Some People Worked From Home During Covid. These People Moved to a Tropical Island. Lured by promises of paradise and ‘digital nomad visas,’ some workers took the plunge. Here’s how it worked out—and what they plan to do now.
The Keller family left Northern California for Tahiti, where the Tahiti International School was open. PHOTO: CURE KELLER FAMILY
By Kathleen Hughes Aug. 25, 2021 8:00 am ET
“If you’re working from home, why not try working from paradise instead?”
That’s the question posed by the Dutch Caribbean island of Aruba on its One Happy Workation website, which tempts the lockdown-weary with such idyllic scenes as a barefoot guy in shorts, shirt and tie sitting at a desk under a thatched umbrella surrounded by white sand and turquoise waters. Throughout the darkest days of the pandemic—when much of the world remained trapped at home—resorts in Tahiti, Bora Bora, the Maldives and other islands sought to attract visitors for extended stays with “Work From Paradise” marketing campaigns, showing beach scenes from a parallel universe.
Working From Paradise A sampling of exotic destinations offering long-term programs for visitors
Some islands, hit hard by the plunge in tourism, went even further, offering new “digital nomad visas” for visitors to work remotely for up to a year or more, much longer than typical tourist visas, in places like Barbados, Bermuda and Anguilla. (Most of these visas require a hefty fee plus proof of income or a healthy bank account.) But how many people actually flew to remote islands and worked from thatched huts in the midst of the pandemic? And as the world starts to open back up, are they returning to their offices—or are they staying in paradise? How do bosses react when they figure out the Bora Bora background in a Zoom call is real? Aruba says about 13,700 visitors have arrived for “workations” since the extendedstay packages were launched last September. Officials in Barbados say its new 12Month Barbados Welcome Stamp visa has drawn almost 5,000 new visitors since last June. And Bermuda says roughly 1,000 people have applied for its Work From Bermuda Certificate since last August. “It brought our hospitality industry back to life,” says Douglas Trueblood, chief sales and marketing officer for Bermuda Tourism Authority. A report in May by Airbnb concluded that travel is starting again but in a different way. Many people want to live “anywhere, at any time, for however long,” the report
says. Long-term stays (at least 28 nights) on Airbnb almost doubled to 24% of nights booked in the first quarter of this year. Guest reviews on Airbnb mentioning remote work increased more than fivefold year over year, and searches that included “islands” ran 16 times as high as in 2019. For years, digital nomads—often young freelancers—have gravitated to Chiang Mai, Thailand; Playa del Carmen, Mexico; and other cities offering a rock-bottom cost of living and communities with co-working spaces and strong Wi-Fi. But now there’s clearly a new breed of digital nomad: the full-time employee with a salary, freed from the office and able to travel and work remotely, often with a family. “The real surge in nomads came from full-time, white-collar employees,” says Miles Everson, chief executive of MBO Partners, a business-management software company in Ashburn, Va. A new report by his firm, scheduled to be released in the fall, shows the number of people who now consider themselves digital nomads more than doubled to about 15.5 million this year from two years ago. Amy Franzen, 35, vice president of operations for Tempus, a biotechnology company in Chicago, says she and her husband were stuck in their downtown Chicago apartment with their 2-year-old son, and she was pregnant with their second child during the pandemic lockdowns.
Amy Franzen in Aruba with her son. Ms. Franzen says the pandemic left her and her family ‘feeling trapped’ in their Chicago apartment before they relocated. PHOTO: AMY FRANZEN
“We were feeling trapped,” and winter was still to come, says Ms. Franzen, who manages a team of 40 people. “It would have been a poor decision to stay indoors with our wild monkey.” Then, in September, she spotted an Instagram ad for Aruba’s One Happy Workation travel packages. She had been to Aruba and liked it. So she signed up for the twobedroom cottage on a former coconut plantation that offered discounts for long stays, making it “super-affordable,” she says. When she told colleagues in November that she would be in Aruba for the rest of the year, she says, the response was: “You’re a genius.” SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS
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After arriving at the cottage in late November, Ms. Franzen set up indoor and outdoor workstations and a virtual blurry background for Zoom calls. “The real backdrop is so obviously tropical,” she says. “There was no question I was some place gorgeous.” She admits she felt shy about being away at a time when Covid was so frightening. “I didn’t want to invite criticism,” she says. But at the same time, she says, both her productivity and her happiness were higher. Before work, she would paddleboard with her son, a big improvement over their Chicago mornings. The couple returned to Chicago in mid-January, after seven weeks in Aruba, for Ms. Franzen to give birth in the U.S. “I would have stayed longer if I could,” she says. Brent Crenshaw, a Dallas marketing executive, had worked for the same company for 10 years when his offices closed down at the start of the pandemic. After reading about the 12-Month Barbados Welcome Stamp, he cleared the move with his company, let his condo and car leases expire and moved his possessions into storage.
Brent Crenshaw moved from Dallas to Barbados—and got promoted. PHOTO: BRENT CRENSHAW
“The lockdown was oppressive and we were isolated,” says Mr. Crenshaw, an avid traveler. “Barbados was someplace I had always wanted to visit, and Covid cases were low. You kind of have to put your fears aside and just dive in.” He found a real-estate agent, rented a condo and moved in October, at first using a regular tourist visa since he only planned to stay for six months on Barbados, which has been part of the British Commonwealth but becomes a republic in November. He found he has been able to work just as effectively from his Barbados condo as he did from his Dallas condo. “It hasn’t changed my ability to work at all.” In fact, he says, he got promoted, and he received his biggest raise and biggest bonus ever. He says his friends and co-workers have seemed genuinely happy for him, but he concedes, “Of course there’s a bit of jealousy all the way around. It’s, ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’”
He found it easy to meet people, many of whom were also working remotely. “October through January was like adult summer camp,” he says, noting that while more Covid restrictions started in January they have since eased. He played golf and fished with locals and expats. The only downside, he says, was the volcano that erupted on the nearby island of St. Vincent in April, covering Barbados in ash—twice. Residents were told to stay inside, turn off air conditioners and avoid using dryers. Then, in July, Hurricane Elsa struck causing widespread damage and power outages. Still, he liked Barbados so much that he decided to try to stay longer than the six months he planned originally. After getting approval from his company, he signed up for the 12-month stamp, which has a fee of $2,000 and minimum-income requirement of $50,000. He now plans to return to Dallas in January when his visa expires. There can be a steep learning curve in trying to work from paradise, particularly for families with children. When schools closed last year, many frustrated parents began to search for open schools in idyllic spots with low Covid rates. Some families that took the plunge faced border closings, quarantines, vaccination issues, poor internet service, time-zone differences and unlikely traffic jams. Sam Keller, 49, who was laid off from his job in April 2020, and his wife, Pascaline Cure, 45, who had just started a new job with a technology company, were both at home with their 9-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter when they discovered the Tahiti International School on the French Polynesian island of Tahiti was open. “Working from home was heart-wrenching and hard,” says Ms. Cure. “If you can’t get the kid situation right, nothing else works.” The couple, who had visited Tahiti three years ago and loved it, found a modest twobedroom rental for $3,000 a month, and realized they could cover the cost by renting out their Northern California home.
(Ms. Cure holds dual U.S. and French citizenship, allowing her to stay indefinitely in French Polynesia. Mr. Keller was granted long-term residency as a spouse.) They landed in Tahiti in late August, and Mr. Keller says he immediately felt “elated, intellectually, heart and soul.” Then came the glitches. “My biggest fear was the internet,” says Ms. Cure, who had cleared the Tahiti plan with her employer. Her new landlord assured her the rental had “the fastest speed internet on the island” but when the kids logged on for online learning during their quarantine period, their screens froze. Ms. Cure found a co-working space with high-speed internet in the nearby town and scheduled her first online Zoom meeting at 8:30 a.m. in San Francisco—5:30 a.m. Tahiti time. But after rousing their children and putting them in the back seat of the car, the couple was shocked to discover that rush hour started that early. “We were sitting in traffic for 45 minutes,” says Ms. Cure. She finally dialed into the meeting using her phone. Ms. Cure didn’t volunteer her Tahiti location in work meetings. “If they asked, I would tell them,” she says. “I didn’t want that to be the main focus.” Mostly, she says, the people who did know “were impressed she had managed to pull it off.” The couple was able to add high-speed internet to their rental, but Ms. Cure faced one more tech challenge. Her computer died in January, and the replacement was lost in shipping. Ms. Cure flew back to San Francisco and did a quick laptop exchange on the sidewalk in front of her office before flying back to Tahiti, following Covid protocols. Her company had limited her stay in Tahiti to 180 days, through February, to avoid a potential corporate tax liability. But the family ended up staying longer after France decided to close French Polynesia’s borders due to Covid concerns. Ms. Cure
says her company was accommodating, telling her to return two weeks after the borders reopened—which didn’t happen until May. The family returned home in June. For his part, Mr. Keller says the experience has been so positive that it led to a career shift. In May, he launched Working Without Borders, a company to help small groups of families experience working abroad by arranging living and workspaces with internet and educational programs for children and teenagers. So far, he says, 47 families have signed up. Ms. Cure says she had “mixed feelings” about leaving Tahiti at the time, but the return has been surprisingly seamless. “It was perfect when we were there because of everything else going on in the world,” she says, adding, “Tahiti isn’t a huge island. After a while you get island fever.” Still, she says, “There’s definitely a side of me that could have stayed.” Ms. Hughes is a writer in Los Angeles and New York. She can be reached at reports@wsj.com.