How to Work your U.S. Remote job from Europe
You’ve got a remote job now. Instead of working from your much too familiar home, why not take advantage and see the world by working from Europe?
All while sticking to your required office hours.
Lisbon, Portugal view of the 25 de Abril Bridge
Society has taught us that office work is traditionally done during the day. 9 to 5 is a common term we all know and understand, but today, people are making a living during all hours. Gig economy workers and the service industry works evenings and weekends. Nurses work 12 hour days. Essential workers work all hours to keep society running. Just because office jobs are typically worked during the day doesn’t mean we can’t consider working during different hours like people do in other industries do.
Maximize your ability to live abroad by becoming flexible with what hours you work your remote job. This will open up more than half the world to you, which is a tradeoff any travel enthusiast would make in a heartbeat.
Why work in the afternoon and evening from Europe
Working in the afternoons and evenings from Europe is one of the best kept secrets for remote professionals based in the Americas. Whether your office hours are in San Francisco, California or Toronto, Canada, you can immerse yourself in European culture while still adhering to Zoom calls and Slack messages.
Your knee-jerk reaction may be that you would never want to work in the evening. That it’s too late and would be a crazy weird schedule to live by. It’s an understandable reaction, but continue reading and you may think otherwise.
This is what I’ve been doing since Feb 2020. I decided to stay in Lisbon, Portugal during COVID-19 while working a full-time U.S. job, and it’s one of the best decisions I’ve ever made as I now plan to WF Abroad until 2021.
Instead of working from 9am to 5pm on the U.S. East Coast, you can work from the following European locations by working from 2pm to 10pm:
London, United Kingdom
Dublin, Ireland
Lisbon, Portugal
Marrakech, Morroco
Canary Islands, Spain
Reykjavík, Iceland
If you’re concerned about the time change, then start in the UK or Portugal. These two countries are on Western European Time and are only five hours ahead of the U.S. (not six like the rest of Central Europe). London needs no introduction, and Portugal is arguably Europe’s hottest destination. Lisbon has developed a budding digital nomad and tech scene. Events can be found almost daily; from hiking to entrepreneurship to drinks, many of Europe remote professionals have already flocked to Lisbon, so consider these two locations if you’re a bit worried about having to work too late.
As of July 8, there are travel restrictions for Americans to the EU, but that doesn’t mean you can’t start planning for when restrictions ease to work from abroad.
Europe is accessible to work from during any time of the year. Winters can be beautiful and provide lower rates on accommodation. Summers provide gorgeous beach weather in Southern Europe and beautiful hiking in Ireland and Scotland.
Europe UTC Timezones
By working from 3pm to 11pm, you can then open up all of Central Europe, which is on Central European Time. See the above countries in red. That’s a lot of places you can visit and an endless amount of activities, sights, and cultures you can immerse yourself in.
What a remote workday from Europe looks like
Beginning work in the afternoons means you have the entire morning free to relax. To start, sleep in as late as you want. You don’t have to worry about setting an alarm for work (unless sleeping in until 2pm is a problem, which I’ve done while working from Europe).
Go for a nice morning run and grab a cappuccino and croissant. People watching is a thing here, so put away your phone and enjoy the leisurely pace of Europe by relaxing at a cafe. Enjoy a relaxed lunch in the sunshine at a cobblestoned square.
And my favorite; grocery shopping when its empty with the retired crowd (make sure to wear a mask and practice social distancing though!). By working in the evenings, you get to enjoy more daylight and sunshine before your workday starts.
Since June 2020, besides bars, much of Europe’s restaurants and cafes are now open at limited capacity in respect to COVID-19.
One bummer is dinner. Working late into the evening can make grabbing a proper dinner out tough, but nothing’s perfect. At least you can get lunch specials, which are cheaper and just as tasty. European countries often stay up later than North American ones. It’s normal for countries like Spain and Portugal to eat dinner at nine or ten pm. It’s not unusual to meet up with friends at say 10pm on the weekdays for a drink.
And when the weekend comes, you’ll be ready for it. Since you don’t need to get up early on the weekdays, it should be no problem to stay out until 1 or 2am, as people wake up and go to bed later in Europe.
With COVID-19, bars are not open in much of Europe as of July 2020, but restaurants are, and it’s totally normal and acceptable to have long meals and drinks until 11pm in countries like Portugal.
If you work West Coast hours, ask yourself if your boss would let you work from 6am to 2pm PST if you asked. If so, then working from Europe is entirely feasible.
These types of tweaks in work hours are common requests from people who have families. For example, bosses understand the need for a bit of flexibility for childcare. If you’ve proven yourself as trustworthy and effective, there’s no reason the same flexibility shouldn’t be given to you as someone who has simply chosen different values and priorities for their personal life.
And even if you must abide by West Coast hours, it isn’t impossible to work from 4pm to midnight. I actually prefer it sometimes and choose to work these hours so I can stack my work at the end of the day to be able to go on long day trips before working.
I’ve gone to the beach before work and done a road trip to the countryside and returned before 4pm. For most people with regular daytime jobs, weeknights are typically spent binging a series or whittling away time inside just to pass the remainder of the day. But the later you start work, the more daytime you unlock for yourself.
Working from 4pm to midnight unlocks the most daylight to explore, go out, and relax. It then commits you to being productive in the evening when you’re stuck inside anyways.
Are you sold on working your remote job internationally? Que bueno. Perfeito. Très bon. It’s unlikely the world will return back to it's former state in the next year or two, so if you’re open to thinking differently and working unique hours, instead of being cooped up at home working your remote job, you could make attending to your career one of the best times of your life if you decide to take it abroad. You can learn more about how to work from abroad in the guide I’ve written.
Below is a specific European itinerary for those winter ski bums to start planning that will allow you to stick to U.S. work hours. Good bye sterile office buildings. Hello Cabins in the Swiss Alps.
Ski the Alps by day and work at night
The ultimate work from anywhere trip for working professional ski bums.
Working America’s hours means you can experience arguably the best winter playground in the world: the Alps. With over 1,000 ski resorts in the Alps (that’s not a typo), you can wake up and take on fresh tracks since you’ll be working in the afternoon and evenings. Ski resorts open between 8am-9am, which gives you a solid half day of skiing or snowboarding.
Ski every morning, grab some lunch, and then head into work for the day. You can work from 2pm-10pm in Central Europe (GMT+1) from France, Italy, Switzerland, Austria, and Germany. All are within the same time zone for skiing. This will then align with U.S. Eastern Standard time from 8am to 4pm GMT-5 (EST).
Skiing in Europe isn’t cheap, so pick up a multi-resort season pass before you go. At the time of this book’s writing, the Magic Pass allows you to ski more than 30 resorts in the French Swiss region. Most of its resorts are located in Switzerland. On top of that, it’s not just a ski pass, but an annual pass. That means you can use it to take lifts in the spring and summer for trail hiking and such. There are a bunch of other multi-resort passes, like the Super Ski Card and Snow Card Tirol, so give it a google if this work trip is for you.
Eastern Europe - A more affordable alternative
Living in the Alps all winter isn’t cheap. If you’re looking for a more affordable alternative, consider skiing in Eastern Europe. Eastern European hotspots may not have the cachet of the Alps yet, but this growing winter destination offers its own culture and hospitality. Slovenia, Slovakia, and Romania all have great winter resorts. Bulgaria’s resort of Bansko rivals the luxury and amenities of high-end resorts in the Alps. On top of this, Romania and Bulgaria are not a part of the Schengen visa 90-day tourist visa limitations, so you can go here if your Schengen visa runs out. More on visas later.
Interested in working your remote job internationally? Learn about the book on how to go from WFH to work from abroad