Why Zoom work with a phony tropical island filter behind you when you can experience the real thing?
That’s what a growing number of so-called “digital nomads” have thought, giving “work from home” a new meaning halfway around the world.
According to an article in Bloomberg Businessweek, these employees are taking full advantage of their pandemic-spawned escape from the cubicle farm, setting up their laptops in Bali, Thailand, Estonia or wherever they happen to be hanging their straw hats.
The publication noted these “business leisure” travelers inspired a man named David Abraham to start Outpost, which provides temporary “work from home” sites in countries like Indonesia and Sri Lanka.
As reported, Airbnb — which already provides homes to renters just about everywhere — is letting its workers set up shop in its rentals all over the world.
The only sticky wicket, the article notes, is the red tape some countries didn’t anticipate with the influx of these digital nomads: These employees aren’t quite tourists or foreign workers — meaning they don’t pay local taxes.
In many countries, taxing long-term visitors requires them to have a work permit, which tourist visa holders can’t get.
As governments try to figure it out, however, they’re enjoying the influx of new visitors — who are enjoying their filter-free exotic work backdrops.
And when their tourist visas expire, these digital nomads can always pack up and start “working from home” from someplace else.
Bloomberg notes that some locations — like Antigua and Barbuda, and the Cayman Islands — let a tourist stay as long as two years; Greece lets you stay a year, as does the United Arab Emirates, Malta and Saint Lucia.
Sure beats the view of Bob from accounting from your old cube!