Welcome to Wander Worldschool. It's Trivia Time. What premier global city houses residents that speak over 160 distinct languages? Tune into this month's Listener Locations to find out. I'm Suzy, a travel-loving money nerd, mom of two, and our family lives between Spain, Colorado, and Japan this fall. On this show, we discuss the stories, logistics, and finances of traveling families and the many ways to learn along the way.
Today's end of the month episode includes our family's stateside adventures in Colorado so far this summer, as well as my favorite takeaways from this month's episode, and our top listener locations, including the answer to this episode's opening trivia question. For our deep dive this month, we are focusing on the income side of the financial equation by getting a remote job, a steady paycheck, and the ability to travel? What's not to love?
Turns out it's not always that simple. Whether you're already rocking a job that does not require an office or aspiring for work on the go, I'm gonna break it all down for you in today's episode. And thank you for signing up for the Wander Weekly newsletter. Shout out to Sven, KM, David, Zachary, Steph, Lori, Brianna, Connie, Taryn, VG, Chris, GS, Kimberly, and JL. Last week's Wander Weekly covered opportunities in Portugal,
credit card bonus alerts, community roundups, global happenings, and more. And as a reminder, everyone who signs up will get the Ultimate Slow Travel and Worldschooling Pre-Trip checklist. Go sign up in the show notes right now to get the traveling family spotlights, program highlights, and more. Before we jump in, how has your month been treating you? July kicked off with slip and slides with cousins, celebrating the 4th of July with the very British singer Ed Sheeran,
and my older son's first successful overnight camp. He had a blast while the younger son is refusing any camps, except for a Bollywood dance camp, which was a lot of fun to watch. It has been hard to keep up with podcasting and writing while also doing lots of fun things with the kids. Some more routine during our Boundless Life cohort in Japan this fall will be welcome. Still, we've been weathering the heat by escaping to the mountains with my family and spending lots of time with the two
dogs, two cats, and five chickens that we're currently house-sitting. It has been fun to explore a new part of Denver as well, to be honest. We're a two-minute walk to a delicious ice cream shop, and yoga in a nearby park last night was delightful. If you're doing any pet sitting soon, check out my article "Tips for a Successful Pet Sit" and my Trusted Housesitters referral link. Are you based out of Miami, Florida, Vancouver, British Columbia, or Queens, New York?
I love looking at the listener locations from this past month. The Queens borough in New York City, New York is that linguistically diverse city from the opening trivia. Queens is also the largest borough by area and was named after Queen Catherine of Braganza in 1683. She was the Portuguese wife of King Charles II of England. Eva Ann sent me a message back in June that says, "Hi Suzy, been listening to the podcast, just want to say how helpful it is.
As someone who's only recently learned about worldschooling and is dabbling in it in the future, you had a few episodes that came out at perfect timing, as we're strongly considering the Jovara Field School, Boundless Life in Sintra, and Earthbound Italy." I love getting these messages. Your messages, your reviews, they mean so much to me. I'm so glad that these conversations with the amazing worldschooling creators and traveling families are helpful. If you are enjoying these episodes,
will you leave a five-star review on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen? Even better, share your favorite episode with a friend. I also welcome fan mail by clicking the link in the show notes too. Send me any feedback, questions, or ideas for future episodes. For the monthly episode recaps, listen back to episodes 59 through 62. In episode 59, Stacey Wedding offered firsthand advice on traveling on a budget through Workaway and WWOOF farm stays.
With teens and tweens, this is the perfect way to explore their desires to learn more about self-sustaining farm practices while saving on food and accommodations for a family of five. We also chatted about the importance of family resilience while traveling. Go take a listen if you need tips to help self-regulate before or during your travel. Joe O'Connor in episode 60 solved the slow family travel housing dilemma with Global Family Home Rentals.
From a microschool on a Greek island to now awaiting their baby boy in New York, Joe and his family have used their years of full-time travel experience to build a family-focused housing community based on trust. Let the house pick your next slow travel destination with GFHR. And Kelly Thornhill from Adventures in Spanish shared her language learning journey in episode 61, which started as horseback riding in the Andes as a translator,
led Kelly to worldschool her daughters, and eventually found an online Spanish language learning program with immersive opportunities in Spain. If learning the language of 600-plus million people in the world is of interest to you and your family, check out Kelly's opportunities with Adventures in Spanish. And lastly, in episode 62, Chad and Brittany of The Traveling Slaters walked us through that decision to sell it all two years ago for full-time travel. They found ways to navigate big feelings in the kids,
intentional time with family back home, the joy of not seeing it all, and their incredible resources through Nomadic Pathway. The app and learning guides help families truly connect to new places along their travels, and listen back to see where our family should go next based on the "Where to Worldschool Next" quiz. How about you? What episode from this month resonated the most with you? Send me a text in the show notes with your feedback, thoughts, and questions.
It's time for our deep dive, which is all things finding and managing remote work. To share some context as it pertains to remote work, my husband Mark has been working fully remotely since 2020 sent him home. He switched to his current role at a small, remote-first company in 2021 and established himself there before we brought up the option of working from Canada in 2022 for two months. After that was successful, he requested a school year
abroad in Spain, and since then he's worked from Spain many times, but also Germany, Albania, Portugal, and Morocco. For me in healthcare, remote jobs are very difficult to find, especially ones that would allow for out-of-country travel, which is really important to me. I did work remotely, assisting with home COVID testing for a while during the pandemic. I also worked from home when my health educator job sent us home with schools being closed. I personally love working remotely.
And I'm really not sure if I ever want to go to an out-of-the-home job again, to be honest. I really also like working for myself, though. And I recognize, though, that this may change as the kids launch or different things change in our life. Maybe I will someday work out of the home. But for now, remote work is awesome. It's given us so much flexibility with travel, and I really love to speak about the opportunities that come with remote work. But for you, before you pack your bags, we need to talk about what this lifestyle actually looks like behind the scenes.
We're going to cover the incredible perks, the hidden struggles, how to get a remote job if you don't have one yet, and how to stay sane and employed once you do hit the road. Take note that this discussion will loosely apply to those that are self-employed or working freelance, because you're still going to be working on the go. But you may not have as many hurdles as you would working for a remote job, a remote company. We'll tackle remote work options for entrepreneurs more in depth in a future episode.
Okay, back to that trade-off between freedom and logistics. Let's start with the real benefits, because despite what you see online, it's not about sitting on a sandy beach with a laptop getting sand in the keyboard. The main benefit, in my opinion, is that you get to have deeper immersion over fast tourism. Instead of rushing through a city in three days because you have limited vacation time, you are going to be able to spend longer in one location. You get to live like a local,
explore neighborhood markets on a Tuesday morning, find your favorite coffee shop, and form meaningful connections in a neighborhood over weeks or months. That leads right into expanded cultural fluency. When you live in different environments, you naturally build a little bit of empathy, adaptability, and even language skills. And this may be really important to not just you, but your family and your kids. These are benefits that extend directly to your personal growth, and they also enrich your family life in ways that you just can't
get on a standard two-week vacation. Then there's the financial side of geo-arbitrage and financial optimization. Earning a strong home currency salary, like the US dollar or pound or euro, while living in regions with a lower cost of living allows you to cut your everyday expenses like food, rent, and activities. And now you can stretch your base salary and accelerate your savings or your investment goals or save up for some really fun travel trips. I've heard of some families that have been able to
cut out debt by traveling, actually, or save up for a big house purchase back at their home base. Plus, you get the elimination of the commute tax. You save thousands of dollars annually on transit, fuel, work clothing, and overpriced corporate lunches. Of course, there are still going to be some of these costs when you work from home. You're gonna have to eat at home, but cutting out the commute tax is one of my favorite aspects of remote work. Finally, you gain high autonomy and mindset upgrades.
Remote work is gonna strip away the office dynamics, which is often sitting at a desk for eight hours just to look busy. I'm sure we've all done that before. Success is measured strictly by outcomes, giving you more control over your schedule once your deliverables are complete. And as a bonus, your problem-solving speed is gonna go through the roof. Not only are you navigating foreign transit, languages, and spotty remote setups, this is all gonna make your day-to-day challenges back at work feel far less intimidating.
Now let's keep it real, because we all know that it's not just picturesque sunsets and flexible mornings at the coffee shop. There are real friction points that you need to prepare for. The biggest one is basically that you have two jobs while you travel. You essentially have to maintain your actual remote role, and then the job of managing accommodation, transport, SIM cards, Wi-Fi speeds, local rules. When plans fall apart in one of those,
both of those jobs suffer at the exact same time. We find that I take on a lot of these roles and responsibilities so that Mark doesn't have to worry, but then sometimes I pick a place that doesn't have great Wi-Fi, like we did in Portugal in May, and we had to adapt. But it's all part of the learning process. Along with that comes working tourist guilt.
Your family, your partner, other travelers, they may be out exploring, having a lot of fun while you're inside answering emails, building spreadsheets, all that serious work that you need to do for your job. You might have some fear of missing out. Also, there's a constant threat of tech failure and the Wi-Fi anxiety that comes with that. Reliable internet is your absolute lifeline. If you have a sudden power outage or a dropped cell signal right before a critical meeting,
that can induce level ten stress. You also need to watch out for ergonomic strains. Kitchen counters, soft couches, and cafe chairs simply are not built for long, eight-hour workdays. Physical fatigue and back pain can quickly set in without a dedicated workplace setup. And a lot of places just do not have those. I will also add about power outages: we were in Spain when the entire country basically lost power about a year ago,
and my husband was able to adapt, but he just couldn't work for a while. And sometimes things are going to be outside of your control, but there are a lot of things you can attempt to control so that you can have successful workdays while also traveling. Lastly, there is the out-of-sight social cost. You might find that building strong rapport with teammates and managers requires intentional effort when you're remote. Remote workers can easily experience professional drift and become just an avatar in Slack.
You miss out on informal mentoring or quick promotion conversations. So it's still important that you engage with your coworkers, engage with your team, even if you are remote. And on a personal level, being on the road of course means that you might be missing things from back home: family gatherings, birthdays, casual hangouts. This can lead to intense bouts of loneliness or detachment. This is often what a lot of the traveling families discuss as the challenge during our episodes, is that they are
missing out on things back home and it's hard to be in two places at once. So even with those trade-offs, I'm guessing you still would really love a remote paycheck while traveling. I first will discuss the process of getting a remote job if you don't already have one. Then we're going to talk about how to manage remote work on the road, and this will apply if you already have a remote job or once you secure that ticket to digital nomad life. Before hitting apply on a hundred postings,
you need to set up your strategy. Start by auditing your transferable skills and remind yourself that having no remote experience does not mean that you have no experience. Non-remote skills like handling client emails, organizing projects, managing schedules, or resolving customer issues, all of these translate directly to remote work. Next, define your specific remote criteria. Decide if you need time zone flexibility
with flexible asynchronous work, or if you need fixed hours with a rigid nine-to-five or whatever schedule. You should also clarify the operational differences between being a W-2 employee or a 1099 contractor. Pay close attention to the taxes, the benefits, and the overall autonomy that comes with both of those. And again, that's US-specific, but I'm sure every country has a difference between being an employee and a contractor.
Finally, set up a clean virtual workspace. Even entry-level interviews will assess background noise, internet stability, lighting, and overall camera readiness as a preview of how you are going to show up for the job. When it comes to key skills to focus on, remote managers are not just hiring for technical ability. They're hiring for someone that can self-govern, that can work independently, and also remote fluency. In a remote environment,
writing is your primary workspace, so asynchronous and written communication is non-negotiable. You must be concise, clear, and proactive in your writing. You also need to demonstrate self-management and organization by showing that you can prioritize tasks without a manager physically standing over you. Be sure to highlight your digital tool literacy with standard remote collaboration tools such as Slack, Teams, Notion, Asana, Loom, Google Workspace, and Trello.
And there's probably even more. So research what companies use what and make sure you feel comfortable with these different digital literacy tools. Finally, practice proactive problem solving, which is essentially Googling or looking in the internal documentation before asking questions. Remote teams heavily value individuals who attempt to solve a problem on their own before interrupting colleagues. When you're looking for remote jobs,
avoid generic job boards that are often flooded with thousands of applicants or potential scams. Instead, look at vetted remote boards like FlexJobs, Remote.co, and We Work Remotely, because they feature pre-screened listings with a lower risk of scams. If you're looking for entry-level operations, customer support, or marketing, or a startup and growth tech board, look at Wellfound, which was formerly AngelList,
and Dynamite Jobs. These are all great options. You can also use broad networks like LinkedIn, of course. You want to filter strictly for remote roles, as well as Indeed has this option as well. But remember, these are high-volume platforms. They are best paired with direct company outreach. Make sure you're getting to know the people at these companies, the recruiters especially. And if you need to build a quick portfolio and get proof of remote work, bridge or freelance platforms
like Upwork and Contra are wonderful starting points. Here's a quick warning, though: remote job scams are definitely out there. Legitimate remote employers will never ask a candidate to pay for their own equipment or submit banking information upfront before the offer. So be on the lookout. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. When you're applying, there are practical tactics that will help first-time remote applicants stand out.
Format a remote-ready resume that highlights your experience with remote tools, such as stating that you've managed client onboarding across three time zones using Slack and Zoom, and always lead with outcomes, numbers, and self-directed projects. They really, again, want to see that you can work independently. Beware of geographic restrictions. As many of these positions are labeled as remote, they still require you to live in a specific state or country for legal, tax, or payroll purposes.
So always read the fine print before applying. You can also use Loom or video pitches by submitting a brief 60-second video intro alongside your application. This will demonstrate competence, vocal clarity, and tech competence right out the gate. There are lots of tips out there for general job interviewing and following up, so make sure you follow the current advice for your field. I've heard of people getting remote jobs by pitching themselves to potential employers about
why they need them to help with the telework coverage of their job, or others who work closely with remote-first companies for a while to already have an in once those openings arrive. Spending a lot of time on LinkedIn and other remote work resources will be to your advantage. At the end, I'm going to cover some of these resources as well. Maybe you have a remote job that you can travel with, or now that you've successfully secured that dream remote job and you want to hit the road,
let's talk about how to successfully manage working while on the move. To start, a mobile office needs to be just as reliable as a desk in a corporate headquarters. Make sure you have a dual connectivity strategy for your Wi-Fi. Never rely strictly on your hotel or Airbnb Wi-Fi. You want to have a primary connection through local eSIMs or a physical SIM. Also make sure you have a backup mobile hotspot plan enabled on your phone. And also always ask your host
for how fast the Wi-Fi is; ask for a screenshot of an internet speed test. Your essential power and hardware kit should include universal travel adapters, high-capacity power banks that can charge your laptop, and noise-canceling headsets. These are absolutely essential to block out cafe noise or street noise. You may also want additional screens and ergonomic adaptations for your remote office setup.
Working remotely while traveling comes with fine print that every worker must navigate carefully. While I'm sure there are Reddit threads that are full of people working from another country or state without company approval, it is certainly not recommended. Cybersecurity may flag it, your company might have automated VPN detection, or there are other ways to know. I previously tried to log in to a prior job from Canada in 2022. I promptly got my account flagged.
Meanwhile, another hospital job at the time had no problems with me logging in to check email. I believe now, though, most companies have all the tech to detect this behavior. Still, you can find the win-win attributes for both you and your company when requesting approval. Pitch it as a workation with pre-planned core availability hours rather than a continuous holiday. Start discussions plenty ahead of your travels so you have time to come to a final agreement. You also need to understand
corporate tax and regulatory realities. Staying in many international destinations or even US states longer than 183 days can trigger local tax residency. Many companies do not have legal and tax offices in these countries, so they run the risk of not being compliant with the country's employment laws. This is the main reason that companies are nervous about approving for this, because they worry about those tax obligations when
an employee may establish residency in a different country. So make sure you're aware of these and potentially keep traveling. Or have no fear, the digital nomad visa is here. Many countries offer specific tourist and remote work visas that legally allow you to work from those countries for foreign employers. The bottom line is that your company's IT department will know where you're logging in from. So make sure that you talk with them early
and come up with this plan. Time zone gaps can either destroy your work-life balance or become a superpower. You should establish core overlap hours by identifying the three to four hours where your local time overlaps with your team's core workday. Block those hours strictly for live meetings, Slack availability, and urgent things that come up. Shift as much as possible to asynchronous work execution. Use recorded video updates
or send end-of-the-day daily summaries; outline the completed tasks and your upcoming priorities. Most importantly, protect your sleep cycle. Regularly staying up to three or four in the morning to match your home office time zone will quickly lead to burnout. We are trialing this from Japan this fall, so I will report back with how it works out for Mark. He's a bit of a night owl anyhow, so I'm thinking it's going to be okay for him to work from approximately 6:00 PM to 2:00 AM.
But it would be tough to sustain this for the long term. Once you're in your destination, you will want to maintain high performance while enjoying your surroundings. This often means, especially if you're traveling solo or if both parents are working, that you will have to look into school, worldschool drop-off hubs, or other caregiving options, as parenting and working full time is exhausting. But if one parent is working and the other takes on the primary education role, then it's possible to
split up those duties appropriately so that there's time for all of that. But make sure both parents get a break as well. For the remote worker, the first step is to establish a fixed weekly work schedule. You want to make sure that you are not traveling on workdays. Also, don't have high-stakes calls on a transit day. For us, the kids and I will often fly whenever we can get the best flight with points. Then we book the more expensive flight for Mark on the weekend so it does not disrupt his work schedule.
This allows him to wrap things up at the place that we're leaving and travel when it works best for his work schedule. For day-to-day work, find a rhythm that works for you. Maybe you need to work in a focused, uninterrupted area and you need to have those three- to four-hour blocks in the morning or late at night so you have the middle of the day to explore. If you're working from Europe and you work more of a US East Coast schedule, you may find that you actually want to have those mornings off and then work from noon to 8:00 p.m. or so.
When you get to a new destination, establish your dedicated workspace right away. Avoid working from bed or cramped kitchen counters. This is the number one thing that I look for in accommodation, is a dedicated workspace. It is shocking how few places are set up with any type of office setup, let alone even a desk sometimes. Japan was especially difficult, but planning ahead and being flexible in location can help to find a good place to stay and work from. Of course,
there's obvious stuff about Wi-Fi, VPNs, and time zones, but once you're actually out living the lifestyle, especially if you're balancing work with family travel, slow movement, and real-world logistics, many other issues can pop up as well. Here are those critical blind spots that people often don't consider until they're already in the thick of it. First are the legal and financial traps. We talked a little bit about making sure that your accounts work. You also want to make sure that your healthcare and your travel insurance work.
Exclusions are not going to exclude you from getting routine care abroad, or that you might not get coverage for an illness or an injury if you're somewhere where you shouldn't be or didn't have approval with. Second is also the cognitive and emotional load of travel burnout. Decision fatigue is real. It takes a lot of effort to figure out how to just live life, and that is even before you even start your workday. You also have to deal with the worker versus tourist guilt.
You're going to be sitting back at home working at your job while the rest of your family or fellow travelers are out exploring a new city. You want to manage expectations. Accepting now that you're going to miss out on things is harder than it sounds. It's actually quite amazing how little tourism we do in Spain. Of course we do weekend trips. We can work from Portugal for a week, but it does just leave us a lot less time to explore. So really slowing down is really important.
You also may face isolation and a community deficit. It can be isolating to work remotely. Also, it means when you leave somewhere, you're cutting off ties from the local community that you just spent time building. You might find it helpful to develop long-term peer networks or adapt to co-working spaces so you get a little bit of socialization as well. Just as community can become so important in worldschooling, it is equally important in remote work. Lastly are those workplace dynamics and perception.
You want to make sure that you are still visible so that you're doing well at your job and you're getting those promotions and different things like that. I will say, though, being at a completely remote-first company can help. When no one is face-to-face, there's no advantage for that. But it is still important to show up, interact with your coworkers, and find other ways to ensure that you're putting in the reps with your company. Finally, there are advanced tech logistics and nightmares. So we talked about making sure you have backup technology, making sure that you have
ways that you can back up your work so if something happens to your computer, you're not out. Avoid two-factor authentication blockouts by keeping your home phone number active while traveling. Also, you might want to move all those two-factor authentications to app-based authenticators like Google Authenticator. I'll end this episode's remote work deep dive with some tried-and-true resources to stay ahead of remote work trends and job opportunities. For data-driven industry reports,
check out Buffer's State of Remote Work, which provides an annual benchmark of remote work demographics and salary trends. Companies that are truly pioneers in the remote-first world also regularly contribute playbooks on management and asynchronous workflows and more. Doist, their head of remote operations, had a fabulous podcast for a while called About Abroad, and his name is Chase Warrington. This was focused all on building a life without borders.
There are nearly 200 episodes, so it's probably still worth looking through. But Doist has a lot of great remote work articles, and I'll link those, such as the Remote Working Parent Survival Guide and Remote Work While Traveling Abroad: Candid Advice from People Who've Done It. These articles go into even more depth and on the specifics than I've covered here, so go check them out. Another great company blog is Zapier, and their remote work section includes a list of 50-plus fully remote companies
that let you work from anywhere. And my favorite article, "Don't Work More When You Work From Home." It's true, it can be tempting to always be on when your work and home is the same place, but boundaries are so important for long-term sustainability. Lastly, check out the Running Remote team. They host an annual conference because, turns out, sometimes being in person is really helpful. And it also has an online content hub on software tools, and it has international compliance information.
Nomad List and SafetyWing also track popular remote work hubs globally, as well as health insurance and financial infrastructure to set up for remote work. Check out the show notes for all the links for these remote work resources. So tell me, do you already work remotely? How did you find your job? Or are you looking right now? Want to chat more about it? Set up a free 30-minute call with the links in the show notes. And as a reminder, don't forget to use the links in the show notes to support this show.
There are links for the Worldschooling Mama Network Substack, where I write with other worldschooling entrepreneurial moms, Preply language lessons, HomeExchange, Trusted Housesitters, Chase travel cards, Wise, which is essential for international money transfers, and Monarch Money, which helps you track your budget and your travel expenses, and more. All these are in the show notes. Next month I chat with some really cool traveling families. We chat about traveling villages, what makes Curaçao so special,
and the book you need for your family travels. Until next time, sign up for the Wander Weekly newsletter, stay curious, and keep exploring.
