can work on myself, go to the gym, and build good habits, meet people and have more novelty in my day-to-day environment and hopefully get the opportunity to travel and work abroad or just travel a lot more often.

For those doing remote work any recommendations of how you made your day-to-day more enjoyable with the extra freedom? Did you work from different places (i.e. A coffee shop, community center, coworker space, etc.)?

How did you continue to keep your social bug up? Of course, the one downside of the remote is that you end up not talking to anyone as much in person. Although I’ve never really cared of connecting with my coworkers that closely anyways. But I do want to start joining meet ups or just striking conversations with random people at coffee, shops, or coworker spots. Any recommendations there?

For those working remote, does your company also have a work abroad program? If so, have you taken advantage of it? How was that experience? Any countries that you would recommend?

Any other useful tips would be great! 2026 is gonna be a year where I have a lot more freedom now and even though I won’t be on a three months sabbatical anytime soon I want to create a novelty every few months to make my life as exciting and interesting as possible!