Planning for what's next...Greece!
If you've been keeping up with my blog, you'll know that the Mediterranean was our first choice destination to move to, due to the weather, food, scenery, and people. But we chose Mexico in order to make the move easier on our oldest cat, Sitah. Sadly, she developed cancer just after we arrived in Mexico. She passed away a few months later in December, just two months shy of her 18th birthday. We were heartbroken to say goodbye, but grateful that she got to enjoy her final days basking in the warm Oaxacan sun.
After saying goodbye to Sitah and spending nearly eight months in Oaxaca, we feel ready now to take the next step in our Digital Slomad journey.
How did we decide on Greece? We knew we wanted to be in the mild and gorgeous Mediterranean, and we've had a shortlist of Mediterranean countries for about a year now. To be honest, I didn't really want to spend the money on a scouting trip this time. If we did, it wouldn't be a very efficient use of our funds, because we would essentially fly 15 hours to Europe for a few weeks, make a decision and then turn around and make the same long, expensive flight again a few weeks later. So we are going to rely purely on research to guide our decision this time. We focused our reconnaissance on three areas:
Facts and Figures: We have been researching details about digital nomad visa requirements, tax rules, and cost of living indexes for Albania, Croatia, Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Malta, Montenegro, Portugal, and Spain, and tracking them in a spreadsheet. This step helped us narrow down our list to those we can easily qualify for based on our current financial situation. This left us with Albania, Croatia, and Greece.
Community Background: I have been following expat Facebook groups in Albania, Croatia, and Greece for several months to get a feel for the communities, ideal cities for nomads, and cost of apartment rentals. I studied abroad for a semester in Athens, so am familiar with the country. Trevor and I also spent a week in Croatia on our honeymoon. The only country in our top three we haven't visited yet is Albania.
Visuals: I've been watching travel vlogs on YouTube to get an idea of what cities in each country look like, but I take their personal impressions with a grain of salt. We also like to use Google maps street view to see what certain neighborhoods look like.
Based on this research, our preference list looks like this:
CROATIA 2. GREECE 3. ALBANIA
So why aren't we going to Croatia? The simple answer is Bureaucracy. From following the Facebook groups in Croatia, I learned that it can take many many months to obtain a digital nomad visa, and even though you can legally wait for it to be granted while living in Croatia, I am turned off by the high number of frustrated comments mentioning how difficult it can be to work with the municipal police on your visa. Ambiguous answers, unhelpful agents, and lack of status updates seem common. For our first time applying for a digital nomad visa, I'm not sure we are up for navigating that type of process.
On the flip side, Greece has an entire website dedicated to helping digital nomads choose a place to live: Become Digital Nomad in Greece | Work From Greece. And the turnaround time for receiving the digital nomad visa is much shorter (1- 2 months). Hopefully I'm not being too naïve, but this seems like a much simpler and welcoming process! I had seen conflicting information about whether or not we could qualify for the visa based on our savings rather than monthly income, so I emailed the Greek consulate in San Francisco (b/c I am a WA resident). They not only confirmed that yes, we could qualify based on savings alone, but also that we can choose whether to apply for the visa from the US or in Greece. The consulate agent explained that if we apply from the US, the application fee is lower, and we are eligible to apply for a 2 year extension for a total of 3 years. If we apply from within Greece, the application fee is higher and we can only stay for 2 years. I don't know yet if we will want to stay for 3 years, but having the option to do so while starting out with a cheaper application process would be nice.
I have a work obligation in Washington state this summer, so we will spend a few months there, which will allow us to reconnect with family and friends, and enjoy the best season of the year in Washington. While we are there, we will also apply for our Greek visas, with the hope of moving there in September. We are still narrowing down which city we will move to first...more news on that to come!
Tips and resources for destination research:
Cost of living comparisons: Numbeo.com
Visa concierge services: https://citizenremote.com/
*Caveat: Visa rules change often, so some of the visa concierge services' country-specific information is outdated or may not include nuances like the ability to qualify based on savings. So you should really verify all information with your target country's immigration website, and/or consulates in your home country.
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