“This sort of lifestyle gets romanticised a lot online,” comments Nikita, referring to her setup as a fully remote freelancer who lives in Portugal but whose clients are in the UK, US, Australia and elsewhere. Or, to put a label on it: digital nomad.

She goes on to enumerate some downsides of the setup (having been asked to do so), but, listening to her, you can’t help but romanticise the lifestyle despite her warning. “He’s out surfing right now,” Nikita says of her boyfriend, also a digital nomad. This was at 10:30am on a Tuesday.

She also acknowledges the charmed nature of the lifestyle, bringing it into context with her surroundings: “I think it’s very important to be mindful of the local culture and economy and try to disrupt them as little as possible when you’re in this privileged position.”

Nikita works as a marketing expert, doing marketing strategy and campaign execution for startups and medium-sized companies. She and her boyfriend, an engineer from Chile, were already working remotely in Luxembourg for foreign clients--this was before the pandemic--when they decided that this country has a major flaw.

“We were fed up with the weather,” she says.

“We just wanted--for lack of a better word--an easier life. In terms of being able to go out and enjoy the beach and then come back inside and work. And because our work setup allowed for it, we just took the plunge.”

Being less frantic by the Atlantic

Portugal was an obvious choice, being part of Nikita’s culture and past: she grew up partially in Luxembourg and partially in Portugal. She had friends there and wanted to go back. “And I really missed living by the ocean. That was a really big thing.”

What are the main pros of going remote? For Nikita, it’s the healthiness of the lifestyle, as enabled by its flexibility. “If I want to go to the gym mid-morning, or, I don’t know, go for a walk outside with my dog, or have an appointment… I’m able to do that.”

This flexibility has improved her mental and physical health, she says: she’s more active and takes breaks whenever it suits her--and doesn’t lose time to any commute. Managing her own workday has also helped with attention issues: “it’s a lot easier for me to accommodate having ADHD,” she reports. “I’m able to be a lot more productive, actually, and work longer hours--which I would not have been able to do in an office.”

Workwise, she doesn’t see much downside: “When you work [remotely] with a great team, it can be a wonderful experience, because it’s more about the work that you do, rather than standing around the water cooler and fulfilling your hours.” She stipulates that this, of course, isn’t always the case with on-site work. “But it can be.” 

A final pro: family life. “I get to see [my boyfriend] a lot. Which is, I understand, total privilege. I get to be at home with my boyfriend and my dog. We have our all our meals together--so that’s definitely a major advantage.”

Not all moonlight/roses/pastéis de nata

Asked about downsides, Nikita mentions the occasional timezone drag: early or late meetings. Once, working with a company whose staff spanned the US, Europe and Australia, she had some tough days: “While we were trying to wrap up a launch and get things to market, we did have very early morning calls with the Australian team… and then, late afternoon, I still had to be available for calls with the American side.”

But in general, she says, this is avoidable. 

Speaking more generally, she comments that the digital nomad life isn’t for everyone. “I think a big negative for a lot of people would be the ebbs and flows of freelance life.” Some months are slow, some are crazy: “not everyone is made for that.” It also takes great stores of autodidacticism and organisational skills.

Having said that, Nikita also agrees that remote working will go more mainstream. “Especially now with the rise of AI and things becoming a lot more simplified in general… I definitely think [remote work] is the future.” She is quick to add that many of her local friends are digital nomads and she is wary of being in an echo chamber--and that she’s conscious that not everybody is made for digital nomadhood--but she nevertheless sees it as the future of work.

Portugal as a digital hub

Portugal has, notably, made itself attractive for digital nomads. Besides the phenomenon of “digital villas”, holiday-style accommodations with fast internet and other amenities for workers, there is the Portugal Digital Nomad Visa. Introduced in late 2022, this visa is granted to non-EU citizens who work for themselves or for a company outside Portugal; visa-holders pay reduced social contributions and lower-than-standard taxes. More generally, tax rates for freelancers in Portugal are among the lowest in the EU.

“There are a lot of caveats when you actually dive into it,” says Nikita of tax incentives. She recommends getting an accountant to help you navigate the process of setting up as a digital nomad in the country. “It can be really difficult when you don’t speak the language,” she says, recalling the multi-month process. “Which, luckily, I do! And it was still difficult to understand.”

To anyone looking to make the move, she says: “Understand that it’s not as easy as is portrayed online… it can be amazing, it can be great. But you really need to do your research and be very patient.”

For her, however, the patience has paid off: “It was a really, really great lifestyle change.”