A woman soaked herself in sunshine during a holiday to Spain - without using any annual leave.
Amy Irvine, 27, spent a week soaking up the sun in Marbella, Spain in April 2023 and didn't have to take a single day of her annual leave allowance.
As head of a digital PR company, Amy's workplace has a policy allowing all employees to work from anywhere in the world. This enabled Amy and her colleague - Olivia Smith, 27 - to jet off to Spain.
The two of them spent their days working from the balcony of their apartment just a stone's throw from the beach.
Lunch breaks were filled with a quick dip in the pool before they headed out for some drinks in the evening.
Do you secretly work remotely abroad? Email webtravel@reachplc.com
Amy has used the policy to take two other trips around the UK - Kielder Forest in Northumbria for her mum's 50th and Whitby in the North East to extend a holiday - but this is the first time she's used it to venture abroad.
Amy, from Kendal, Cumbria, said: "After Covid we realised that everyone could work from anywhere and it became a policy.
"If the job allows, then everyone should ask their boss if they can work remotely - and use the chance to head abroad.
"Chances are if you can work from home, you can work from Spain, France, anywhere with a similar timezone to the UK.
"I'd 100% recommend doing it - it's nice to get away, but not have to use up your holiday allowance. I just wanted to go and get some sunshine to be honest.
"I feel like it was so nice to have that change of scenery and work from anywhere. Maybe it would have been more stressful in the UK. The sunshine just makes everything better.
"We went for drinks and some tapas in the evenings and it made you feel like you're on holiday again - we even went to a beach club one evening.
"We went for a swim on our lunch breaks and it was so nice to wake up to sunshine and not the rain. It felt really surreal."
Amy says the working holiday and new environment even helped with productivity and helped her to feel more motivated.
"It was nice to work with my colleague - who is usually in the London office - as well," she said.
"I think if you work in a job where you can do that it's a really nice benefit and leads to a better work life balance."
Amy has also used the policy to take trips to Kielder Forest, Northumberland, for her mum's birthday - while other colleagues have gone as far as South Africa.
She says that she doesn't have any current plans for a future trip, but hopes to work abroad again in the summer and autumn months.
According to PWC, Brits working abroad but for UK companies can do so for 183 days or fewer out of a 12 month period before they have to pay tax in that country.
Since the coronavirus pandemic struck and social distancing was enforced, millions of previously office bound workers have been released from their daily commuting obligations. Some have used such freedoms to explore the world a little - with or without the permission of their bosses.
A marketing specialist based in Chicago, US told Insider how he had secretly lived in more than five countries while working 9-to-5 jobs remotely, without ever letting their colleagues know.
They recall colleagues lamenting the awful snow in Chicago one day via a Zoom call, when the secretly abroad worker was basking in sunshine in the Caribbean.
The market specialist said the trick to not getting caught is reading local news so you know what's going on and following the weather at home, so you can dress appropriately on calls and engage in small talk.
"I went paragliding in the Andes Mountains. I went to a desert in Peru and went sandboarding," he told Insider. "After doing all that, I just wasn't going to go back to the office."
