There is a strange paradox in the relocation world.

Every few years, a new relocation hotspot captures global attention. Rankings appear, influencers arrive and articles declare that a new model for living has finally been discovered.

Yet the places people talk about most are not always the places where they stay.

For a while, the excitement feels justified.

Then rents rise, crowds appear, local communities begin to strain under the pressure of success, and the very qualities that made the place attractive slowly start to disappear.

Yet scattered across Europe are places that rarely dominate headlines, rarely trend on social media and seldom appear on lists of the world’s hottest relocation destinations. Somehow, they continue doing something remarkably old-fashioned: offering a genuinely good life.

Mendrisio is one of those places.

Nestled in the southernmost corner of Switzerland, a stone’s throw from Italy and surrounded by vineyards, mountains and historic villages, Mendrisio is not a city that spends much time trying to reinvent itself. It does not need to. Long before remote work, digital nomad visas and international relocation became fashionable topics, it had already developed something that many places are now desperately trying to create.

Balance. And balance may be becoming one of the most valuable luxuries of the twenty-first century.

One of the most interesting discoveries made by many internationally mobile professionals is that moving abroad and building a life abroad are not remotely the same thing. Relocation guides tend to focus on the measurable variables: taxation, visas, weather, healthcare, cost of living and connectivity. Those factors matter, of course. But they are rarely the reason people stay.

The people who remain are usually staying because of something much harder to quantify.

They found their community. They developed routines. They built friendships. They stopped feeling like visitors.

That process is often more difficult than people expect. Many modern cities offer endless opportunities for entertainment while making it surprisingly difficult to form meaningful connections. Life becomes efficient but fragmented. Social interactions become increasingly transactional. People live surrounded by millions of others yet frequently experience a profound sense of isolation.

Mendrisio seems to operate according to different rules.

Part of this comes from its scale. Large enough to offer opportunities, services, culture and international connections, yet small enough to remain fundamentally human, the city has managed to preserve many of the social dynamics that have disappeared elsewhere. People still meet repeatedly in shared spaces. They encounter one another through local events, schools, associations, sports clubs, neighbourhood activities and cultural initiatives. Relationships develop naturally because daily life creates opportunities for them to develop.

For newcomers, this often becomes one of the most surprising aspects of living here.

Friendships do not require endless networking events or carefully curated social calendars. They emerge through participation in the community itself.

This is particularly evident thanks to Mendrisio’s international character. Home to the internationally recognised Academy of Architecture of USI (Università della Svizzera Italiana), Mendrisio attracts students, researchers and creative professionals from across the globe. This constant exchange of ideas gives the town an intellectual energy that feels unusual for a place of its size. Alongside the Academy operates SUPSI, the University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland, with its Department of Environment, Construction and Design, which attracts professionals and students to its true “factory of ideas.” The result is a community that feels simultaneously local and international, rooted and open-minded.

For internationally mobile residents, this combination can be surprisingly powerful.

The location itself adds another layer to the equation.

One of the peculiar advantages of Mendrisio is that it allows residents to enjoy many of Switzerland’s strengths while maintaining immediate access to northern Italy. Milan is close enough to feel like an extension of daily life. Lugano is practically next door. Malpensa Airport provides easy connections across Europe and beyond. Zurich and the rest of Switzerland remain comfortably accessible by train.

This creates a lifestyle that is difficult to replicate elsewhere. It is possible to participate in global business, international education and cross-border opportunities while living in a place that never feels overwhelmed by them.

The surrounding landscape plays an equally important role.

Many destinations advertise their proximity to nature. In Mendrisio, nature is not an attraction reserved for weekends; it forms part of daily life. Vineyards stretch across the hillsides. Forests and walking trails begin only minutes from the town centre. The UNESCO-listed Monte San Giorgio rises above the region, while Monte Generoso offers some of the most spectacular views in southern Switzerland.

What makes these places special is not simply their beauty but their accessibility. They are woven into everyday routines. A walk after work, a Sunday hike, a lunch overlooking the valleys or a spontaneous afternoon outdoors requires little planning and even less effort.

The same principle extends to food and culture.

The Mendrisiotto is one of Switzerland’s most important wine-producing regions, with local Merlot forming part of the area’s identity rather than merely its marketing strategy. Traditional grotti, family-run restaurants, seasonal festivals and local markets continue to play a central role in community life. Food remains something shared rather than performed.

At the same time, the city’s cultural heritage is everywhere. Historic churches, monasteries, museums and centuries-old architecture coexist with a lively calendar of events that reflect both local traditions and contemporary influences. The famous Grape Festival, the San Martino Fair and the UNESCO-recognised Holy Week Processions are not simply tourist attractions. They remain living traditions that continue to bring the community together.

There is also a practical dimension that should not be underestimated.

Healthcare is excellent. Public transport works. Schools are strong. Streets are safe. Public spaces are well maintained. Bureaucracy, by international standards, remains remarkably functional.

These may not be the details that dominate travel magazines or relocation influencers’ social media feeds, but they are often the factors that determine whether a place feels sustainable over the long term.

Quality of life is rarely built through extraordinary moments alone.

More often, it emerges from the small things that happen every day: a reliable train, a safe walk home, access to nature, time for family, the ability to meet friends without planning weeks in advance.

In other words, quality of life is often defined not by what a place adds to your day, but by the friction it removes from it.

Perhaps this is why Mendrisio continues to attract people who were never specifically looking for it.

Some arrive for university. Some arrive for work. Some arrive because of a partner. Some arrive because they wanted to experience Switzerland without giving up proximity to Italy.

Many assume they are only passing through.

Then something curious happens.

Life becomes comfortable. Relationships deepen. The city begins to feel familiar. The temporary starts becoming permanent. And the departure plans become increasingly vague.

In a world constantly searching for the next great destination, Mendrisio offers a useful reminder that the best places to live are not always the ones making the most noise.

Sometimes they are simply the ones quietly getting everything right.

For further information you can email welcome@mendrisio.ch or

Visit Mendreasy Website

Van life is often sold to us as a romantic escape: sunsets by the sea, morning coffee with mountain views, love and fresh air. And while more and more creators are trying to show the reality of life on the road, one thing I rarely see discussed is couple life. Do the same relationship dynamics still apply when you no longer have a house? After eight years together, we’ve experienced both versions: the classic life with four walls and a roof, and the one where our entire relationship fits inside a vehicle smaller than our old living room. What if van life is the ultimate relationship stress test? If you’re considering living full-time in a van with your loved one, this article is for you.

1/ Chores don’t disappear, they get worse

You might think that once you get rid of the house, you get rid of household chores. Fatal mistake! The chores stay and they can be even more exhausting: emptying the toilet cassette, filling water tanks, finding a laundromat, hunting for a place to sleep... (my nervous system is stressed just typing this!). If chores weren’t already divided fairly when you lived in a house, a campervan is a guaranteed recipe for arguments.

Rule #1 for avoiding conflict: divide the chores. Fortunately for us, this happens pretty naturally. It works because we tend to take over from each other throughout the day. For example: I cook, he does the dishes. He fills the water tank, I empty the toilet cassette. He finds a place to park for the night, I find the nearest laundromat.

2/ There is nowhere to storm off to

When you argue in a house, you can usually find a space of your own to cool down. You sleep on the couch, lock yourself in the bedroom, or go for a walk in your garden. In a campervan, if you’re angry, you remain approximately 80 centimeters away from the person who annoyed you. Which is somehow even more annoying! The upside? You don’t really have a choice but to sort things out. Staying angry for three days is a luxury reserved for people with spare bedrooms. Van life has probably forced us to communicate more, and better, than we ever did in a house. There’s nowhere to hide when something is bothering you. You have to say what’s wrong and what you need directly. The result is that we waste less energy on minor issues.

But what if you really want to sulk? Two solutions. The obvious one: go outside. Because we’re usually in unfamiliar places, stepping out of the campervan, breathing fresh air, and being surrounded by new sights immediately engages our senses. It often calms us down faster than leaving a regular home, where you might run into a chatty neighbour when all you want is to scream into the void.

And when the frustration is so intense that you don’t even want to enjoy a new place, you can create artificial personal space. In our campervan, a curtain separates our over-cab bed from the rest of the vehicle, creating a small bubble of privacy. We also designed a tucked-away desk area with headphones so we don’t have to be face-to-face all the time. We genuinely planned the layout around having moments apart, because for us that’s essential to avoiding conflict.

3/ Take vacations from each other

People tend to assume that if you live in a campervan, you’re always on vacation mode. The reality is that if you work remotely, as we do, you discover new places mostly after work and on the weekend, just like anyone else. And when you live in such a small space, sometimes you need a break from nomad life, from your partner, and from everything that comes with it.

My best vanlife relationship advice? Take solo breaks! A few days apart gives you space to breathe, recharge, and remember why you chose this life together in the first place.

Recently, my partner had to go back to Paris for work, and I decided to rent an Airbnb in the Dutch countryside for a week to enjoy being alone with myself (and my long hot showers!).

Later, I had to attend an event on an island in northern Germany, and he stayed on the mainland with the campervan. We’re not avoiding each other: we’re giving each other the space that makes the relationship work.

And if that sounds too radical, start smaller: take a walk alone, spend an afternoon working from a café without your partner, or simply stop doing everything together.

4/ The hidden challenge is not space

Most people ask us how we manage to live in such a tiny space without killing each other.

The real challenge isn’t the size, it’s what the size implies: making decisions together, constantly.

In a sedentary life, you don’t ask yourself every day where you’ll sleep, where you’ll buy groceries, where you’ll do laundry, where you’ll dump your tanks, or where you’ll go tomorrow. In a nomadic life, especially in a campervan, you face endless micro-negotiations.

You immediately notice when you’re not on the same page and these tiny daily challenges have taught us a lot about working as a team and end up becoming surprisingly valuable for the relationship.

After a year and a half on the road, I’m still not sure whether van life is good for your love life. But I do know this: if you can survive a rainy week, an engine crisis, three days without a proper shower, and an argument about whose turn it was to empty the toilet cassette, you’re probably meant for each other.

This article was written as part of an editorial collaboration with the travel app Polarsteps.

For years, Portugal has occupied a near-mythical place in the imagination of remote workers. It offers much of what the modern location-independent professional is looking for: a relatively affordable Western European lifestyle, strong infrastructure, a thriving startup ecosystem, international connectivity, a mild climate and, perhaps most importantly, a social environment that has generally been welcoming to foreigners. Lisbon became a digital nomad hub long before the term became a marketing slogan, while Porto, the Algarve and Madeira built reputations as destinations where work, lifestyle and mobility could coexist in ways that were difficult to replicate elsewhere.

Yet for many aspiring applicants, enthusiasm tends to collide with reality at exactly the same moment: the income requirement.

Portugal’s Digital Nomad Visa was designed to attract financially self-sufficient remote workers, and policymakers have gradually increased the economic threshold to reflect that objective. Today, applicants are generally expected to demonstrate a monthly income of approximately €3,680. For highly paid technology professionals, consultants or executives working remotely for international companies, that figure may not seem particularly daunting. For everyone else, however, it can quickly become a significant obstacle.

The challenge is not necessarily poverty. In fact, many of the people who find themselves excluded by the requirement are earning what would be considered a comfortable income in their home countries. Freelancers with stable client portfolios, independent consultants, creators, remote agency employees and small business owners often discover they are only a few hundred euros below the threshold. In practical terms, they are financially capable of supporting themselves in Portugal. In bureaucratic terms, however, they may fail to qualify.

At that point, many prospective applicants make a common mistake: they assume the answer is simply “no.”

Immigration systems, however, rarely operate in such a binary fashion.

The first misconception involves the D7 Visa, which for years developed a reputation as the more accessible alternative. Across countless online forums, social media groups and relocation guides, the D7 is frequently presented as the backup option for anyone who cannot meet the Digital Nomad Visa requirements. While that may once have been a more flexible interpretation, authorities have increasingly clarified the distinction between the two categories.

The D7 was not designed primarily for remote employment income. Its underlying logic is based on passive income streams, including pensions, dividends, royalties and rental income. Consular officers have become increasingly attentive to that distinction, and applicants attempting to present active freelance or remote employment income under a framework intended for passive earnings may encounter difficulties. Simply earning less than the Digital Nomad Visa threshold does not automatically make someone a suitable D7 candidate.

This is where immigration planning starts becoming more interesting than immigration headlines.

Couples, for example, often approach the process with assumptions inherited from traditional family migration models. One partner applies as the primary applicant and the other is added as a dependent. On paper, this appears logical. In practice, however, dependent applications trigger additional financial requirements. The principal applicant must demonstrate sufficient resources not only for themselves but also for the accompanying spouse and any children. The result is that a household that might appear financially stable can suddenly find itself struggling to satisfy the expanded thresholds.

For dual-income couples, there may be a more efficient route. Rather than structuring the application around a primary applicant and dependent spouse, each partner may qualify independently based on their own income and circumstances. This is not a universal solution and depends on individual eligibility, but it is a strategy that many applicants overlook simply because they never realise it exists. The lesson is straightforward: immigration law is often less about what you earn and more about how your case is structured.

The same principle applies to people whose income profile does not fit neatly into a single category.

A remote worker who owns rental property, for instance, may discover that the rental income component creates options that did not initially appear available. An entrepreneur running an established business may find that a business-oriented pathway such as Portugal’s D2 Visa aligns more naturally with their circumstances than the Digital Nomad Visa itself. Someone whose primary objective is not Portugal specifically, but European mobility more broadly, may discover that neighbouring countries offer significantly different entry criteria.

Spain is perhaps the most obvious comparison. While every immigration system has its own complexities, Spain’s Digital Nomad Visa has attracted considerable attention because its income requirements have generally remained lower than Portugal’s. Depending on the applicant’s circumstances, the gap can be substantial enough to transform an impossible application into a viable one. For some individuals, the solution is not finding a loophole within Portugal’s framework. It is recognising that Europe is not a single immigration market and that neighbouring countries often compete for exactly the same pool of globally mobile talent.

This broader perspective is increasingly important because the remote work revolution has created a generation of professionals whose lives no longer fit neatly into traditional immigration categories. Governments are still adapting to a reality in which a software developer might work for a company headquartered in California while living in Lisbon, spending several months a year in Barcelona and serving clients in three different time zones. The regulatory frameworks are evolving, but they rarely evolve in a perfectly coordinated way. As a result, opportunities often emerge not from extraordinary circumstances but from understanding the differences between systems.

Perhaps the most expensive mistake in the entire process is assuming that a failed eligibility test for one visa category automatically closes every other door. In reality, immigration pathways increasingly resemble a network rather than a single road. Different visas were designed for different profiles, and many applicants discover that they have been evaluating themselves against the wrong benchmark from the beginning.

That is why the cheapest investment in any relocation project is often not a plane ticket, a property viewing trip or a visa application fee. It is a conversation with someone who understands the landscape. A brief consultation with an immigration specialist may reveal alternatives that never appeared in the first round of Google searches and Reddit threads.

Portugal remains one of Europe’s most attractive destinations for remote professionals. The fact that its flagship Digital Nomad Visa has become harder to access does not necessarily mean the dream is over. More often than not, it simply means that the first route you considered may not be the right one.

And in immigration, as in travel itself, the scenic route occasionally turns out to be the smarter journey.

One of my favourite things about living in a small Italian village must be the (relative) lack of stratification…. In a global society where all companies are placing you in different groups depending on your ability to pay (think airlines, loyalty programs, skip the queue offers etc) Italian villages - as a general statement - offer a space where people have no place to hide: you chat to everyone regardless of your status. And if you’re rude or discriminate towards anyone good luck trying to get anything sorted in the village again. Condescending to the local mechanic? You’ll see the results in the next bill. Rude to the waitress? You’ll experience challenges at the local supermarket next time as rumours spread.

The trend...

My foundation’s work (we work in over 455 cities) means we get to see a lot of cities and communities and one thing that we notice is the slow disappearance of communital spaces that used to bring people of all classes together and instead a move towards payment gated communities: think exclusive clubs or gyms or associations that filter who they allow in. I mean: when was the last time you sat in a public park chilling with everyone else? That’s not to say it doesn’t happen, but in my observations it is happening less and less.

This is much more important than perhaps people realise. When you stratify (is there such a word? If there isn’t I am claiming it today :-) people what you are doing is creating barriers to empathy and connection. People start hanging out less and less with people who think differently and more and more with likeminded people. As a horrible oversimplification: look at politics and how people start only to hang around with other people who think the same and the problems this creates in terms of real respectful dialogues. The same in religion, fitness, private schools, member clubs, what people read/follow etc.

In big cities you can pretty much get away with this. In small towns good luck hiding from people: you are forced to chat to everyone irrespective of their political or religious inclinations. The grandmother you could ignore in a bit city is the person you will sit down and chat with in the village’s local cafe.

And in a way - as someone who lives life in small villages - this is the thing I love about smaller villages... is that it forces you to interact. It ‘forces’ you to be human irrespective of financial standing, job title or other metrics. In a small village it’s almost irrelevant how many followers you have on substack, what important job you think you have or how successful (or not) you are in business. You are polite and engaging with everyone and you lend a hand when you can.

There is also the other side of the coin of course. In smaller villages you also come across people who don’t view change and innovation the same way or with the same speed as you so there are times when you will feel enormously frustrated. People have time in a way that they don’t in big cities so your messy terrace will get you a reprimand and make you become the local gossip despite it being a trivial matter. The person working in the local post office has been working there for a million years and treats each customer with the love and attention that is almost unheard of in big cities where processing times and turnover is important. I have personally sat in a post office for 45 mins waiting for the worker who patiently helped the elderly lady with something related to her post bank account while also chatting about just about anything. I took a deep breath, opened my podcasts and listened to an amazing episode as well as sent a few lovely voice-notes to friends which made time fly. I hope one day when I am old and frail a young person in the queue behind me will show me the same kindness in giving me the time it takes at my future age :-)

On showing off...

I was very lucky in life in that I had parents that taught me - while growing up in pre-George-Clooney Lake Como - a village in those days - to never show off wealth. To be honest I think it was more a strategy to not raise suspicion to the tax man... but jesting aside, it instilled in me a deep sense of being humble. If you can afford to fly business or first class well done, but don’t go around posting it on social media and showing off. Real wealth is not seen or heard (in fact, one of my favorite books ever is a 1996 classic called The Millionaire Next door: a study of who is really wealthy. Read it. It will be the best financial education ever). In small towns and villages showing off is just rude and you will quickly feel embarrassed if you do. You will by default live close to people who are struggling: families trying to make ends meet on EUR 1.800 a month (individuals take home an average net salary of ca. 1.400 to 1.700 a month). In fact in Italy (source: Eurostat) close to 60% of families report having difficulties in making ends meet with absolute poverty around the 9% of all families.

I ran a AI query (and double checked it also against my personal experience and local knowledge after having lived in ca. 10 Italian villages in the last 4 years):

For a Single Person: €1,000 – €1,300 per month

A single person (often a young worker or a retiree on a basic pension) can live a dignified, comfortable life in a village on this amount:

Rent: €350 – €450 (or €0 if inherited).

Utilities & Internet: €150 – €220 (heating in the winter is usually the biggest wildcard).

Groceries: €250 – €300 (shopping at local open-air markets and discount supermarkets like Eurospin or Lidl keeps food costs incredibly low).

Car Expenses: €100 – €150 (a car is mandatory in villages, as public transit is sparse).

Leisure & Socializing: €150 – €200 (a local espresso is €1.20, a pizza margherita is €6–€8, and village festivals provide plenty of free entertainment).

For a Family of Three or Four: €1,800 – €2,500 per month

A family of four living on this budget in a village is incredibly common. They have to watch their spending, but they live well:

Rent/Mortgage: €450 – €600 (again, frequently €0 due to family property).

Utilities: €250 – €350.

Groceries: €700 – €900.

Car Expenses (usually 1 or 2 modest, older cars): €200 – €300.

Children & Schooling: €150 – €250 (public school is free, though books and school lunches require a small budget).

Misc/Savings: €100 – €200.

The Village “Buffer”: Life in a small Italian village offers an invisible economic cushion. Neighbors frequently swap homegrown vegetables, eggs, and homemade olive oil. Furthermore, child care is almost always handled for free by nearby grandparents, and there is very little social pressure to spend money on trendy consumer goods or expensive lifestyles.

The point is that you showing off wealth is just rude in small villages which means you start behaving much more in a socially kind way and are ending up less in separated small worlds of niche interests.

If that doesn’t appeal to you then don’t go and live in small villages! You’ll hate it.

If however you do enjoy the simpler life, the long chats, the catchups and the feeling of community then you’ll become totally addicted to life in a small village. It brings back a humanity that sometime is lost in the bigger cities where your role is predominantly as a consumer and not a community member.

I personally find myself very much a happier person (though I should warn I am generally always happy)... more real connections. A little less privacy (though to be fair, small village people are actually surprisingly good at carving space for a bit of privacy), people coming to visit you unannounced and you having to get out of your comfort zone a little more often (that town fair you never liked? tough. Go and help out!). Hanging out with people - especially those we would not perhaps normally hang out - is life’s great equaliser and creates also incredible empathy bridges.

My wife and I live in a small village and I can honestly say we are better humans for it.

The global mobility industry loves a ranking almost as much as LinkedIn loves a thought leader.

Every few weeks a new report emerges claiming to have identified the world’s best city for digital nomads, expats, entrepreneurs, remote workers, creators, founders, retirees or some newly invented category of internationally mobile human beings. The methodology is usually presented with impressive seriousness. Data is collected. Indicators are weighted. Charts are designed. Scores are calculated with scientific precision. Then, as if by magic, a familiar collection of cities rises to the top once again.

This time it is Chiang Mai enjoying the spotlight after Forbes named it one of the leading destinations for digital nomads and creators in 2026. A few days earlier, another ranking declared Lisbon the most livable city in the world for expats. Last month somebody else was celebrating Dubai. Before that it was Valencia. Before that Medellín. Before that Bali.

At this point, one begins to suspect that the global mobility sector has created a perpetual motion machine powered entirely by rankings, conferences and press releases.

To be clear, there is nothing inherently wrong with any of this.

Cities have every right to promote themselves. Publications need stories. Consultants need visibility. Economic development agencies need international attention. If a city wants to position itself as a hub for remote workers, entrepreneurs or globally mobile professionals, that is perfectly understandable.

The problem begins when marketing narratives start masquerading as universal truths.

Because the underlying assumption behind most rankings is surprisingly similar. Somewhere, hidden within a spreadsheet, there exists an objectively superior destination. A place that can legitimately be described as the world’s best option for people living internationally.

It is a comforting idea.

It is also largely nonsense.

The digital nomad community that emerged during the early 2010s was already more diverse than many observers realised. Today it has become almost impossible to describe as a single group.

The twenty-four-year-old freelance designer working from coffee shops in Southeast Asia does not share the same priorities as a forty-five-year-old founder running a distributed company across three continents. A remote employee working for a large American corporation faces different challenges than a YouTuber, an investor, a consultant or a retired couple relocating for lifestyle reasons.

Yet rankings continue trying to identify a single winner as if all these people were searching for exactly the same thing.

They are not.

A city that feels perfect for a startup founder may be deeply frustrating for a family with young children. A destination that appeals to retirees may feel professionally isolating for entrepreneurs. A place with extraordinary business opportunities may be financially inaccessible for freelancers. A city offering affordable housing might lack the networks, infrastructure or professional communities that other people consider essential.

The idea that one destination can somehow emerge as universally superior has always been one of the relocation industry’s strangest fantasies.

What makes Chiang Mai particularly interesting is that its inclusion reveals how much the conversation itself has changed.

For years, destinations competed primarily on affordability. Cheap rent. Cheap food. Cheap coffee. Cheap everything. The dream was simple: escape expensive cities and enjoy a better quality of life for less money.

That narrative still exists, but it increasingly feels outdated.

Many internationally mobile professionals are no longer looking for somewhere cheap.

They are looking for somewhere useful.

They want communities, partnerships, talent, clients, investors, conferences, opportunities and ecosystems. They want places where they can build things rather than simply consume experiences.

This is one reason why Chiang Mai has remained relevant long after countless supposedly fashionable destinations have faded from the conversation. The city developed an ecosystem. It built networks. It accumulated knowledge, relationships and communities. Whether one likes Chiang Mai or not, that matters far more than any ranking.

Yet even that does not make it the best destination.

Only the best destination for certain people.

At certain stages of life.

Under certain circumstances.

And that is where rankings inevitably fall apart.

The internationally mobile population now numbers hundreds of millions of people worldwide. Their motivations, resources, ambitions and lifestyles vary enormously. Attempting to reduce that complexity into a single list of winners and losers is rather like trying to identify the world’s best restaurant without asking whether your audience wants pizza, sushi, vegetarian food or a steak.

The answer tells us more about the methodology than about reality.

Perhaps the most revealing aspect of these rankings is not which cities win.

It is how predictable the winners have become.

The same names circulate endlessly through articles, conferences, relocation guides and social media discussions until they acquire an almost mythical status. At some point, the city itself becomes secondary. What matters is the narrative attached to it.

Chiang Mai is no longer simply Chiang Mai.

It is a brand.

Lisbon is a brand.

Bali is a brand.

Medellín is a brand.

Entire local economies now participate in the production and export of these narratives.

Again, there is nothing wrong with that.

But it helps explain why rankings often tell us more about successful destination marketing than about the lived reality of relocation.

At Nomag, we’ve spent years speaking with people who have moved internationally. Some relocated for work. Others for lifestyle. Some followed relationships. Others pursued business opportunities. A few simply wanted a change.

Remarkably few ever tell us they moved because a city ranked first in a report.

Most moved because they found a place that aligned with their goals, values, opportunities and stage of life.

That answer is considerably less exciting than a global ranking.

It is also considerably more useful.

Which is why another ranking, another methodology and another PR campaign will undoubtedly arrive next month.

And millions of globally mobile people will continue making decisions exactly as they always have: by looking for a place that fits them, rather than a place that happens to fit a spreadsheet.

There are few things the modern relocation industry loves more than a ranking.

Somewhere, right now, a consultancy is probably preparing a report identifying the world’s most attractive destinations for left-handed freelancers with a passion for sustainable sourdough.

The latest entrant into this crowded genre comes from Global Citizen Solutions, which has crowned Lisbon as the world’s most livable city for expats, followed by Amsterdam and Melbourne. The methodology is perfectly respectable. Healthcare, safety, affordability, air quality, English proficiency, ease of settling in and mobility were all included. Data was collected. Scores were calculated. Charts were undoubtedly produced. Everybody involved can sleep well at night. The problem is not the ranking itself.

The problem is the assumption that these rankings tell us very much about living somewhere.

Because if there is one thing that internationally mobile people eventually discover, it is that moving abroad and living abroad are two very different activities.

The first lasts a few months.

The second starts when the novelty wears off.

Lisbon topping the list will surprise absolutely nobody. In fact, Lisbon has become so successful at appearing in rankings that one wonders whether it now qualifies as a permanent category rather than a city. If a report about international mobility is published and Lisbon does not appear in the top three, somebody probably launches an internal investigation.

And to be fair, there are good reasons why people like it.

The climate is pleasant. English is widely spoken. The food is excellent. The healthcare system performs reasonably well. The city remains relatively affordable compared with some northern European capitals. Residency pathways exist. The airport works. Nobody can seriously argue that Lisbon is an unpleasant place to live.

Yet there is a question that rarely appears in these reports.

Affordable for whom?

Because while Lisbon may still appear affordable from London, Amsterdam or San Francisco, many locals would understandably raise an eyebrow at that description.

Over the past decade, the Portuguese capital has become one of Europe’s most frequently cited examples of what happens when international demand collides with finite housing supply. Property prices have surged. Rents have followed. Entire neighbourhoods have been transformed by a combination of tourism, foreign investment, remote workers, retirees and international professionals.

None of these groups individually caused Lisbon’s housing challenges.

Collectively, however, they certainly helped reshape them.

This is where most expat rankings become frustratingly one-dimensional.

They tend to evaluate cities exclusively from the perspective of the arriving resident while paying remarkably little attention to the experience of the people already there.

Imagine publishing a ranking of the world’s best restaurants based entirely on customer satisfaction while never interviewing the kitchen staff. You would learn something. Just not the whole story.

Amsterdam presents a similar contradiction. It scores highly because it is safe, organised, international, English-friendly and remarkably easy to navigate without a car. All true. Yet the same city has spent years actively attempting to manage overtourism, housing pressures and population growth. The fact that a city is attractive does not necessarily mean it is enthusiastic about becoming more attractive.

That distinction matters. A great deal.

The relocation industry often treats demand as an unqualified success metric. More arrivals mean greater popularity. Greater popularity means a stronger ranking. A stronger ranking attracts more arrivals.

The logic is wonderfully circular. Reality is less cooperative.

Ask residents in Lisbon, Barcelona or Amsterdam whether endless growth automatically improves quality of life and the answers become considerably more nuanced.

What these rankings also miss is the simple fact that the best city for an expat is often not the best city for an expat.

The world’s internationally mobile population is no longer a single category.

A twenty-eight-year-old remote worker from Berlin has different priorities from a retired Canadian couple. A British entrepreneur building a company has different needs from an American family relocating with children. A digital nomad staying six months evaluates a city differently from someone planning to spend twenty years there.

Yet rankings continue searching for a universal answer to a deeply personal question.

The result is usually a list of pleasant, prosperous, globally connected cities that most people already know. Which is fine. But it is hardly revolutionary.

In fact, one could argue that these rankings reveal less about where people should move and more about how relocation has become increasingly standardised. The same handful of cities appear repeatedly because they have learned how to optimise for international mobility. They speak English. They attract investment. They create residency pathways. They market themselves effectively.

None of which necessarily tells us whether somebody will actually be happy there.

The uncomfortable truth is that relocation success is often determined by factors no ranking can easily measure.

These things do not fit neatly into a spreadsheet.

Which is perhaps why they are so often ignored.

At Nomag, we spend a lot of time talking about mobility, relocation and life abroad. Yet the most successful moves we encounter rarely begin with somebody asking, “Which city ranks highest this year?”

Instead, they begin with a much simpler question.

“What kind of life am I actually trying to build?”

The answer might be Lisbon.

It might be Amsterdam.

It might be a village in Sicily, a small town in Spain, a secondary city in Poland or somewhere that never appears in a ranking at all.

Because despite what the relocation industry occasionally suggests, moving abroad is not a competition.

And the best city in the world is often the one nobody thought to include in the survey.

There was a period, not so long ago, when digital nomads were treated almost like a tourism marketing campaign.

Governments produced glossy websites filled with laptops facing sunsets. Tourism boards discovered the phrase “location independent”. Ministers spoke enthusiastically about attracting highly skilled professionals who would spend money locally without taking local jobs. Everybody seemed convinced they had found the perfect visitor: affluent enough to contribute, flexible enough to stay longer than tourists and, crucially, unlikely to appear in unemployment statistics.

Then reality arrived.

Not dramatically. Not through a major scandal or political crisis. Simply through the uncomfortable realisation that once you open the door to a new category of resident, sooner or later you have to decide exactly who belongs to it.

Canada’s latest changes to its approach toward digital nomads are a perfect example of this evolution.

The country is not closing its doors. In fact, Canada remains one of the more welcoming destinations for remote workers. Foreign professionals can still enter as visitors and work remotely from within the country for up to six months without requiring a work permit, provided their employer, clients and economic activity remain entirely outside Canada.

What has changed is something far less dramatic but arguably far more significant.

Canada now wants proof.

Immigration officers have been instructed to require clearer evidence that a digital nomad’s income originates entirely from outside the country and that they are not participating, directly or indirectly, in the Canadian labour market. Self-employed professionals must demonstrate that their clients are abroad. Employees must show they work for foreign companies. Visitors who want to stay longer must formally apply to extend their status. In short, what was previously assumed now increasingly needs to be documented.

At first glance, this may sound like bureaucracy doing what bureaucracy does best.

But beneath the paperwork lies a much bigger story.

For nearly a decade, governments around the world have struggled with a fundamental question: what exactly is a digital nomad?

The answer appears obvious until someone tries to write it into legislation.

Imagine a software engineer employed by a company in London who spends four months in Toronto. They rent an apartment, buy groceries, use local cafés, contribute to the local economy and perhaps even join a coworking space. They are clearly present. They are clearly spending money. They are clearly participating in Canadian society to some extent.

Yet they are not technically working in Canada.

Or are they?

This is where many governments are beginning to become uncomfortable.

The romantic narrative surrounding digital nomadism often presents remote workers as frictionless economic contributors. They arrive, spend money, create demand and leave. Reality, however, tends to be more complicated. Long-stay visitors affect housing markets, local services, taxation debates, infrastructure demand and labour dynamics. Most do so unintentionally. Nevertheless, their presence has consequences.

As remote work moved from niche lifestyle to mainstream employment model, immigration systems found themselves confronting categories that were never designed for a world where someone could live in one country, work for another and serve clients in five more simultaneously.

Canada is hardly alone in facing this challenge.

Across Europe, Asia and Latin America, governments are gradually moving away from broad enthusiasm and toward more precise definitions. The era of “come work from paradise” is quietly being replaced by a more cautious phase of “come work from paradise, but please bring supporting documentation.”

That shift should not necessarily be interpreted as hostility.

If anything, it may indicate that digital nomadism is becoming normal.

Every new form of mobility follows a similar trajectory. At first, authorities largely ignore it. Then they celebrate it. Eventually they regulate it.

The fact that immigration officers are now receiving specific instructions about remote workers suggests that governments no longer see digital nomads as a curious niche. They see them as a meaningful and growing category of international mobility.

In many ways, that represents a form of success.

The irony, of course, is that one of the original promises of remote work was freedom from geographical constraints. Yet the more geographically flexible people become, the more attention governments pay to where they actually are.

A decade ago, few immigration officers would have asked detailed questions about your Slack account, client base or invoicing arrangements.

Today, those details may increasingly determine whether you are viewed as a tourist, a worker, a resident or something in between.

The digital nomad lifestyle was supposed to blur borders.

Instead, it may be forcing countries to redraw them with even greater precision.

And perhaps that was inevitable.

Because while technology made working from anywhere possible, governments still need to decide where “anywhere” begins and ends.

There was a time when attending a World Cup required a fairly radical act of rebellion. You either booked a significant amount of annual leave, negotiated awkwardly with your manager, or accepted that most matches would be consumed through grainy office streams hidden behind spreadsheets that nobody was actually working on. Football tournaments had a peculiar ability to expose the fiction of workplace productivity long before remote work came along and institutionalised it.

Fast forward to 2026 and the situation looks very different. The next FIFA World Cup will be spread across three countries, sixteen cities and an entire continent. Millions of people will travel. Millions more will watch from home. Yet perhaps the most interesting group won’t be the fans or the tourists, but the growing number of people who are planning to attend without taking any meaningful time off at all.

The modern remote worker has developed a fascinating skill: the ability to convince themselves that being somewhere extraordinary is perfectly compatible with maintaining a normal work schedule. Whether that place happens to be a beach in Thailand, a medieval village in Italy or a stadium district in Toronto is almost irrelevant. The laptop travels. The meetings continue. The notifications never stop.

According to research highlighted by Euronews, several World Cup host cities have already been evaluated not only on football credentials but on their suitability for digital nomads and remote workers. Internet speeds, cybersecurity, coworking spaces, healthcare systems, accommodation costs and even taxi fares were all included in the ranking.

The fact that such a study exists at all is probably more interesting than its conclusions.

Think about it for a moment.

The World Cup is arguably the largest sporting event on the planet. Entire nations suspend rational behaviour for a month. Economies slow down. Productivity drops. Politicians suddenly become football experts. Yet here we are analysing broadband speeds and coworking availability as if the real challenge were not getting tickets for the final but finding a suitable location for a client call between the quarter-finals and the semi-finals.

Somewhere along the way, remote work stopped being a workplace arrangement and became an operating system for life itself.

The rankings themselves contain a few surprises. Toronto and Vancouver emerged as the strongest options for remote workers, outperforming many of the more glamorous American destinations. This is not because either city promises a more passionate football atmosphere than Mexico City or New York. Rather, they excel in the sort of areas that nobody boasts about on Instagram but everyone secretly depends on once real work begins. Fast internet, reliable infrastructure, strong cybersecurity and a healthy supply of places where you can sit for four hours pretending to pay attention to a meeting while simultaneously checking group standings.

Mexico presents the opposite scenario. The affordability is attractive, the food is outstanding, the accommodation is often cheaper and the overall experience arguably feels closer to what most travellers imagine when they picture a month abroad. Yet lower connectivity scores and cybersecurity concerns introduce the kind of practical compromises that rarely appear in influencer content. Nobody ever posts a sunset photo accompanied by a heartfelt caption about the VPN that saved their workday.

The United States, meanwhile, continues its transformation into a destination capable of making even well-paid professionals question their financial decisions. Some host cities scored poorly not because of infrastructure or connectivity but because accommodation prices have become increasingly detached from reality. Boston was highlighted for having virtually no affordable accommodation within walking distance of its stadium. One suspects that by the time the tournament begins, some visitors may find that flying across an ocean was actually the cheapest part of the experience.

What makes all of this particularly interesting is that it reveals how dramatically the meaning of travel has changed over the past decade. The traditional distinction between holiday, relocation and business trip is rapidly disappearing. People increasingly occupy a strange middle ground where they are neither fully travelling nor fully working. They are simply existing in motion, carrying their professional lives from one destination to the next and adjusting time zones as casually as previous generations adjusted wristwatches.

The World Cup merely exposes this trend in an unusually visible way. A football tournament that once represented escape from everyday life is now being absorbed into everyday life itself. Matches are no longer interruptions to work. Work is being reorganised around matches.

For Europeans, even the geography of the tournament becomes part of the calculation. East Coast cities offer a relatively manageable overlap with European business hours, while destinations on the West Coast demand either very early mornings or very late evenings. In other words, choosing where to watch football increasingly resembles choosing where to establish a temporary regional office.

None of this is necessarily good or bad. It is simply revealing.

For years, remote work advocates promised freedom. In many respects they delivered. Millions of people now enjoy levels of geographic flexibility that would have been unimaginable twenty years ago. Yet flexibility has produced its own peculiar side effects. One of them is the gradual disappearance of situations where people are genuinely unavailable.

The World Cup used to be one of those situations.

Increasingly, it appears to be just another month in the calendar.

A slightly louder month, admittedly. A month with more flags, more beer and significantly more emotional instability. But a month nevertheless filled with emails, deadlines, Slack messages and project updates.

The irony is difficult to ignore. Technology promised liberation from the office, and in many ways it succeeded. What it failed to do was liberate us from the feeling that we should always be available, always connected and always productive.

Which is perhaps why the image of a remote worker answering emails from a World Cup host city feels simultaneously impressive and faintly tragic.

The technology works perfectly.

The question is whether we do.

This issue of The Nomag Pulse is brought to you by Safety Wing and their insurance solutions for nomads - which is one of those things you don’t think about until you really, really need it. If you move across countries, work remotely, or just refuse to live in one place like a well-behaved citizen, you already know that systems tend to stop working the moment you step outside them. We’ll come back to that at the end, because it’s more connected to this story than it might seem.

Learn more about Safety Wing

There is a very specific genre of content that has quietly colonised the internet over the last decade.

You know the one.

A beautifully restored van parked on a cliff somewhere in Portugal. A young couple drinking coffee while looking at the Atlantic Ocean. A drone shot at sunrise. A laptop balanced on a handcrafted wooden table. A caption explaining how they escaped the rat race, reduced their expenses, found themselves and now work only four hours a day while travelling across Europe.

The fact that most of these videos somehow never include broken toilets, mechanical failures, suspicious parking areas, arguments about where to sleep, endless laundry runs or mobile data blackspots is apparently just one of life’s great mysteries.

Then along comes Passenger (the 2026 movie).

The new horror film follows Tyler and Maddie, a young couple who have done exactly what thousands of people have dreamed about doing at one point or another. They leave behind conventional life, move into a van and head out on the open road in search of freedom, adventure and a different way of living. Unfortunately for them, shortly after witnessing a gruesome road accident, they discover they have picked up something considerably less desirable than a new life experience. A supernatural entity begins following them, attaching itself to their journey with the sort of persistence usually reserved for subscription services and airport parking charges.

Now, to be clear, Passenger is not really a film about digital nomads, remote work or van-life culture. Nobody is discussing coworking memberships, comparing Starlink packages or debating the tax implications of spending six months in Spain. Yet while watching it, I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone involved in making the film had spent far too much time looking at the modern mythology surrounding life on the road.

Because underneath the supernatural plot sits a surprisingly familiar idea. For years we have been sold the notion that mobility equals freedom, and freedom equals happiness. Move somewhere else. Work from anywhere. Leave the city. Buy the van. Cross the border. Start again. The message is always remarkably consistent. The problem is never you. The problem is always where you currently are.

It is an attractive story because sometimes it is even true.

The ability to work remotely has genuinely changed lives. Thousands of people have built businesses, careers and communities while moving between countries, regions and cultures. Entire villages across Southern Europe are trying to attract these new arrivals because they recognise the economic and demographic opportunities involved. Many people who abandoned conventional lifestyles have no desire whatsoever to go back.

But there has always been a curious imbalance in how these stories are told.

The benefits are discussed endlessly. The trade-offs much less so.

Nobody posts an inspirational reel about spending three hours looking for somewhere legal to park. Nobody creates viral content about discovering that the nearest mechanic is seventy kilometres away. Nobody films themselves trying to join an important client call while a storm batters the roof of a vehicle that suddenly feels much smaller than it did in the brochure.

What Passenger does surprisingly well is turn that vulnerability into horror.

The monster itself is almost irrelevant. In fact, many critics have pointed out that the creature is less interesting than the situation surrounding it. What matters is that Tyler and Maddie are isolated. They are moving constantly. They are far away from familiar support systems. They are sleeping in different places every night. The freedom that initially looked romantic slowly becomes exposure.

And that is perhaps the most realistic thing about the entire film.

Not the demon. Not the supernatural curse. Not the jump scares.

The vulnerability.

Because the truth is that every lifestyle marketed as complete freedom comes with an invoice attached somewhere in the small print.

Remote workers discover that flexibility often means blurred boundaries. Entrepreneurs discover that independence usually comes packaged with uncertainty. People who leave cities for rural villages discover that tranquillity sometimes means fewer services and longer drives. Van-lifers discover that waking up beside a beautiful lake occasionally involves spending the previous night in a supermarket car park wondering whether anyone is about to knock on the door.

None of this means the dream is fake.

It simply means the dream is incomplete.

Perhaps that is why Passenger feels oddly relevant to a Nomag audience despite having absolutely no intention of talking about digital nomadism. The film accidentally exposes the gap between the lifestyle we market and the lifestyle we actually live. It reminds us that the road is exciting precisely because it is unpredictable, and that freedom becomes meaningful only when we acknowledge the inconveniences that come with it.

The irony, of course, is that after spending years listening to critics claim that digital nomads are unrealistic dreamers, it may have taken a horror movie to produce one of the more honest portrayals of life on the road.

The demon is fictional.

Everything else is surprisingly familiar.

A final note (from your Protector in the News Room)

Of course, there is one small detail that Passenger conveniently forgets to mention.

Not every horror story on the road involves demons.

Sometimes it is a broken ankle in a country where you barely speak the language. Sometimes it is a medical emergency thousands of miles from home. Sometimes it is cancelled flights, lost luggage, unexpected delays or one of those wonderfully expensive situations that begin with the phrase: “Unfortunately, your policy doesn’t cover that.”

Which brings us to the sponsor of this newsletter, Nomad Insurance by Safety Wing.

Now, to be clear, SafetyWing will not insure your van against supernatural entities, nor can it guarantee the protection of Saint Christopher, patron saint of travellers and one of the more unexpected recurring references in Passenger. If a demonic hitchhiker decides to attach itself to your vehicle somewhere between Arizona and New Mexico, you may still need to rely on divine intervention.

What SafetyWing can do, however, is help protect you from the far more common monsters that tend to follow travellers around the world: medical bills, travel disruptions, accidents and all those inconvenient realities that rarely appear in van-life reels and digital nomad documentaries.

One of the reasons it has become so popular among remote workers, long-term travellers and location-independent professionals is precisely because it was designed for people whose lives do not fit neatly into traditional insurance boxes. The pricing is straightforward, the signup process takes minutes rather than days, and the coverage follows you as you move rather than forcing you to constantly explain your lifestyle to an insurance company that still thinks working abroad means spending a week in a hotel near Frankfurt.

In other words, it may not stop the horror movie from happening.

But it can make the difference between an unexpected setback and a complete disaster.

For a life on the road with slightly fewer horror stories, SafetyWing is a sensible place to start.

For everything else, there is still Saint Christopher.

Learn more about our plan

Nobody wakes up in the morning thinking, “I need an ecosystem.”

People need a place to sleep.

For nearly two decades, that simple reality helped build Airbnb into one of the most influential travel companies on the planet. Whether you were escaping London for a long weekend, spending a month in Lisbon, working remotely from Bali or trying to survive yet another digital nomad winter in Chiang Mai, Airbnb was often the first tab you opened. It solved a practical problem. You needed a bed. Someone had a spare one.

Simple.

At least it used to be.

Because if you look closely at what Airbnb has been doing lately, accommodation is starting to feel almost like a side quest.

The company that disrupted hotels now welcomes hotels. The platform that once focused on where people sleep increasingly talks about what people do, who they meet, what services they use, how they move around cities and, perhaps most importantly, how they connect with other human beings. Experiences are back. Services are expanding. Artificial intelligence is becoming deeply embedded in the product. And now Airbnb has invested in WeRoad, one of Europe’s most successful community-travel companies.

On the surface, the story looks straightforward. An Italian company that built a successful group-travel model attracts capital from one of the biggest names in global tourism. Great news for WeRoad. Great news for the European startup ecosystem.

Because the answer reveals something important about where travel may be heading next. The easiest way to understand WeRoad is to say it sells group trips. The problem is that this explanation is technically correct and completely wrong at the same time.

People don’t join WeRoad because they cannot book flights on their own. They don’t need help finding hotels. They don’t need someone to explain how Google Maps works.

What they are buying is something much harder to find.

The possibility of stepping into a ready-made social environment where conversations already exist, experiences are shared and friendships can emerge naturally. In some cases, relationships. In some cases, business partnerships. In some cases, simply the reassuring feeling that for once you won’t spend a week eating alone while pretending you’re enjoying your own company.

That may sound trivial. It isn’t.

In fact, it may be one of the most valuable products in modern travel. The internet solved information. Platforms solved booking. Cheap flights solved mobility. What nobody really solved was loneliness.

And if there is one thing that remote workers, expats and digital nomads understand better than almost anyone else, it is that finding accommodation is usually the easy part.

You can land in almost any city on Earth and have an apartment sorted within twenty minutes. Finding your tribe might take six months. This is where the WeRoad investment starts becoming genuinely interesting. Because Airbnb already has inventory. It already has scale. It already has millions of users. What it does not naturally have is a social layer. It knows where people stay. It doesn’t necessarily know who they stay with, who they meet, who they become friends with or how they build communities while moving around the world.

WeRoad does.

And suddenly this stops looking like a travel investment. It starts looking like a community investment. The distinction matters.

For years, most travel companies competed for transactions. The goal was simple: convince somebody to book through your platform rather than somebody else’s. A hotel room. A flight. A rental car. A guided tour.

Increasingly, however, the biggest players seem interested in something larger. They are trying to own the environment surrounding those transactions.

Amazon no longer sells books.

Spotify no longer streams songs.

Uber no longer provides rides.

And Airbnb increasingly looks like a company that has grown bored of merely offering accommodation.

What it appears to be building instead is an operating system for mobility.

Not mobility in the transportation sense.

Mobility in the human sense.

The ability to move through the world while remaining connected to a digital infrastructure that helps organise where you stay, what you do, how you spend, what experiences you buy and potentially even who you meet.

Viewed from that perspective, WeRoad fits surprisingly well.

Because communities are sticky. A booked apartment lasts a week. A friendship can last years. A hotel reservation ends when you check out. A social network becomes part of your life.

That is why some of the most interesting developments in travel today are not really about travel at all.

They are about identity.

The first generation of travel platforms helped people move. The second generation helped people book. The third generation may focus on helping people belong.

For Nomag readers, this should sound familiar.

The digital nomad movement was never really about geography. It was about freedom, flexibility and community. The most successful destinations rarely win because they have the cheapest apartments or the fastest Wi-Fi. They win because people want to be around other people who understand the same lifestyle.

That is why Lisbon exploded. That is why Medellín exploded. That is why dozens of smaller destinations are now trying to build ecosystems rather than simply attract visitors.

The future battle may not be for accommodation inventory.

It may be for social infrastructure.

And Airbnb appears determined to be part of that battle.

Will it work?

Maybe.

Maybe not.

History is full of companies that became distracted by their own ambitions. Plenty of platforms tried to become everything and ended up becoming less relevant instead.

But one thing feels increasingly difficult to ignore.

Airbnb is behaving less like a company that rents places to stay and more like a company that wants to accompany people wherever they go. The WeRoad deal is not proof of that transformation. It is simply another clue.

And if those clues are pointing in the right direction, the future competition for Airbnb may not be Booking.com or Expedia.

It may be every platform that wants a permanent place in the lives of globally mobile people. Which is a much bigger game than accommodation. And a much more interesting one.

Or perhaps, more accurately, a reality problem.

For the better part of a decade, the digital nomad narrative has been sold globally with the same visual language: artisanal coffee, sunsets, coworking spaces inside former colonial villas, somebody answering Slack messages from a terrace in Portugal while insisting they have “escaped the system”. Entire cities have rebranded themselves around this aesthetic. Some governments practically built tourism campaigns around the idea that attracting remote workers was the economic equivalent of discovering oil, only with more linen shirts and fewer environmental protests.

And to be fair, there is something genuinely interesting happening.

Remote work has absolutely changed the geography of opportunity. It has allowed thousands of people to rethink where they live, how they work and what kind of lifestyle they want. It has also created opportunities for places that, until recently, were mostly ignored by global investment, tourism or international talent flows. In some regions, especially smaller towns facing depopulation, remote workers have brought life back into empty apartments, reopened cafés, supported local businesses and created international networks that simply did not exist before.

That part is real.

But another thing is also real: if you spend enough time reading local newspapers instead of relocation blogs, “top 10 nomad destinations” lists or LinkedIn thought leadership posts written from infinity pools, you start noticing a very different tone emerging around the world.

Less euphoric.
More complicated.
Occasionally furious.

And honestly, sometimes unintentionally hilarious.

Because what many cities are slowly discovering is that “becoming globally desirable” and “remaining locally livable” are not necessarily the same thing.

Cape Town is one of the latest examples. A recent debate in South African media has started questioning the increasingly romanticised narrative surrounding digital nomads and short-term rentals. The issue itself is not particularly new. Lisbon, Barcelona and Mexico City have been arguing about similar dynamics for years. But Cape Town is interesting because it exposes the contradiction very clearly.

For years the city marketed itself internationally as a sort of lifestyle arbitrage paradise: European aesthetics, dramatic landscapes, good food, lower costs, English-speaking environment, strong café culture, excellent wine and enough coworking spaces to make a Berlin startup founder feel emotionally safe.

Naturally, the world arrived.

The problem is that housing markets also noticed.

Entire neighbourhoods increasingly began functioning less like residential communities and more like flexible hospitality infrastructure for temporary foreigners earning in dollars, pounds or euros. Suddenly local salaries were competing against global purchasing power. Apartments stopped being simply homes and became financial assets optimised for short-term yield.

And this is where the conversation becomes uncomfortable, because the digital nomad economy has developed a strange moral shield around itself.

If you criticise cruise tourism, people nod thoughtfully.
If you criticise speculative real estate funds, people understand.
If you criticise overtourism, everyone pretends to agree.

But the moment somebody questions parts of the digital nomad economy, the reaction often becomes weirdly defensive, almost theological. As if pointing out housing pressure or social imbalance means you are anti-progress, anti-globalisation or secretly jealous of people who own portable monitors.

Which is absurd.

Questioning impacts is not rejecting remote work. It is simply acknowledging that every economic model creates winners and losers, especially when cities treat residential housing as an infinite resource.

Because here is the part rarely included in glossy relocation guides: remote workers do not arrive into a vacuum.

They use roads, public transport, water systems, energy infrastructure and healthcare systems. They reshape rental markets. They influence local pricing. They alter commercial ecosystems. And when enough of them concentrate in already pressured urban areas, they can accelerate transformations that local residents often experience very differently from visiting foreigners.

A landlord earning in euros experiences the city differently from a local teacher paid in local currency.
An Airbnb management company experiences “urban vibrancy” differently from somebody commuting two hours because they can no longer afford their own neighbourhood.
A digital nomad calling a place “undiscovered” often means the locals simply haven’t monetised it yet.

And this is where things become darkly funny.

Because many countries continue promoting remote worker visas with the enthusiasm of people launching a music festival, while appearing genuinely shocked that housing markets react accordingly. Governments announce “nomad-friendly policies” before asking whether local infrastructure, transport systems or housing supply are remotely prepared for the additional pressure.

The assumption seems to be that international visibility automatically equals development.

It doesn’t.

Sometimes it just means more expensive brunch.

The real issue is that many policymakers still treat digital nomads as a branding strategy rather than an economic variable requiring actual planning. “Come work from paradise” sounds fantastic on Instagram. It becomes slightly more complicated when paradise cannot house nurses, waiters, junior architects or the people making the city function in the first place.

At the same time, the online conversation around digital nomads is often equally shallow in the opposite direction. Every remote worker is suddenly portrayed either as an enlightened global citizen saving local economies or as a colonizing villain destroying neighbourhoods one oat milk cappuccino at a time.

Reality, inconveniently, is more nuanced.

Not all remote workers behave the same way.
Not all cities have the same structural conditions.
Not all tourism models create the same outcomes.

A software developer renting long-term, integrating locally and contributing to the local economy is not the same thing as an apartment portfolio converted into ghost hotels optimised through dynamic pricing algorithms and TikTok marketing.

Likewise, a shrinking Italian village with empty housing stock and collapsing demographics is not remotely comparable to central Lisbon or parts of Barcelona already struggling with housing affordability.

Scale matters.
Density matters.
Governance matters.

And perhaps most importantly, timing matters.

Some places are already saturated. Others are desperate for residents, investment and economic activity. Treating every location as if it exists inside the same debate is intellectually lazy.

This is precisely why countries like Italy should pay attention very carefully to what is happening elsewhere. Not because the answer is to reject remote workers, but because the answer is to avoid importing broken models without adaptation.

Italy still has one enormous advantage: much of its problem is not excessive demand, but uneven demand. While a handful of famous cities absorb attention, investment and tourism pressure, hundreds of smaller towns continue losing population, services and economic relevance.

In those places, remote workers can absolutely become part of a positive story - if there is infrastructure, connectivity, realistic housing policy and long-term integration instead of fantasy storytelling designed for foreign media headlines.

Because the funniest thing about many “digital nomad paradises” is that they often end up becoming economically inaccessible not only for locals, but eventually for the nomads themselves. The very people searching for authenticity, affordability and quality of life slowly contribute to pricing out the conditions that attracted them there in the first place.

It is the startupification of geography.

Everybody arrives looking for the “hidden gem”, immediately posts about the hidden gem, and then acts surprised when the hidden gem develops a cocktail bar serving twelve-euro spritzes and a coworking space called something like Nomad Nest Collective.

At some point, every city faces the same question:
Do you want places where people actually live, or places optimised for temporary consumption?

And increasingly, local populations around the world are starting to ask that question out loud.

Not because they hate foreigners.
Not because they reject remote work.
But because they are trying to understand whether the current version of globalisation is building communities - or simply creating highly aesthetic forms of displacement with good Wi-Fi.

That distinction matters more than many governments currently seem willing to admit.

Between green coworking spaces, temporary communities and new residents, projects like Ca’Co in Italy’s Romagna Apennines reveal a different side of rural regeneration — one that sees remote work not as a trend, but as a long-term territorial opportunity.

Over the past few years, Italy’s “village regeneration” narrative has become almost impossible to escape. One-euro homes, reality shows about abandoned towns, glossy articles about digital nomads escaping big cities and rediscovering “authentic Italy.” Somewhere between tourism marketing and social experimentation, the topic has often become more performative than practical.

Yet every now and then, quieter projects emerge — and those are usually the most interesting ones.

One of them is Ca’Co, a rural coliving and coworking initiative located in Pennabilli, in Italy’s Romagna Apennines, recently featured by ANSA. The concept is relatively simple: transforming an old countryside farmhouse into a place where remote workers, creatives and mobile professionals can temporarily live and work while engaging with the local territory and community.

But the real story here is not the digital nomad cliché itself. That narrative has already been overused. What makes projects like this worth observing is their attempt to think beyond short-term tourism and into something much harder: long-term livability.

Because one of the biggest misunderstandings surrounding Italy’s internal areas is the idea that attractiveness can simply be “marketed.” In reality, attracting people requires infrastructure, social life, decent connectivity, services, opportunities and a certain everyday quality of life.

The remote workers many rural areas dream about attracting are not just looking for cheap houses or postcard landscapes. They are looking for functional ecosystems. Reliable internet. Human connections. Stability. Accessibility. Inspiration. A sense that life there is sustainable, not just picturesque.

That is why Ca’Co is interesting. It is not presented as a countryside resort or a romantic escape fantasy. The project openly talks about long stays, temporary residents, shared experiences and the possibility of building meaningful relationships with the territory.

There is also another important aspect often ignored in public debates: time.

Projects in rural and internal areas rarely produce immediate results. Building communities, changing demographic trends and creating local economic resilience takes years, not seasons. This is precisely why public funding — including European cohesion funds — remains essential for many of these initiatives.

Of course, public money alone does not guarantee success. Italy is also full of overpromised regeneration stories, inflated media narratives and projects that generated headlines but very little real impact. But perhaps this is why smaller and more grounded experiences deserve more attention.

Interestingly, the ANSA report also mentions that some internal areas around Bologna recorded a reversal in depopulation trends during 2024 — a rare phenomenon for these territories. It is still too early to draw grand conclusions, but it reflects a broader shift that has been quietly emerging across Europe: more people are reconsidering the relationship between work, geography and quality of life.

Remote work did not magically “save” rural areas. And it probably never will on its own. Italy’s internal territories still face enormous structural challenges: healthcare access, transportation, schools, aging populations, housing recovery and economic fragility.

Still, projects like Ca’Co may represent something more realistic and therefore more valuable. Not miracle solutions. Not utopian marketing campaigns. But small attempts to create contemporary, livable ecosystems in places that for decades have been treated only as spaces of decline.

And perhaps that is where the future conversation should start: less rhetoric about “saving villages,” and more focus on creating places where people can genuinely imagine building a life.

I am sitting on the mountains of Crete, not young anymore, sixty-eight years old, not a spring chicken, as they say with that cruel tenderness reserved for men who still want to begin again.

Below me, far away, Heraklion trembles in the light. Or perhaps it is only my eyes. At this age one does not always know if the world is shimmering or if the body has become a poor cinema projector, scratched but still loyal.

I look and I see almost nothing.

This is the beginning.

Because Crete, like life, is made mostly of invisibility.

The olive tree is visible, yes. The stone wall, visible. The goat, the bread, the glass of wine, the old woman dressed in black, the mountain road twisting like a question nobody has answered in four thousand years. But what makes these things alive is not visible. The hand that planted. The hunger that taught. The prayer before eating. The dead father inside the gesture of cutting bread. The child learning the rhythm before knowing the meaning. The table. Always the table.

And I ask the gods of Olympus, with the seriousness of a tired man who still wants to be surprised: please, let me wonder. Do not give me success. Do not give me applause. Give me the childish astonishment of seeing for the first time what was always in front of me.

That is how I came to TrophiHub.

Or perhaps TrophiHub came to me, walking slowly up the mountain, carrying a basket of figs, honey, wild greens, and the impossible patience of Crete.

Trofi. Nourishment. Not only food. Never only food.

Food is the first cinema. Before the image, before the word, before the archive, before the museum, there was a hand giving another hand something to eat. From this gesture everything begins: family, tribe, memory, economy, devotion, betrayal, reconciliation, music, politics, love, death. The table is the first parliament and the last church. The Table of Time.

I thought I had come here to make a project. A documentary series, a platform, a cultural initiative, something useful, something necessary, something with partners, decks, budgets, meetings, all the architecture of modern intention. But Crete laughed at me. Not loudly. Crete does not need to laugh loudly. The mountains have time.

At night I heard the Minotaur.

Not the monster of schoolbooks, not the tourist souvenir, not the horned nightmare trapped in a maze for the amusement of children. No. I heard something older and more human. A breathing under the island. A sadness. The beast inside civilization, the hunger we hide in systems, in markets, in appetites without gratitude. He was not asking to be killed. He was asking to be understood.

Then came Daedalus, the architect, smelling of dust and seawind, with the hands of an engineer and the eyes of a guilty father. He told me the labyrinth was not only a prison. It was a model of the human mind. We build corridors to escape ourselves and call it progress. We fly too high and call it innovation. We forget the wax. We forget the sun.

“Make visible the invisible,” he said. “But do not flatten mystery into explanation.”

This is the work.

TrophiHub is not another food project. If it becomes only recipes, it fails. If it becomes only tourism, it fails.

If it becomes nostalgia, that sweet poison, it fails. It must become a living archive of what cannot be archived easily: the invisible heritage of daily life. The liturgy of cheese, herbs, oil, bread. The way a mountain village measures time through harvests and funerals. The music that begins as entertainment and ends as ontology. Zorba dancing not because life is easy, but because life is unbearable without rhythm.

And there is the strange discovery: tradition is not the opposite of the future. Tradition is a technology of survival. It is knowledge encoded in repetition. A recipe is a philosophy that has accepted to wear an apron. A dance is an argument made by the body. A feast is a social contract renewed with wine.

Minoan, Byzantine, Venetian, Ottoman, modern, wounded, stubborn, luminous Crete. Civilizations came and did not simply erase one another. They settled, collided, fermented. The island absorbed without surrendering. This is why the Cretan diet is not a diet. It is a civilizational memory system. Land and body, biodiversity and ritual, hunger and joy, science and grandmother, all still speaking to each other.

In the morning I met Persephone among the wild greens.

She was not tragic. She was practical. She knew the seasons because she had been one. She bent down, touched the earth, and asked me if I understood resurrection.

I began to answer like a man from conferences: regeneration, sustainability, One Health, biodiversity, food systems.

She smiled.

“No,” she said. “Do you understand that nothing returns exactly as it was, and still it returns?”

This is The Garden of Life.

A garden is not innocence. A garden is negotiation. Between growth and decay, bees and flowers, water and stone, human care and non-human intelligence. We do not own the garden. At best we are admitted into its grammar.

This is why filming matters.

Because the camera can be violent, but it can also become an act of listening. A documentary can steal, but it can also return attention. At Filming for a Better World, I want the camera to become a table: a place where the visible and the invisible sit together.

Zeus arrived last, naturally.

He came with thunder over Psiloritis, theatrical as all old rulers are. He accused me of asking too much from Crete. “You modern people,” he said, “always arrive with your urgent purposes. You want meaning to be delivered like luggage.”

Perhaps he was right.

But I told him I am sixty-eight. I have earned a little urgency. I have seen enough of the world to know that we are starving while surrounded by abundance. We have more food and less nourishment. More connection and less belonging. More information and less wisdom. We have optimized the meal and lost the table.

So yes, I ask Crete to speak. Not as a museum. Not as a postcard. As a living laboratory for a future that does not begin by erasing the past.

TrophiHub.com, for me, must become this: a place where food nourishes the soul because it restores relationship. Between farmer and eater. Between mountain and city. Between diaspora and mother island. Between myth and science. Between the young who want to leave and the old who know why one returns.

From the mountains I look again toward Heraklion.

Still, I see almost nothing.

But now I understand. The invisible is not absence. It is the real work of the world.

The gods have surprised me after all. Not with miracles. With bread. With bees. With old songs. With a table waiting in the dusk.

For years, Japan was considered one of the least likely countries to embrace digital nomads.

Too bureaucratic. Too corporate. Too structured. Too attached to office culture and presenteeism. The image of Japan abroad was still tied to salarymen sleeping on trains, endless meetings, and a work culture where leaving before your boss was almost considered an act of rebellion.

And yet, here we are.

While parts of Europe are still trapped in endless debates about whether remote workers are “good” or “bad” for cities, Japan has started doing something much more pragmatic: quietly building ecosystems to attract them.

Not just tourists. Not influencers. Not people chasing cheap rent for six months.

But mobile professionals capable of bringing spending, skills, networks, and - perhaps more importantly - energy into places that are slowly losing population, services, and relevance.

According to a recent report by The Yomiuri Shimbun, the city of Fukuoka has become one of Japan’s leading hubs for digital nomads, hosting annual international summits since 2023 and attracting visitors from 57 countries. Participants stayed an average of 23 days and generated an estimated economic impact of around ¥140 million.

But the interesting part is not the number itself.

It’s the mentality behind it.

Fukuoka is not trying to become “the next Bali.” It’s not selling endless beach parties, crypto fantasies, or startup-bro utopias. In fact, one of the reasons visitors appreciate the city is almost the opposite: efficiency, accessibility, quality of life, and proximity to nature. A compact city. An airport nearby. Infrastructure that actually works. Shared offices that are integrated into urban life rather than isolated bubbles for foreigners.

In other words, Japan seems to understand something many destinations still fail to grasp: remote workers do not necessarily want permanent vacation anymore.

Many simply want a place where life feels manageable.

That changes the conversation entirely.

And then there’s another layer to this story - perhaps the most fascinating one.

Japan is not only talking about digital nomads. It’s increasingly talking about what it calls the “related population.” People who may not officially relocate forever, but who establish recurring ties with places outside their primary residence.

That concept matters enormously.

Because the future of many rural areas may no longer depend exclusively on convincing people to move there permanently. That model is often unrealistic. Schools close. Healthcare shrinks. Transport disappears. Entire local economies become fragile.

But what if someone spends three months a year there? Or returns every season? Or opens a small business while maintaining income elsewhere? Or becomes part of the community without fully “belonging” in the traditional bureaucratic sense?

Japan seems to be experimenting precisely in this grey area between tourism, relocation, and participation.

And frankly, this feels much closer to reality than many romantic narratives around remote work.

One of the most interesting examples in the article is not even a digital nomad in the classic sense, but a Japanese woman who decided to live between two places: maintaining ties with Fukuoka while building a second life in the mountains of Oita Prefecture. She opened homestays, works on local projects, and describes the experience not as “escaping society” but as rediscovering herself.

That nuance matters.

Because not everybody wants to abandon cities forever. Not everybody dreams of becoming a full-time rural minimalist harvesting organic lemons in silence while posting sunsets on Instagram.

Sometimes people simply want balance.

A second rhythm. A partial disconnection. A place where life feels human again. And this is where Japan’s approach becomes surprisingly relevant for Europe too.

Especially for countries like Italy, Spain, Portugal, or Greece, where discussions around remote workers often become trapped in extremes. Either digital nomads are portrayed as saviors of abandoned villages, or as invaders responsible for every housing problem on earth.

Reality is obviously more complicated.

Most small towns are not suffering from “too many foreigners.” They are suffering from aging populations, empty buildings, lack of investment, disappearing services, and structural demographic decline. At the same time, simply attracting random remote workers without strategy, infrastructure, or integration solves very little.

Japan appears to understand that attraction alone is not enough.

You need continuity. You need infrastructure. You need spaces where people can actually work. You need local ecosystems capable of absorbing new energy without turning communities into theme parks.

And perhaps most importantly: you need to stop imagining that everyone must fit into old categories.

Tourist. Resident. Local. Foreigner. Expat. Nomad.

The future increasingly lives somewhere in between.

A person can spend six months in one place, collaborate with local businesses, contribute economically, return every year, help launch projects, build friendships, and still technically “live” somewhere else.

For many territories, that relationship may already be more valuable than waiting for permanent relocation that never comes.

Ironically, one of the world’s oldest societies may be becoming one of the most flexible in understanding how modern mobility actually works.

Not through hype.
Not through TikTok slogans.
Not through “move to paradise” fantasies.

But through something much more sustainable: creating conditions where people genuinely want to return.

And honestly? That may be the real future of remote living.

I have lost count of the amounts of friends and acquaintances that complain how expensive life is, how stressed they are and how much they spend their time thinking about and planning their chances to escape that life a few times a year (aka holidays). They look at my wife and my lifestyle and tell us how envious they are (let’s leave aside that the grass is not always greener on the other side :-). And when I ask them what’s stopping them from pursuing it I get the usual raft of replies (categorised under “kids in school, job, mortgage on the apartment, social life, gym/sports, infrastructure, family, friends). As I am a big fan of seeing people living a happier and healthier life (and one that they can afford) I thought to share some perspectives. My official aim? To inform you. My secret aim? To force you to challenge your assumptions around your own life and start taking steps to a happier you!

I fully admit that I am an anomaly. Italian/German by nationality and having spent the better part of 34 years working and living in many places around the world I am naturally predisposed to perhaps accepting more change in my life. However, one change I have made—somewhat accidentally I must admit - has increased my quality of life (both qualitatively and financially): moving my residential status to small towns. I have lived in Hong Kong, Dubai, Johannesburg, London, Boston, Frankfurt, Milan, Luxembourg, Rome etc. but I also lived in countless smaller towns and villages across many countries and I would choose small towns over any larger metropolis anytime, not for some romantic notion of village life (there are some amazing articles in this publication for you to read what life is really like in small towns), but for some really very selfish reasons.

A bit of context... I am not a ultra high income earner by any stretch of the imagination. I can pay my bills, have a bit of money saved aside and no debts and own a few businesses that do reasonably well financially but really amazing in terms of impact. I love working on things that make a real difference in people’s lives (I suppose you could call me an impact entrepreneur, but I believe impact without a sustainable business model is actually dangerous so I am an entrepreneur first and impact enabler second). For 14.5 years I have worked for large multinationals (Goldman Sachs, etc) and enjoyed it even if the working hours and career commitments meant I ended up spending very little time with those I loved (my parents), seeing them 2 times a year. When my father passed away (cancer) I decided to take the plunge, hand in my resignation, and design the professional life I wanted and not live the one others want me to live. So I became an entrepreneur. I started 11 businesses in the first 3 years, 9 of which failed within 9 months (the one that became a case study used at Harvard to show how to do business in Africa was the one I had the least faith in that it would succeed... so best not to ask my opinion if something is a good idea of not!)

I gave you the personal context above not to show off any specific path but to highlight the point that I am - like many out there - not a human with ungodly abilities and unlimited resources (inheritance etc) but rather just a person that goes through life and screws up regularly. I don’t sit down and plan things 10 years in advance. If that’s you, great. I am not that person. I pretty much follow my gut feeling and then try to turn that gut feeling into reality, trying to reduce the friction as much as possible as well as minimising financial impacts.

A few years ago (I think 4 years now?) my wife and I decided that we wanted a less routinised lifestyle... We were then living in Johannesburg (South Africa). We wanted a life that isn’t just based on home, work, gym, sports (squash for me, but now padel) and friends in big cities which we knew how to navigate and where we had good networks of people (this helps in terms of getting business of course). We wanted a more chilled life surrounded by nature and fewer shops (how many restaurants do you really need around you? we came to the conclusion that a village with 5 restaurants is more than enough!). But we were scared of making the leap plus we owned a few businesses including a safari lodge (was rated 7th best on Tripadvisor out of 322 lodges) as well as some real estate that kind of kept us there.

So we started thinking and slowly realising that if we want the life we want we need to start selling the stuff that doesn’t fit into that vision. We tried to do it intelligently (took forever to sell some assets!) and also started - subconsciously at first - to say no to work opportunities that forced us to come to an office regularly or required us to be present: think lecturing, workshops, in house advisory, etc). This then turned into something we did consciously and noticed that we started working less but earning the same as before (I suspect when people hear you decline opportunities they actually get more interested in having you and start to think of other ways to have you involved... This however worked for us but it isn’t a guarantee so say “no” with caution :-) )

Slowly slowly we found ourselves working from home more. And we were loving it. To be clear: we were working hard, but actually less as we now didn’t have travel time etc to deal with. Any in person meeting requests were moved to virtual first (covid helped change people’s acceptance of that). We save - I’d guesstimate - 3 hours a day. This process took 1.5 years just to give you a sense. It isn’t an overnight thing.

Then we started testing our ability to work remotely (there’s a difference between having a nice setup at home and working from cafes and other places...). We took a 3 month road trip with our modest Toyota Corolla car, camping a lot, sometime an small airbnb. That was a challenge (try sitting in a tent trying to look elegant and professional in a serious meeting while you see the battery on your laptop start to die off)! But oh my goodness did we have fun. We forced ourselves to not complain and rather see this time as an opportunity to grow. As our friend Jonti Searl likes to say, real growth is never easy or pleasant. The first month was chaos (but wonderful in terms of sightseeing). I think we managed barely 3 hours of real work a day. Income oddly stayed the same making us realise that when you have limited time you actually become much more efficient! Eg. our replies would be much more on point, actionable and short. People actually like that (vs verbose let’s have tons of meeting communications). This drove up efficiency and productivity almost by accident. I even changed my “calendly” (a free tool for people to pick a date and time to schedule a meeting) to 15 mins meetings and only 3 times a week in the mornings. It worked wonders and I am personally surprised how many 1 hour meetings can be cut to 15 mins of getting to the point without all the fluff (today I do 30 mins meetings as 15 was really too short in some cases, coming across as a little rude).

I mention all this to make the point that transitioning to a new lifestyle took time and tinkering. We learned what we liked and what worked for us by trying out different things. This is something I suggest for you too... Don’t just sell your kids overnight and go... experiment, try, test things, go on extended road trips, etc. Figure out what works for you. Get comfortable with the feeling of being a little out of place, out of your comfort zone. A little scared even. At first it will feel frightening. Then it gets easier. After a few months you are totally comfortable. Think of it like you were starting a new job... exciting at first, then scary and then as you learn the new company better you start changing gears and start (hopefully) loving it.

That’s for releasing the handbrake of routine.

Now for deciding where to live. This is a biggie.

We are lucky that we have passports that make moving relatively easy. If you are blessed with one that is a bit more restrictive, there are always solutions just realise they might require a bit more investment or effort. But a way there is always.

We actually started doing housesitting for people with dogs in Italy. We didn’t know Italy that well actually (I am Italian but left Italy at the tender age of 14). So my wife and I found 2 website where dog owners advertise they need people for a month or two. We lived like this for almost 2 years and absolutely and utterly LOVED it. I think we stayed in 10-12 different places. We saw parts of the country we didn’t know anything about - from the stunning Puglia region to Lake Como to Abruzzo to Rome. Learned to discover tons of small villages across Italy and totally fell in love with Italy... As many articles on this platform remind us: there is NO one Italy. It is a incredible diverse range of lifestyles and for each of you will be a better or less better fit. You need to try it to see if you like it. We learned so much from this: what we like, don’t like, what we need (infrastructure etc), nature, mountains, lakes or ocean, etc. We learned what is the right size of town that works for us and what we need within 40 mins drive. We did it this way as wanted to save the costs of airbb. Disadvantage of dog sitting? You need to be home each evening to feed the cuties so it limits your freedom. But you get free accommodation in some really cool places! You can see our photo diary here (sorry... we don’t do social media so no instagram to follow or facebook to like). We also learned what didn’t work for us.

To be honest, what actually happened was that we started becoming a little more confused at first. We fell in love with so many small villages and towns and didn’t actually know what we want... and still don’t. One of the reasons we are not buying properties yet (and there’s TONS of amazing deals to be had in small villages) is because we have decided we are not ready yet to settle down and commit to one place. Assume if you buy in a small town/village you will own that thing for a long time: small villages don’t have a huge market for buyers... and certainly no buyers if you overinvest in your property. That’s totally fine if you decided on one place and that’s it. Not fine if you are like us who have become essentially poli-village-amorous :-). ... so we tend prefer renting for now. One day I think we will buy as well.

What about the costs you say?

Ah... well... having lived in big cities and small towns across Italy and actually tracking what we spend I can give you real time data that is also recent. As always, this is our personal experience and lifestyle so take these numbers as a little biased. What worked for us may not work for you.

Big cities - our total expenses (food, transport, accommodation, electricity, internet, shopping, going out to eat, etc) - EUR 4.700-5.800 per month (for us both, on average).

Small villages - EUR 2.400 to 3.100 per month (for both of us on average).

Why the big difference? Various factors but suspect the following are the main drivers:

1. Rent is dramatically cheaper (not just direct rent but also rates and taxes etc). Rome centre for example is EUR 1.000-1.500 a month. Rome outskirts (small villages ca. 35-45 mins drive) rent is EUR 450-650 a month. Sometime you get better deals sometime not.

2. Retail shopping costs drop dramatically. As much as I like to think I have self control, if I walk past 50 shops each day who have mastered the art of temptation, I will end up buying more shit. In small towns we saw we spend dramatically less on stuff.

3. Going out costs drop. Small towns charge EUR 1 to EUR 1.10 for a cafe in a bar (a bar in Italy is what you know as a cafe). In Rome centre EUR 1.50-160 for the same coffee (airport is now EUR 2.50 for a coffee). That ratio also works generally for food too... A pizza in Milan centre (non touristy) is EUR 10-12. Small villages EUR 5-7. Those small things add up.

4. Services costs drop dramatically. We bought a (second hand) Fiat Panda for EUR 6.000 in amazing condition. A service in Rome city is EUR 130-180. The same service in our little town is EUR 30-40. Nails in Rome is EUR 70. Nails here are 30-40. Why? Many factors... but mostly rents are lower, waves are lower plus people don’t overpay. The mechanic also told me that he charges those prices because just about all his customers come back for life and not just once off. That means you build relationships and not just commercial ripping off transactions. Life in small villages are just much cheaper from many aspects (even if you do need to have a little patience... so don’t expect the plumber to arrive in 15 mins like in a major city). Gym membership is the same cost (we pay EUR 23 a month for full membership of a great local gym with daily spinning classes but keep in mind gyms might not be available where you decide to live). I now play padel as there are no squash courts around us (cost: EUR 10 per game vs EUR 12-15 per game in big cities). Local (amazing high tech) dentist visit is EUR 50 (vs big cities EUR 100).

5. We do more in nature. MUCH more. Hiking, cycling (bought 2nd hand amazing bikes for 400 euros a pop). Picnick by the lake (30 mins drive from us) or by the ocean (15 mins drive). Those things cost less and fill your happiness tank enormously. I do many catch up calls with business partners and clients now while walking in nature (non strenuous walks to be clear... nothing shouts unprofessionalism like being out of breath... :-)

Downsides?

You lose a few friends you had made in other places... that’s part of the deal. You need to rebuild your networks. You need to invest more time on virtual connections to stay top of mind for potential opportunities. Sometime you feel a bit alone (for us it works brilliantly as we love each other’s company)... but if your relationship was a bit wobbly before keep in mind you will be “forced” to confront each other much more.

Things you do not need to worry about?

Local help... in finding mechanics, plumbers, accountants, etc. Use services like IT’s Italy or ask the local bar owner... they know everyone. If you treat people kindly you will get tons of mammas reaching out to support you. People in local villages are incredibly helpful and friendly if you are nice and respectful. Many municipalities and also the Italian govt are embracing digitilisation: in the last 1.5 years the govt apps have gotten amazing (e.g. today I don’t carry my driving licence anymore as the digital version on the app works fine. plus you get all invoices, fines etc to your official email and you can pay everything digitally).

Language barrier?

Italians are a disaster with other languages, especially in small towns. I am Italian but my wife isn’t. But she’s bubbly, outgoing and fun and people love with with her vs grumpy Italian old me. So she is quickly being welcomed even if sometime - at first - it was a bit of a challenge to get things done. Luckily in Italy hand gestures work wonders to explain things. And Italian is easy to learn the basics to survive (repeat after me: caffe’, cappuccino, pizza. That’s all you need). And Italians LOVE it when you make a little effort. As always, if you are pleasant, respectful and easy going you will thrive in Italy. If you are arrogant, expecting always and pushy life will be more challenging (frankly this is anywhere, but in large cities that behaviour is more tolerated while they charge you).

Logistics

Getting around in, to and from small villages you need a car in Italy. There are busses but they are stretched in terms of regularity. Trains in Italy for long distance are world class (ignore what you think you know) but small villages are often not connected brilliantly by public transport. That’s part why they are so cheap. Keep in in mind. So budget maybe a long term rental for a while and then buy second hand (a good second hand car for Italy will cost you EUR 4.500-9000 (again what do you need a car for? In our case it is short distances so we got a car that’s perfect for 2-3 hour drives max). At 10.000 euros you can find new cars. Electric cars are everywhere now just expect to pay a fortune for them currently. For normal cars get a small engine please so that your taxes and insurance is low.

Outcome of our new lifestyle?

To be fair we have always been the happy types. I am more used to moving around than my wife was and she was a little more hesitant about this lifestyle so we took it easy, not rushing it, and never forcing ourselves to extremes. But the difference now is extraordinary. We are spending less (saving more), life is far less complicated (less traffic, etc), the connections with people and nature more genuine (though we had amazing connections also in big cities so not sure if it really that big a change as I think about it). Our relationship went from great to amazing. We live with doors and windows open. Car is parked outside without being locked many times (though not recommended no matter where you live).

We walk much more. You “waste” much more time chatting to people in the streets or cafe’. You feel more part of a community than just a tax payer in a big city. Yes: you have less options (cinema, theatre, etc) but those are 30-40 mins easy drive if we absolutely need it. We have a train station 15 mins drive. Rome airport 25 mins drive. That’s us. The village you pick might be different... but different and good for you. Go out and try different places. Rent an airbnb for 3 months in each place (3 months rentals are ridiculously cheaper than daily rate... we once rented a place that daily would cost EUR 50 so EUR 1.500 a month but when bought per month worked to EUR 600 a month once we negotiated with the owner). Do not rush to settle in one place... taste the life in different locations until you find the one that after a few months you still love (there are some places that are amazing for a day or two and incredibly impractical after a few months of living there).

In the end it’s up to you. Its your life. You can keep reading the amazing articles in It’s and nomag and dream or start taking the first steps towards a new life. Maybe it won’t work out but then you go back home (hence why I advocate not to sell everything immediately) richer with experiences and perspectives. Sometime you need to taste the menu and then go home and think about it and let it simmer before making the jump. There’s no rush. You are not under any pressure. But don’t let life pass you by.

As the old saying goes, we regret more the things that we didn’t do than the things we did.

Ball in your court. I am off to play padel.

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