Work Your World: Experiencing Mexico City

Gillian Bailey, Director, Strategy, Jordan MacFarlane, Supervisor, Paid Social

It’s Gillian and Jordan! We’re two friends who met as students at Temple University, and now work together in PHM’s Philly office. As lovers of travel and exploration, we both knew we wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to Work Your World, a unique benefit where Publicis Groupe employees can work abroad for up to 6 weeks in a year. Gillian studied in Rome during college and Jordan lived in Switzerland for part of his life, so it was exciting to have the opportunity to get live and work abroad again.

When picking a location, we considered a few options, but ultimately landed on Mexico City. We chose this location based on recommendations from friends and coworkers, but also due to the city’s reputation as a popular destination for remote workers. Given that we wanted to be in a similar time zone to our teammates back home in Philly, Mexico City seemed like a great fit. Before we knew it, we were jet-setting down south for five weeks!

Once in Mexico City, we quickly settled into our routine. Since the city is home to many digital nomads, it was easy to find tips and resources for working remotely, including a co-working space near our house. In the morning, we would head there to work from 8 AM – 4 PM and then explore during the evenings and weekends. On days when we didn’t have as many meetings, we would try out a new café or work from one of the many parks in the city. This allowed us to maintain a steady flow, making space for us to focus on work and then fully embrace our environment when we logged off. Due to our extensive research on Reddit and other forums, we had a long-running list of places we wanted to explore, food we wanted to eat and sights we wanted to see, so there was never a dull moment.

One surprising aspect of our journey was just how easy it was to make new friends. We ended up meeting people from all over the world who were passing through Mexico City on their travels. It was nice to have a small community of people around us, and we still keep in touch with some of them now that we are back home. Gillian even met up with our friend from Sweden when she visited New York recently! In addition to our new friends, we also ran into some friends back home who also happened to be visiting Mexico City. It was a great surprise, and we loved getting to have this experience with new and old friends alike.

Our journey wasn’t without some bumps in the road, including managing the fact that neither of us are fluent in Spanish. Google Translate was our best friend at the beginning of our trip, and then we quickly picked up some common phrases and words to help us get around. Being immersed in a Spanish-speaking country made it so much easier to learn the language and everyone was so helpful and kind, so that encouraged us to keep practicing.

Reflecting back on our time in Mexico City—those five weeks definitely flew by, filled with memories and experiences that we will never forget. We truly felt like we had the opportunity to immerse ourselves in the local culture, which is harder to achieve on a one- or two-week vacation. For those considering taking part in Work Your World, our advice is to just take the plunge. It may seem daunting at first, but there are plenty of resources at your disposal to plan out your trip. We were both very communicative with our teams and our managers, and that made the process leading up to and during the trip more manageable. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so don’t let it pass you by!  

Connect with Gillian and Jordan on LinkedIn.

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