From Zoom Fatigue to the Maldives in Business Class

Robert and I work in tech. We spent three years doing remote work from our San Francisco apartment. By year three, we were experiencing severe burnout, just staring at the same four walls and doing back-to-back Zoom calls.

We needed to go as far away as possible. The Maldives was the obvious choice for total isolation and relaxation, but the flight routing from the West Coast is brutal.

We worked with Lisa at CEOFLIGHTS to find the best option. She completely understood that we didn't want to start a relaxation trip by being miserable in transit for 25 hours.

Lisa booked us on Cathay Pacific through Hong Kong, snagging us the new Aria Suites. She also saved us $4,500 compared to what we found on Google Flights, which basically paid for our seaplane transfers.

The flight out of SFO was unfortunately delayed by 90 minutes. That made our connection in Hong Kong incredibly nerve-wracking. We basically had to run through the terminal to make our flight to Malé.

We were sweating and stressed out when we boarded the second leg, but the crew immediately brought us cold towels and water. The huge, private space of the Aria Suite instantly calmed us down.

Despite the rushed connection, we did manage to grab a quick plate of dim sum at The Pier lounge in Hong Kong, which was fantastic.

We arrived in the Maldives feeling surprisingly good. Starting our decompression in those massive lie-flat seats meant we didn't waste the first three days of our trip recovering from jet lag.