Working from Home on a Tropical Island Paradise?

CarrotLord asks: "I've recently returned from a holiday in Bali, and I liked it far more than I like London, where I live and work. With the growth of telecommuting and outsourcing, surely it should be possible for a technology worker to relocate to a cheaper, more pleasurable location such as Bali, and work from there, living an enjoyable life, working less, earning less, but still being able to afford a good standard of life. Personally, I would take an 80% pay cut quite happily to live there, and I'd still be financially secure. Surely, someone could set up a company, employing skilled workers in locations of their choice, to do remote outsourcing work at a relatively low price? Does anyone do this? Has anyone thought about doing this?"

Comments

I highly recommend it

[MarkusQ]

I highly recommend it. A few thoughts:

• If you presently work in IT, especially in a small shop, talk to your employer. You may be surprised at how receptive they are to the idea.
  • Don't mention (or at least, don't get specific) about the pay cut right up front
  • Point out that you'd be glad to have visitors
  • Look for (and point out) other advantages, such as you providing swing-shift support or...?
• Broadband is available in surprising places. It's also unavailable in surprising places. Do your homework.
• VOIP
• Research the climate for a whole year. Quantify things like "the rainy season" and make sure you know what you are getting into. Some places are really nice for six months out of the year, and...interesting...for the rest
• Make sure you like the local food.
• If there is a local language other than English, try to learn as much of it as you can.
• It takes more discipline to work this way. Lots more.
• Explore the tax consequences, work permits, etc. Many places can be sold on the notion that you are a "tourist" who happens to be being paid by your company back home--the idea being that you really are commuting, and aren't "working" in the country--just spending your money there.

--MarkusQ

P.S. My present job (which I'm taking a break from for a few minutes to cruse /.) is in the US. My house is on the side of a (dormant) volcano near the equator.

Yeah, I'd say you're on to a good idea.

One other thing I forgot

[MarkusQ]

I forgot in my list:

You'll need to get serious about UPS/battery backup (or just do everything on laptops) and making backups, etc. You probably think electricity 24/7/52 is normal. My power is up a good 99% of the time--meaning I average about 24*60/100 = 15 minutes of no-electricity a day, with outages lasting from 5 seconds to 5 hours. Not unsupportable, once you accept and plan to deal with it, but a pain in the butt if you don't.

--MarkusQ

Telecommuting from Phuket, Thailand

[aaarrrgggh]

I am currently telecommuting from Thailand. MarcusQ brings up a good point, don't talk salary! I am currently at 100% of my US salary, although a different arrangement will eventually be required.

Some pitfalls for you to understand:

• Internet access can be spotty in availability and reliability. You always need a backup plan. It can sometimes take months to get ADSL, and without a proper residence and sometimes a work permit it can be hard to get at all.
• Much of my job is on the phone. My US phone had a bill for the first month roughly approaching half my take-home pay. Fortunately, it was paid by the company. I had good intentions of using Skype, but 24-hour internet cafes aren't available anywhere near me.
• Can you do your job via dial-up? Often that is the best speed you will find! Make sure you have contingencies; I end up using GPRS for transferring large files. It hurts!
• You will be working odd hours. I start at 6am so I have a few PST hours, end at about 11am, take a break, and start working from about 8pm to midnight for time with EST hours. I feel sorry for my wife and neighbors when I am on a 3am conference call and having a heated discussion. The time difference can turn something you thought could be done overnight in the US into a 3-day activity if you end up needing help from someone else.
• There is no such thing working for a US company as part-time. If you are worth enough to them to let you telecommute, you will be putting in roughly the same hours, but likely working harder. The logical extension to this is that to succeed in the long-run, you need to start a business and have local people (and gullible travelling experts)working for you and billing them out at 10x their salaries. I hate to admit it, but that is the only way.
• The exception to the above rule is that if you happen to have irreplaceable experise, and a fantastic relation with your boss, and much of your work involves being remote from co-workers and clients, you might be able to pull something mutually beneficial for 6 months.
• Relationships with co-workers will degrade over time, especially if you used to be in the same office. Think in advance about how that might impact you.
• Finding just the right place to live could take a lot of time. Factor this in when you make your business plan.You also might need to move around seasonally. Under stand your need for access to an airport!

One last tip, find an expat website for the area you think you want to go and hang out there for a while to understand the pitfalls and work-arounds before you encounter them yourself! For Thailand, I suggest ThaiVisa.

Re:80% pay cut?

[acidblood]

Since I'm Brazilian I'm going to chime in. I live in a medium-sized town (500k inhabitants, give or take) in the north of Paraná state. Right now I'm using 600/300 kbps ADSL which costs about US$ 50/month all told (including the phone line). Grab a free-for-all VoIP plan like BroadVoice's and you get free calling to Brazil, the US and other countries for US$ 28/month. This is absolutely imperative if you plan on using the phone a lot, as Brazilian rates are outrageously expensive. Cell phones are pretty expensive as well -- you'll hardly find people with 100+ minutes monthly plans (that's roughly 3 minutes a day). Also, be prepared to pay ridiculous markups on your hardware: the US$ 500 Mac mini costs upwards of US$ 1000 here, and a VoIP ATA/router I was looking at which sells for US$ 90 in the US costs US$ 200+ here.

In my town the best connection you can get from ADSL is 1 Mbit/512 kbps, paying I believe something from US$ 80 to 90, all told. No cable connection either. I don't think the situation in the big towns is much better -- I've never heard of anything faster than 1 Mbit/512 kbps. If you really need more than that, you're either going to have to get multiple phone lines with multiple ADSLs, or get a pipe directly from the local tier 1 providers like Embratel (which is going to cost a fortune even by US standards, probably not worth it).

Something you have to pay attention to is the capped plans. The main ADSL provider in São Paulo has monthly caps in place of (I believe) 10 to 40 GB/month, depending on which plan you get. You'll have to look around for uncapped plans or stay away from São Paulo (which is, as far as I know, the only place where caps are implemented -- plus it's not a good town to live in anyway).

Out of curiosity, where were you staying in Brazil?