The families quitting Britain to live as digital nomads

A “digital nomad” brings to mind a young person tapping away at a laptop in the sun, beer in hand, earning enough money to travel to the next palm-fringed hammock.

And as remote work becomes the norm, more people are taking it with them as they travel, making the most of a growing raft of digital nomad visas.

But the stereotype of the free-wheeling 20-something working from the beach is increasingly outdated. Families are quitting Britain in search of a better quality of life, great schools and better healthcare, picking up a digital nomad visa. While working remotely, they can pocket British wages in locations where their money goes much further.

The employee relocation and immigration platform Jobbatical found that across all age groups, more than half (55pc) of UK workers expressed a desire to work from a different country, especially those aged 18 to 34 (66pc). 

While there are very few robust datasets on digital nomads, a study by MBO Partners in 2023 found that 24pc of US nomads (accounting for roughly 35pc of global nomads) travel with children. 

“Increasingly, people are disillusioned with a sedentary life,” says Dr Kaisu Koskela, a researcher at the Nijmegen School of Management. She notes that new digital nomad visa programmes make it easier for families to relocate to another country. 

“Digital nomad families are the natural continuation of the movement – people meet, fall in love, start families and continue their travelling lifestyles,” says Koskela. “Work is no longer a reason to live a sedentary life and for many, neither is having children.”

Here, we meet three families who created a new life abroad as digital nomads. 

‘Our quality of life would be so much worse in the UK’

In 2016, Emma Joy Obanye and her partner Irene spent four months working from Chiang Mai, Thailand. Obanye watched as friends launched startups there while enjoying the low living costs, a thriving entrepreneurial community and the beautiful weather. 

For Obanye, returning to the UK was bleaker than anticipated. “We were about to put an offer on a house in London when we realised what a costly slog it all was, and my partner, who’s Spanish, didn’t feel welcome after Brexit.” 

They realised that thanks to flexible remote work policies, they could keep their routine and income but move outside the UK with little friction. Irene works in sound production, while Obanye is the CEO of a tech firm. 

Spain was high on the list and within a week of deciding to leave they found a place to rent in Barcelona. Once they decided to settle in the city, starting a family there felt like the right next step. The initial plan was to use a private hospital in Spain for the pregnancy but instead they used the public system. 

“It being an at-risk pregnancy, due to having twins, I received a check-up every single month, and for the delivery I was given my own room for four nights,” says Obanye. “We started referring to it as ‘the hotel,’ which shows how comfortable and cared for we felt there.” 

They now own a flat in the city centre, and pay €600 a month towards the mortgage. A private nursery for their three-year-old twin boys costs the equivalent of £850 a month, compared to the UK monthly average of £990 per child. They also pay a part-time nanny and a home help, who cooks and cleans twice a week. 

In Spain, the dependent spouse receives a local work permit and the children are able to enrol at local schools, making it easier for the whole family to start their new lives. 

Obanye, who’s lived in Barcelona for five years, sees the boys are growing up without her family nearby and often ponders a return to the UK. But she struggles to see how they could afford the same lifestyle without major sacrifices.

“From long commutes to poor public healthcare, our quality of life would be so much worse if we came back – I’d have to work for a large corporation, not as a serial entrepreneur,” she says. “I’ve found the digital nomad community in Barcelona so welcoming and I’m happier to pay higher taxes because I can see my money going towards facilities and services.”

‘Since we moved to Portugal, our son is smashing it’

Like Obanye, poor interactions with Britain’s public services were a major push factor for Mike Cave. Following a series of horrific experiences in the NHS system, in 2022, Mike, his wife Frances and their eight-year-old son swapped London for Lisbon. 

Enticed by the outdoorsy, spontaneous lifestyle and choosing to settle in the Portuguese town of Oeiras, Cave was relieved to find their decision was the right one.

While the Caves’ professional lives stayed much the same – he’s the director of a remote crypto firm and she runs singing groups – it was their son, who has ADHD and autism, whose day-to-day life changed the most markedly. 

“In the UK, his teachers did what they could with classes of 30 pupils, but it was a case of ‘fit in or f— off’. He basically lived in his own world,” says Cave. “Now he’s in a class of seven at a private Portuguese school and gets way more hands-on time with teachers, so he’s smashing it out of the park.” 

A similar calibre of school in London was never within the budget. On arrival the family’s natural choice would have been an international school, but in the year spent waiting to move to Portugal annual fees leapt from €10-15,000 to €20,000-25,000, which the Caves couldn’t afford either. 

Mike sees this as a happy coincidence, because his son’s Portuguese school offers total immersion in the language, whereas teaching in the international school system is largely conducted in English.

“So far, our life in Oeiras has been great on many fronts: we get excellent medical care through private insurance, there are more favourable taxes on crypto assets and the community is like-minded, and of course, there’s the weather,” says Cave. 

However, getting a D7 visa, designed for workers who earn a passive income on investments, has been an epic saga that remains unresolved. In the past year and a half, Cave has spent hundreds of hours and thousands of pounds chasing its status and none of the family have been able to leave the EU while in limbo.

“Many families are in the same boat, with no timelines for resolution; I reckon it could be several years before the Portuguese government clears the application backlog,” adds Cave. Finally, the Caves have a confirmed appointment and hope to obtain the necessary paperwork in the next few months. 

“After going through all that pain, we have to reap the benefits,” he says. “We’ll stay in Portugal until we get a European passport, so about six years.”

‘I struggle to see myself going back to my old life’

To help avoid the kind of bureaucratic nightmare the Caves have endured, countries around the world have rushed to snip the red tape and roll out remote work visas (often dubbed ‘digital nomad visas’).

Designed to entice highly paid knowledge workers who can work remotely, the visas are often accompanied by compelling branding: a slick website, often in English, and resources on relocating to and working remotely in the country, including information on digital infrastructure, housing, and networks. 

The approach echoes initiatives like start-up visas, which also focus heavily on branding and a user-friendly experience.

There are now over 60 digital nomad visa schemes, with the latest launched by Italy in April and Thailand in May.

A beneficiary of Malaysia’s digital nomad scheme is Sarah Tate, who made the initial move from Leeds to Kuala Lumpur with her husband and their four-year-old twins in 2012. It was his job that brought them to Malaysia and they were planning to stay for just two years.  

“I grew up with a Malay auntie, who told me stories of walking to school through the jungle, of monkeys coming in the house to steal food, so I had this notion that we’d be living in the jungle,” says Tate. “Then I got here and it’s like Paris.”

Along with the bustling cosmopolitan cities, peaceful, multicultural community, incredible food, universal usage of English and a safer environment to raise her teenagers, Tate is particularly grateful for the low taxes and cost of living. 

“Before, we both had good jobs, but ended up poor at the end of every month, juggling credit cards and mortgages, and never taking holidays abroad,” she says. “Now we live in a house in the equivalent of Kensington in Kuala Lumpur, and our rent is cheaper than our mortgage in Leeds in 2012.”

But it hasn’t all been plain sailing. A change in circumstances in her husband’s career meant that he moved back to Britain in the summer of 2023, while she remained in Malaysia with the children, who are now 16. 

“He was going to sort the house and car and I’d follow with the kids,” she says. “But everything in the UK was just so expensive, despite both of us being on very good salaries, combining them still wouldn’t get us the standard of living we enjoy here.”

Stunned that life back home had worsened so significantly, it wasn’t a hard decision to remain in Kuala Lumpur. Sarah’s digital nomad visa enables her to continue her education business development work in the region and include her husband as her dependent. 

Once the visa expires in March 2026, perhaps they will request to renew it, or find another similar scheme elsewhere in Asia. “If I can move across the world with two four-year-olds, give up my house and car, and hold down my job, I can do anything,” she says.

“England hasn’t been at its best for quite a long time, and I’d encourage anyone who can work remotely to consider a digital nomad visa programme,” says Tate. “Although I want my kids to experience living in the UK at some point, I struggle to see myself going back to my old life.”