A journey of 1,000 miles begins with a single… email. And it ends in Prague.
Forgive me for the lie… the journey was actually 5,958 miles. But that felt like a clunky way to start today’s dispatch. So, I ad-libbed.
The journey in question took me from Los Angeles, California, where I was living, to Prague, Czech Republic, where I was going to live. This was autumn 2018. I was jetting off on what has turned out to be one of the best adventures of my life: totally disrupting my status quo to live my dream life as a writer-in-residence in Europe.
I’ve totally made up the title “writer-in-residence.” But I like it. So, it stays.
That adventure has been on my mind in recent weeks as my life in Prague draws to a close. Weeks from now, probably in July, my wife Yulia and I will be relocating to a beachy little community to the west of Lisbon, Portugal. I’ve chronicled a good bit of that journey over the last year. The cities and countries Yulia and I have visited to test drive them. And why we ended up choosing Portugal. Etc.
But today’s dispatch isn’t about any of that.
A Digital Nomad Visa Makes Moving Overseas Quick and Easy
Instead, it’s about the process of relocating one’s life to an entirely different country on an entirely different continent. A place where they speak an entirely different language, and brew an entirely superior selection of beers.
The ultimate point I wish to convey to you is just how easily you can relocate your life these days because of the explosion of so-called digital nomad visas.
When I moved to Prague less than five short years ago, the term “digital nomad visa” was barely even uttered. In fact, the visa I have here in the Czech Republic isn’t called that. It was never called that (except by unknowing bloggers). And isn’t even a visa!
It’s membership on a list.
The Živnostenský list, or professional list, isn’t designed for foreigners. It’s a trade license issued by the Czech government that allows self-employed people to register as professional workers. The list essentially integrates independent workers into the Czech taxation and healthcare system.
These list members are independent plumbers, seamstresses, or tattoo artists who are Czech through and through. Or a foreigner from L.A. who wants to live in Prague as a writer-in-residence in Europe.
As a foreigner, once you’re on the Živnostenský list, you can apply for a permanent residence visa.
More Than 50 Counties Offer Digital Nomad Visas
Today, the process of moving overseas is far less complex. More than 50 countries all over the planet now offer foreign workers clear, specialized pathways to permanent residency in the form of a digital nomad visa.
The whole thing has blown up into a cottage industry, largely because of COVID. The global pandemic lockdowns showed people across the world that there’s more to life than working a 9-to-5 job while breathing the poisonous air of an antiseptic cubicle farm that has all the je ne sais quoi of an abandoned Chernobyl theme park.
But back to my journey of 1,000 (5,958) miles…
It started with an email I sent on Aug. 16, 2018. I’d been hired by International Living to serve as a writer-in-residence in Europe (not really but close enough). With that came the freedom to live wherever I wanted to on the continent. I chose Prague.
On that August day, I sent an email to a visa agency in Prague I’d found by way of a travel blogger. The blogger previously used the agency for himself and his girlfriend when they’d decamped to Prague a few years before my arrival.
From that moment, the snowball, well, snowballed.
From America to European Resident In Less Than 5 Months
By Oct. 4, I was living temporarily in southern Ireland as a base of operations while I pursued the Czech documents I needed. On Oct. 22, I officially applied for my right to work in the Czech Republic. Approval arrived within 10 days, and I was officially living in Prague on Nov. 8.
On Jan. 10, 2019, a zippy two months later, I was back in Dublin at the Czech embassy collecting my Czech long-term residence visa.
The journey that had started in Los Angeles in mid-July ended in Prague with me fulfilling a dream of gaining the right to live and work in Europe. And it all happened in less than five months.
But that timeframe, too, is a lie… because I was already living that dream in Europe just seven weeks after I’d decided that moving to Prague was going to be Jeff’s Great New Adventure. It just took a little longer to get from Ireland to Prague.
And, really, that’s the big, bad point here: Moving to Europe—or to Thailand or Panama or wherever you want to live—can be a quick process once you fully commit.
This isn’t a year-long procedure. It’s wham-bam-thank-you ma’am, so long as you don’t dilly-dally in collecting the necessary paperwork and sending in your nomad visa application.
So maybe the real lead I should’ve used today is, “A journey of 1,000 miles begins with a single… digital nomad visa.”