Editor's note: Life at Sea canceled its planned cruise weeks after its initial departure date, and after this story's publication. Keri Witman told Business Insider she is still determined to be a digital nomad in 2024 but hasn't secured any trips.
A Cincinnati company leader is putting remote work to the ultimate test – by spending three years at sea onboard an ultimate world cruise.
Keri Witman, founder and president of Clever Lucy, a locally based boutique digital marketing agency, will depart this month for “Life at Sea,” an inaugural cruise where guests live, work and explore from a ship for 1,095 days. The journey takes those travelers to seven different continents, 375 destinations and 135 countries during that span.
In the months and weeks leading up the trip, Witman sold her home in Oakley – in mere hours, given the summer housing market – threw some things worth keeping into storage and carefully curated a packing list.
The voluntary journey has garnered the full support of her co-workers and fellow Clever Lucy co-founder Sara Sartarelli, as well as the firm’s clients. Even Witman’s financial adviser, who she called when first vetting the trip, gave an enthusiastic green light, she said.
“I kept waiting for a ‘no,’ and I didn’t get it,” Witman told me. “I called everybody asking, ‘Is this crazy?’ ‘Would you leave (the firm) if I did this?’ Everybody just said, ‘That’s so cool.' There’s no way I could do this personally if my team and our clients weren’t 100% on board.”
The Life at Sea opportunity came about in a random and roundabout but fortuitous way. Lately, Witman said she’d been feeling restless. She was sick of maintaining her home, but didn’t want to sell the property, move into a condo and do the same thing over again. She loved to travel, but mostly only got to do it for work, and one-off trips didn’t carry enough allure.
In a casual conversation with a friend over dinner on a Friday, a cruise was mentioned. The two Googled ideas for a bit and moved on.
The next morning, Witman was served up an ad for Life at Sea. “I appreciated that working in the digital world,” she quipped.
By Sunday, she had scheduled a call with the cruise team. She put a deposit down almost immediately after. The starting cost for the Life at Sea experience, according to the cruise company's LinkedIn, is $29,999.
Clever Lucy has embraced remote work from the start
In preparation for her departure, the Clever Lucy team meet regularly to develop a plan.
The company already maintains a remote-first work culture. It does not have a physical office space and relies more on long-term freelancers versus full-time staffers. But it was still important to lay the ground work before departure, Witman said.
“If I’m out of pocket, we’ve got contingencies, and there’s not going to be a gap in our services to our clients,” she said.
Witman and Sartarelli first launched Clever Lucy in 2020 after years working at large firms. Witman, herself, spent more than 20 years in publishing in New York City before a layoff – and ensuing job offer in town – moved her to Cincinnati in 2010. She joined Possible, which is now Grey Midwest, where she met Sartarelli.
When Possible lost its Smucker’s account, it laid off 70 employees, Witman included. A lot of people opted not to return to big agency life, she said.
That served as the genesis for Clever Lucy.
“We wanted to do this better and be more flexible,” she said. “If people do things they are passion about, they will do better work for you.”
The agency specializes mostly in edtech with clients like EdSolutions, a New York-based education-focused consulting firm; West End Learning, a North Carolina e-learning company; and Vista Higher Learning, headquartered in Boston and a developer of print and digital language materials; as well as Cincinnati-based builder Frazier Homes and Easterseals, a nonprofit that provides job opportunities to people with disabilities, economic disadvantages and veterans.
The agency has grown 200% year-over-year, mostly through word-of-mouth.
It has the same projection for 2023.
Witman believes the experience and exposure from the Life at Sea will benefit their company culture and their clients – with new perspectives and connections. It also pushes the boundaries on what’s possible for a full-time professional and business owner.
“We’ve been talking about how to incorporate the business with my trip: what conferences might be relevant to our clients in different countries,” Witman said. “We have clients based in Mexico, the Netherlands and Peru. I’m going to try to coordinate meeting with people in person that otherwise I’d never be able to do. We’re brainstorming how I can stay alert to marketing strategies in other countries along the way and bring that back to the team.”
Ed Mack, who’s part of the marketing team at Human Capital Institute, a Brentwood, Tenn.-based human resource and talent management provider, said they’ve been meeting every other week as usual with Witman and team. Clever Lucy does social media channel work for the company.
He was on one of the calls Witman first made to vet her idea. “We didn’t share any hesitation in wishing her to go forward,” Mack said.
He’s also fully remote – Mack is based in Cleveland – and said that level of flexibility can help retain talent.
“The technology we have today allows us to take on these adventures and really working from anywhere,” he said. “Later on in life (my spouse, Steph, and I) may do the same thing. Any chance to work remote allows you to stay refreshed and ready for the work ahead.”
Witman said the Life at Sea cruise is designed for “digital nomads.” There’s a business center with work spaces, meeting rooms and private offices for rent, in addition to free wifi across the ship.
The cruise was initially scheduled to set sail from Istanbul Nov. 1, although there are reported delays in the departure. A 36-page itinerary, posted on the Life at Sea website, shows stops in ports like Sapporo, Japan; Bora Bora; and Bali, Indonesia before ending in Kusadasi, Turkey, in fall 2026.
What happens after the cruise is still unknown. “I have no plan for when I come back,” she said. “I know I’ll be a different person in some ways.”
It’s all a grand experiment. One that just comes with a three-year timeframe.
“It doesn’t intimidate me,” Witman added. “People kept saying, ‘You’re so brave.’ I don’t think its brave. I’m excited. We’re going to test the limit.”
