Using remote working to live globally
January 16, 2009 2:32 AM Subscribe
I work from home. 90% of my work is carried out over email or remote connections to machines.
How can I use this flexibility to travel the world/live in different locations while still holding down a professional job. Looking for tips and practical experience on the travel, places to live/work and communications.
I work from home. 90% of my work is carried out over email or remote connections to machines. Additionally, on an average week I'll field 2 or 3 calls from customers. I also have to attend a conference call once a week. I have to be available 9-5 GMT by email and phone.
My work isn't demanding and out of an eight hour day I might have two hours or less of actual work with occasional busy days.
I want to use this flexibility to work in different locations.
For political reasons, I work for a major blue chip multinational, I always have to appear to be in the same place - the UK - to my boss and customers. So when customers call me they need to call a UK number, be charged a UK rate and get a UK quality telephone connection. There needs to be zero risk of poor communications, the call being cut off, message in a foreign language coming on the line.
I have two questions
- How can I technically work from different countries? Would a skype account give me a UK number I can take anywhere? Anything else?
- Has anyone got any personal recommendations of places to spend a month or so?
They must have
- UK level communications infrastructure - no breaks in internet/phone connection, no delay in phone communications
- be a fun place to stay and explore
I'd love to do this in the US but I don't think the time zone would work. Depending where I am 9 - 5 would be 2am to 10am. So I don't think a night shift would really be the way to go.
In Europe, I'm thinking of Spain/Italy/Berlin/Ukraine but I'd have to find a good way to get a decent place to stay with great phone and internet connection.
Asia would work well with the time zone. Start in the evening and finish early morning. But I think I would be limited to Hong Kong or singapore for communications.
So has anyone done anything similar? If you could how would you arrange and where would you go?
I work from home. 90% of my work is carried out over email or remote connections to machines. Additionally, on an average week I'll field 2 or 3 calls from customers. I also have to attend a conference call once a week. I have to be available 9-5 GMT by email and phone.
My work isn't demanding and out of an eight hour day I might have two hours or less of actual work with occasional busy days.
I want to use this flexibility to work in different locations.
For political reasons, I work for a major blue chip multinational, I always have to appear to be in the same place - the UK - to my boss and customers. So when customers call me they need to call a UK number, be charged a UK rate and get a UK quality telephone connection. There needs to be zero risk of poor communications, the call being cut off, message in a foreign language coming on the line.
I have two questions
- How can I technically work from different countries? Would a skype account give me a UK number I can take anywhere? Anything else?
- Has anyone got any personal recommendations of places to spend a month or so?
They must have
- UK level communications infrastructure - no breaks in internet/phone connection, no delay in phone communications
- be a fun place to stay and explore
I'd love to do this in the US but I don't think the time zone would work. Depending where I am 9 - 5 would be 2am to 10am. So I don't think a night shift would really be the way to go.
In Europe, I'm thinking of Spain/Italy/Berlin/Ukraine but I'd have to find a good way to get a decent place to stay with great phone and internet connection.
Asia would work well with the time zone. Start in the evening and finish early morning. But I think I would be limited to Hong Kong or singapore for communications.
So has anyone done anything similar? If you could how would you arrange and where would you go?
I work remotely with teams in India and China all the time. A friend of mine keeps a condo in Shanghai and works periodically with his team in the US from there. Another friend of mine recently came back from Mumbai and he was amazed at the infrastructure changes since his last visit, particularly widespread broadband.
posted by crazycanuck at 4:11 AM on January 16, 2009
posted by crazycanuck at 4:11 AM on January 16, 2009
This lot might help you, if you can avoid the occasional 4 hr workweek acolytes.
posted by Happy Dave at 4:28 AM on January 16, 2009
posted by Happy Dave at 4:28 AM on January 16, 2009
- How can I technically work from different countries? Would a skype account give me a UK number I can take anywhere? Anything else?
I work remotely too. I lived in Mexico for a year and it was great. I relied heavily upon Skype for my communication. I believe Skype will let you come up with any number but I'm not sure, they are pretty extensive on their webpage.
- Has anyone got any personal recommendations of places to spend a month or so?
They must have
- UK level communications infrastructure - no breaks in internet/phone connection, no delay in phone communications
- be a fun place to stay and explore
Well if you speak Spanish, Puebla Mexico is lovely. Lots to do, low crime (unlike Mexico city) and I can hook you up with a number of English speaking people. If you are interested, here is a photoset I took from there.
The internet connection I used was cable and it was called MegaRed. They were a pretty solid company and you'll pay basically the same rates you will anywhere else.
I live in Atlanta right now. Atlanta is pretty fun however we're seeing a surge in crime lately. So I'd recommend going elsewhere.
posted by Hands of Manos at 7:50 AM on January 16, 2009
I work remotely too. I lived in Mexico for a year and it was great. I relied heavily upon Skype for my communication. I believe Skype will let you come up with any number but I'm not sure, they are pretty extensive on their webpage.
- Has anyone got any personal recommendations of places to spend a month or so?
They must have
- UK level communications infrastructure - no breaks in internet/phone connection, no delay in phone communications
- be a fun place to stay and explore
Well if you speak Spanish, Puebla Mexico is lovely. Lots to do, low crime (unlike Mexico city) and I can hook you up with a number of English speaking people. If you are interested, here is a photoset I took from there.
The internet connection I used was cable and it was called MegaRed. They were a pretty solid company and you'll pay basically the same rates you will anywhere else.
I live in Atlanta right now. Atlanta is pretty fun however we're seeing a surge in crime lately. So I'd recommend going elsewhere.
posted by Hands of Manos at 7:50 AM on January 16, 2009
Response by poster: Thanks everyone for the replies.
So this does sound technically feasible?
I think with skype i could do two thing
- call forward to a landline anywhere I happen to be
- connect to broadband and use that to skype
So with the first option having a flawless internet connection isn't even so important. Would that work?
posted by aTrumpetandaDream at 10:11 AM on January 16, 2009
So this does sound technically feasible?
I think with skype i could do two thing
- call forward to a landline anywhere I happen to be
- connect to broadband and use that to skype
So with the first option having a flawless internet connection isn't even so important. Would that work?
posted by aTrumpetandaDream at 10:11 AM on January 16, 2009
Skype works great for this. Forward your regular business phone to a Skype number and no one will know. Several years ago as an experiment I worked 8 time zones away for two months without telling any of my clients. Not that they would have cared, it was to see if they'd notice. They didn't. (Though one did wonder if I was getting enough sleep. Those 3am conference calls were a bitch.)
Oh, and no one has ever complained/noticed the extra communication delay. Maybe it's because I work in the US with our janky infrastructure and clients in 3 time zones so we're used to some wackiness in our phone calls, but was never an issue.
FWIW I've found the infrastructure in Japan, Korea and Taiwan all to be good enough to work from remotely.
posted by Ookseer at 10:16 AM on January 16, 2009
Oh, and no one has ever complained/noticed the extra communication delay. Maybe it's because I work in the US with our janky infrastructure and clients in 3 time zones so we're used to some wackiness in our phone calls, but was never an issue.
FWIW I've found the infrastructure in Japan, Korea and Taiwan all to be good enough to work from remotely.
posted by Ookseer at 10:16 AM on January 16, 2009
I know someone who did this. They used their Vonage phone to keep the same number (and phone) they had in the US. They traveled to Switzerland, Italy, and Germany. The best thing they did was to rent apartments from people for a month or two through Craig's list. You move into a real aparment, stipulate you must have a working internet connection, and voila! If work wanted they could find out you are travelling by looking at your IP address, though I don't think they ever would. My friend says this was the best thing he ever did. Oh, and he really liked the time difference. In Europe, his hours were 3 to 11. He had his days free, and worked at night. Dinner time was lunch time, which meant there was time to go out at night too. DO IT!
Personally, I think Vonage would work better than Skype. People can often tell when you are on Skype. Some will even ask that you use a real connection.
posted by xammerboy at 1:18 PM on January 16, 2009
Personally, I think Vonage would work better than Skype. People can often tell when you are on Skype. Some will even ask that you use a real connection.
posted by xammerboy at 1:18 PM on January 16, 2009
Berlin's awesome. I was there for six months - really great city, great museums, great culture, great nightlife and veeeeery affordable.
A lot of the expats I met there were doing something similar to what you're doing.
posted by HolyWood at 1:29 PM on January 16, 2009
A lot of the expats I met there were doing something similar to what you're doing.
posted by HolyWood at 1:29 PM on January 16, 2009
Further Asia options would certainly be Bangkok (Thailand), and I would also guess that Malaysia would be fine too.
posted by AnnaRat at 2:33 PM on January 16, 2009
posted by AnnaRat at 2:33 PM on January 16, 2009
Response by poster: Thanks for the responses.
I think I'll start with Europe. If it all goes wrong I can hop on a plane and be back within the day.
I've now set up skype for calls and will use my online number for all communications from now on. Works well but call quality is a bit off - still very clear though. I think my big realisation is how skype call forwarding will work. I don't think I actually need access to a full broadband connection if I rent somewhere with a fixed line I can forward calls to that and do email on a slightly patchy wireless connection if need be.
Location wise
- Berlin
- Somewhere in Spain
- Somewhere in Italy
Long haul Buenos Aires looks promising. I'd love to do Bangkok but I have doubts about the communications infrastructure.
Biggest issue is finding somewhere to stay with reliable, high-speed internet.
Ideally I'd love to get to know a list of places round Europe (for a start) where I could book and know that the internet connection is good. Just so i could decide 'hey I fancy the beach next week' pop on a plane and work from there.
posted by aTrumpetandaDream at 12:53 AM on January 17, 2009
I think I'll start with Europe. If it all goes wrong I can hop on a plane and be back within the day.
I've now set up skype for calls and will use my online number for all communications from now on. Works well but call quality is a bit off - still very clear though. I think my big realisation is how skype call forwarding will work. I don't think I actually need access to a full broadband connection if I rent somewhere with a fixed line I can forward calls to that and do email on a slightly patchy wireless connection if need be.
Location wise
- Berlin
- Somewhere in Spain
- Somewhere in Italy
Long haul Buenos Aires looks promising. I'd love to do Bangkok but I have doubts about the communications infrastructure.
Biggest issue is finding somewhere to stay with reliable, high-speed internet.
Ideally I'd love to get to know a list of places round Europe (for a start) where I could book and know that the internet connection is good. Just so i could decide 'hey I fancy the beach next week' pop on a plane and work from there.
posted by aTrumpetandaDream at 12:53 AM on January 17, 2009
aTrumpetandaDream: " I'd love to do Bangkok but I have doubts about the communications infrastructure."
Yes-- there were frequent outages while I was there and the connection speed was never great. If I remember correctly, problems with the undersea cables last year put them out for a week or so.
posted by sharkfu at 1:31 AM on January 17, 2009
Yes-- there were frequent outages while I was there and the connection speed was never great. If I remember correctly, problems with the undersea cables last year put them out for a week or so.
posted by sharkfu at 1:31 AM on January 17, 2009
I don't really think you can keep this from your boss. What if for some reason they need to arrange an in-person meeting with you? If you were actually living in the UK, a week's notice would probably be more than enough time, but if you were far away this would present a real problem.
Do you ever deal with physical documents? A lot of things can be electronic but not everything, always. If you keep your old address (and set up forwarding?) in order to deal with mail that comes your way, what happens if they "overnight" something to you and it takes a week instead?
posted by Deathalicious at 11:30 AM on January 18, 2009
Do you ever deal with physical documents? A lot of things can be electronic but not everything, always. If you keep your old address (and set up forwarding?) in order to deal with mail that comes your way, what happens if they "overnight" something to you and it takes a week instead?
posted by Deathalicious at 11:30 AM on January 18, 2009
Response by poster: Yeah possibly. I don't want to be a nomad as such. I'd like to keep my apartment in the UK and work, say 6 months of the year here, but live in other places as it suits me.
I don't really get physical documents but if I did they would be delivered to my UK address.
There are sometimes face to face meetings - last year I had 1 compulsory team meeting, 2 voluntary ones that could have been avoided and one client meeting. So I'd have to plan for that and be here.
posted by aTrumpetandaDream at 10:48 AM on January 19, 2009
I don't really get physical documents but if I did they would be delivered to my UK address.
There are sometimes face to face meetings - last year I had 1 compulsory team meeting, 2 voluntary ones that could have been avoided and one client meeting. So I'd have to plan for that and be here.
posted by aTrumpetandaDream at 10:48 AM on January 19, 2009
This thread is closed to new comments.
As far as location, you can go anywhere. Yea it's easier to go east of your timezone, not west. However NY would be 4-12 if that helps at all. I wouldn't want to do it, however it would provide you with a full day to enjoy wherever you are as long as you're not a night owl.
Definitely do it though.
posted by wile e at 3:06 AM on January 16, 2009 [1 favorite]