Episode 220 · 5 August 2025 · 54:48
Remote Work Roulette: the best (and worst) places we’ve ever worked - Summer Sessions, Episode 2
Remote Work Roulette: the best (and worst) places we’ve ever worked - Summer Sessions, Episode 2
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New Zealand: Beautiful, expensive, and maybe not for working
Croatia: Digital nomad visa, 0% tax, and a COVID summer on Brač
Cambodia: Coworking heaven in Siem Reap
Luxembourg: 3 nights, no work, free public transport
Slovakia: Bratislava vs. Prague, and the prices win
Albania: Beautiful, but an awful place to work remotely
Quickfire round: Romania, Gibraltar, North Macedonia, Myanmar, Italy, Spain
Speed round: Indonesia, Belgium, Sweden, Gili Islands, Ireland, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Laos, Thailand, Netherlands, Denmark, Australia, Malta, Hungary, Portugal, Czechia, Bulgaria, Switzerland, Malaysia, Serbia, Germany, Vietnam
Bosnia and Herzegovina: Our home, and the pick of all 50 countries
Top recommendations for new nomads
Show notes
Remote Work Roulette: The Best (and Worst) Places We've Ever Worked — Summer Sessions, Episode 2
Summer Sessions, Episode 2 — Al Elliott and Leanne Elliott (Chartered Occupational Psychologist) have visited nearly 50 countries together. This week, they're spinning the globe and spilling the tea on where to base yourself for remote work — and where to run a mile.
From long-stays in Southeast Asia to one-night stands in Northern Europe, they unpack the joy and chaos of working from anywhere. Expect real talk on Wi-Fi, weather, and work-life balance, surprising winners, at least one mosquito-related meltdown, and the definitive answer on whether Bali is actually worth the hype (hint: it's not).
🎲 The Countries We Spun
New Zealand — Gorgeous, but pricey. If you're working, you might find yourself wondering why you're staring at a screen instead of the view. Leanne's verdict: not sure it's the place you want to be working.
Croatia — A digital nomad visa with 0% tax, a strong nomad community, and a COVID summer on the island of Brač. It went into Schengen and adopted the euro, so it's pricier than it was — but if there were a route to permanent residency, Leanne would take it.
Cambodia — A month in Siem Reap with dedicated coworking spaces everywhere. Southeast Asia internet is dead easy — land, grab a local SIM for around $10 USD, and you're set. Plus, it's so affordable you can actually enjoy your time off.
Slovenia — The most underrated country in Europe, according to Leanne. Maribor, not Ljubljana, is the move. Loads of modern coworking spaces, decent internet, Lidl and Aldi on tap, and wine festivals that'll ruin you for every other country.
India — Al was extremely ill. Leanne's hack: probiotics before you go. New Delhi was busy but loved, Kerala was incredible. Work from your hotel, and maybe don't make it a work trip at all.
Poland — Winter in Kraków at -12°C with snow on the ground and Christmas markets. Then a month in Gdańsk on the north coast. Cost-effective, kind people, wonderful food.
Albania — Stunning, but the internet and power weren't great. Leanne's verdict: do it as a holiday, not a nomad destination. Do your research first.
Bosnia and Herzegovina — Their home, just outside Mostar. The pick of all 50 countries for how it makes you feel. A great hideout if you want to actually get work done. Sarajevo is a very cool city.
🏆 Top Recommendations for New Nomads
- Prague — The perfect friendly introduction to nomading. Prague 4 specifically. Also the most dog-friendly place they've ever been.
- Koh Chang — If Thailand's more developed islands feel too touristy, Koh Chang is the one.
- Italy — One of the few places you can get long-term residency as a nomad (apply from outside the country).
- Slovenia or Croatia — Basically the same route from Italy, and both incredible.
- Belgrade — Dirty, big, gritty, noisy, and one of Leanne's favourite cities in Europe. Huge on tech.
- Spain — If you can go, go. Just don't fall too hard.
⚠️ The One Thing to Take Away
Please, for the love of everything: don't go to Bali. Go to Lombok.
📬 Connect With Us
Get in touch, book a call, or find Al and Leanne on LinkedIn — all in one place: truthliesandwork.com/connect
Mental health support: findahelpline.com — UK: Samaritans 116 123 · Mind 0300 123 3393 — US: 988 — Australia: Lifeline 13 11 14
Truth, Lies & Work is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network.
Full transcript
Expand full transcript
Leanne ElliottHello and welcome to Truth, Lies and Work. What is it we say? Um, the award-winning podcast where behavioural science meets workplace culture. We are brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, which is and will always be the audio destination for business professionals. My name is Leanne, I'm a chartered occupational psychologist, but as it's August, I'm more just a jelly. A jelly, yeah.
Al ElliottMy name's Al, I'm a business— well, a business owner, but in August I'm doing nothing. We are having most of August off, so this is our summer If you listened last week, you'll know that we are A, recording it outside, B, it is accompanied by an adult beverage, and C, it's not quite as edited as normal. We tend to just record these and post them. But it's supposed to be like you're on holiday. So come on, guys, let us be on holiday.
Leanne ElliottYeah, and come with us on holiday.
Al ElliottYeah, come with us on holiday.
Leanne ElliottThese are the types of chats we have when we're on holiday.
Al ElliottYeah, let's find out if they're interesting or not. So the idea for today was that we were going to do what we called— what do you call it? Remote Work Roulette.
Leanne ElliottRemote Work Roulette.
Al ElliottThe dirty little secret is that most businesses think they know their customers. They have the data, the records, the history, but it's scattered across 3 teams and 4 systems. And in our case, it's about 216,000 spreadsheets, which means nobody can actually use it.
Leanne ElliottWhat you should be doing is using HubSpot, because why? HubSpot connects it all— every interaction, every support ticket, every conversation— into one platform. Every team can work from. So when sales talks to a customer, marketing already knows the full story. And when you know more, you grow more. Nice.
Al ElliottCheck out hubspot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses.
Leanne ElliottSo regular listeners may well know— I've only had 2 sips. Goodness.
Al ElliottIt's going well.
Leanne ElliottMay well know that Al and I are what kids call digital nomads. What I'm enjoying at the moment, side note, is there's a lot of chat on LinkedIn from Gen Zs and it's like they've just invented it.
Al ElliottRight.
Leanne ElliottAnd it's like, that's cute.
Al ElliottHave they got a name for it?
Leanne ElliottNo, they call it digital nomads or just nomading. But it's like, it's a groundbreaking thing. And of course it is in their world. So I'm happy to see it and I celebrate it. But yeah, it is fun to look at people kind of bobbing around. But anyway, Al and I have been nomads since 2017 and we've travelled to Almost 50 countries in that time, stayed in over 200 Airbnbs and hotels across Europe, Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand. So, we thought we know quite a lot about remote working. We actually have another entire podcast about remote working if you want to listen to that. It's called A Sideways Life, very different vibe. Not as many ethical considerations from either of us really.
Al ElliottThat's where you get cancelled.
Leanne ElliottYeah, we'd absolutely get cancelled when people actually find that and connect the two things. So we thought we're going to pick out— sorry, mouth click there. How unprofessional of me. We thought we would, we've made a little bowl. Can you hear the bowl? With some little bits of paper in with some places on, and we're just going to pick them out and have a little chat about them. Some will have a lot to say. Some will have almost nothing to say.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottSee how it goes.
Al ElliottSo should we start with number 1? Do you want to pick one out?
Leanne ElliottOkay. Oh, it's like a raffle. What have I got? New Zealand. We spent about a week in New Zealand visiting our sister.
Al ElliottShe lives in Auckland.
Leanne ElliottBeautiful.
Al ElliottHello, Lorna.
Leanne ElliottYeah, beautiful part of the world. I was working quite a lot there. I don't think you were as much, but when my main client was an Australian client, and it was cool because it's the first time that I was actually a time zone in front of them. It's never happened to me before. Um, but really it was just kind of kitchen table vibes. We were only there a few days.
Al ElliottPractical considerations for New Zealand. First of all, it is quite an expensive country, even compared to like the US and the UK. Um, I think we went out, we had like 4 beers and something to eat, and it was about £150 for 4 of us or 5 of us. And secondly, data. I saw my backside at the airport because I'd just come from Southeast Asia where you can go and buy 40 gigabytes for £5. And we got to the airport and Vodafone shop were trying to sell me something stupid like 1 gigabyte for $50, which is about $20, $30 US dollars, $50. And I was really angry about that. So if you do go to New Zealand, then you'll probably be more Wi-Fi hopping than you will be on 4G because it is expensive, man.
Leanne ElliottYes, it is. And also, do you know what? I'm not sure New Zealand is the type of place where you want to be working remotely. It's so cool. There's so much to see and we didn't see much of it because we were only there a week. So, so yeah, expensive approach with caution.
Al ElliottGreat. Okay. So next one I'm pulling out is, oh, Croatia. We know a lot about Croatia. So, uh, we were in Croatia for probably on and off about 3 years. Was it only 2?
Leanne ElliottYeah, maybe, maybe 2. 2 and a bit.
Al ElliottUh, we did the digital nomad visa. Did we do it twice?
Leanne ElliottWe applied for it a second time, then left before it came through.
Al ElliottOh, yes. Yes. So we did the Digital Nomad Visa, which is essentially, if you don't know, you get a year to live in Croatia. Um, and I think it's good tax breaks as well.
Leanne Elliott0% tax.
Al Elliott0% tax. You get taxed, obviously, if you are in, like, you have to be careful if you're American, because I believe there's something called W-2 or something in America where basically wherever you are, the American tax jurisdiction will find you and make you pay tax. But if you're in the UK and you're out of the UK for a year, Then, um, in theory, you don't pay any tax at all. Do— this is not financial advice.
Leanne ElliottNo, it's not. Um, Croatia, loved it. Honestly, Croatia is one of those places where if there was a route to permanent residency for third country nationals, which is Brits, Americans, Canadians, basically anyone who's not, um, born in the European Union, um, because it's a fabulous place to be. We spent a year in Istria near Pula. We spent then probably about 6, 8 months around Split. We did a lot of travelling whilst we were there. Um, it's wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. It is a little bit more expensive than it used to be.
Al ElliottMm-hmm.
Leanne ElliottWhen we first went, it was really quite cost-effective. And then they went into Schengen, adopted the euro, things got very expensive overnight. But equally, it's where you are. If you're going to Dalmatia, so Split, Dubrovnik, very expensive. Islands, very expensive. If you're heading more towards Istria or Northern Croatia, Much more affordable.
Al ElliottYeah. There's some famous waterfalls in Croatia, which are cool. We went in the winter when it was all frozen and that was kind of cool. We also stayed in an amazing sort of like homestay, sort of like barn thing where there was, where we went down to the kitchen and he was cooking pork on the open fire and yeah, it was really cool. So, yeah.
Leanne ElliottDefinitely. It was also our COVID summer was in Croatia. We spent 3, almost 3 months on Brač, one of the islands, which was just heaven on earth. The Dalmatian Coast, it only, the only rival for me to the Dalmatian Coast is potentially Southeast Asia.
Al ElliottYes.
Leanne ElliottBut I'm talking the best bits like Lombok.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottThe Gili Islands. It's the most stunning coastline. You know, in terms of island hopping, it's perfect. The water, I don't know how it's so clean and crystal clear. It's so much fun. I would absolutely recommend Croatia to digital nomads. I would absolutely recommend Croatia in terms of holidays. Just bear in mind that depending where you go, it might be a bit spinny. Yeah.
Al ElliottYeah. Good point. So, uh, yes, I think overall in terms of the internet, that was relatively cheap and pretty fast, even on the islands, it's pretty fast. Um, and, uh, yeah, if you, if you are going there for a year, then you probably get yourself a decent apartment there. We're looking around about sort of €700 or €800 for a 1-bed, 2-bed, uh, somewhere in Split, probably a bit less if you're going to somewhere like Pula. Uh, generally Istria, um, which is the bit which is right next to Slovenia, is Uh, probably the, one of the cheapest parts with, you've also got the coastline, which is beautiful. So, there you go.
Leanne ElliottAlso, a good thing about doing the DN visa in Croatia is it's quite a good digital nomad community. There's lots of meetups, coworking spaces, that type of thing. So, so yeah, especially if you're maybe new to travelling around Central Eastern Europe, Croatia is probably a really nice place to start.
Al ElliottYeah, definitely. Definitely. Okay. So, I'm going to choose one now. So, I've pulled out Cambodia. Leanne, what do you know about Cambodia?
Leanne ElliottI love Cambodia. We spent about a month in Cambodia.
Al ElliottWe did.
Leanne ElliottMainly around Siem Reap. Awesome place for coworking. So many great coworking, dedicated coworking spaces, and also just cafes that are really well equipped. So, like every table will have like 2 power sockets. Um, it's really cost-effective, as you'd imagine. The food is incredible. The people are so kind. And I think there's a theme that we've noticed travelling is that the countries that have experienced recent hardship, if you don't know, I'm sure you do, Cambodia had an awful time and genocide and horrible war not so long ago. In our experience, those places, the people are very welcoming, very hopeful, just excited to see people coming in. I love Cambodia. I think that's actually one place we were meant to stay 2 weeks and end up staying a month.
Al ElliottYeah. And in terms of internet, like we said, Southeast Asia, dead easy. What you need to do is when you land, just go to any kind of kiosk. First of all, go up, go and research because there's a great thing. I can't remember, I'll try and put the link in the show notes, but there's a great website which essentially takes all of the data options and puts them out as a wiki for prepaid. So you just go into any kiosk. I don't believe you need a passport for that. You do weirdly in Montenegro, but not in most Southeast Asian countries. Buy yourself 20 gigabyte.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottUh, that's probably going to be, I don't know, somewhere around about $10 US dollars. And that, you know, it's fast and fast. We were in the middle of like Siem Reap was, was, was, wasn't remote, but still you were getting like 80 gigabyte, 80 megabyte down and up. So it was really good.
Leanne ElliottAnd it's lovely because it's just so affordable. So in terms of kind of your activities, you can really, really jump into that, whether it be the tours or the trips, but also just kind of self-care moments. So I was getting my nails done for like $5 or going for a massage for like $7. It's a lovely place to kind of have a bit of a working hybrid holiday, I think.
Al ElliottYeah, absolutely. Check the months you go in because like most of Southeast Asia, there are rainy months. There's also smoky months in some parts of Thailand, but we'll come on to that. But yeah, I think it's definitely somewhere where I would love to go back and work.
Leanne ElliottMe too. Next one, Austria.
Al ElliottWell, we can't say much about Austria. We've not spent much time here, have we?
Leanne ElliottDo you know what we can say about Austria?
Al ElliottWhat?
Leanne ElliottIt is the one country in the world that we have driven across in every possible direction, east to west, west to east, up and down, side to side, diagonal. We've spent more time driving across Austria than anywhere else, I think.
Al ElliottYeah. Yeah. And Austria is a cool place. It's, um, I mean, the Austrians will hate me for saying this, but it's fairly similar to Germany in a lot of ways. I know, sense of humour different, as Christopher Waltz pointed out. So, yeah, definitely a good place to go. We can't really tell you much about it because we haven't spent too much time there working, but It's cool.
Leanne ElliottActually, I don't think we spent any time working there.
Al ElliottNo.
Leanne ElliottI think we spent a long weekend in Vienna, which was cool. Um, and then for Christmas markets, oh, Vienna. And we did a Christmas market, um, a couple of times there, but yeah, not really worked there. But as you'd imagine Austria to be, fairly expensive, good internet, great accommodation options.
Al ElliottYeah, absolutely. Oh, and if you are, um, if you are a digital nomad with a car and you're, and you're in, um, southern or southeast Europe and you're going across, perhaps you're going back to the UK, it's a really good place. Austria is a really good place to stop over because there's some beautiful Christmas markets, like Leanne said. We went back about 2 or 3 years ago. We hopped back and we took about 5 days to get back and we just did the Christmas market tour. So, we stopped in some of the most famous Christmas markets in Europe.
Leanne ElliottWangen, is that what it's called?
Al ElliottYeah, Wangen, W-A-N-G-E-N.
Leanne ElliottOh, that was one of the best Christmas markets we've been to. Incredible. Like, they have a special name for it, but it's essentially mac and cheese.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottSo good. But yeah, loved it.
Al ElliottWhat else you seen, Le?
Leanne ElliottIndia.
Al ElliottOh God.
Leanne ElliottRight.
Al ElliottJust gonna preface this because I'm not gonna speak highly of it, of my experience in India. And I'm gonna preface this by saying I was so excited to go, so excited to go. And I got there and it was the biggest culture shock ever. And it was also the biggest, what can I say, which is polite?
Leanne ElliottDigestive issues.
Al ElliottDigestive shock as well. I was extremely ill in India.
Leanne ElliottSo, a little hack for you. I wasn't looking forward to going to India at all. In fact, the only reason we went is we were in Southeast Asia and our friends were going to Goa for a holiday. Well, they toured around, didn't they? But we were meeting them in Goa. So, I wasn't so keen, but I absolutely loved it. I absolutely loved it. And people often ask me, like, as an introvert, why do you like such busy places? I think it's because as an introvert, busy places, you can be completely anonymous and detached and you're one of many. Nobody's really that I mean, focused on you. But I loved it. But then I also wonder if, and I'm not saying this is an official hack, I'm not a medical professional, but when we landed, I was full of cold, chest infection type thing. So, I went to a pharmacy just to ask if there's anything they could give me. He ended up giving me an entire course of antibiotics, some really powerful anti-inflammatories, and who knows what else. He gave me like 4 different pills, and I was fine.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottI was fine. Um, so yeah, might be worth, might be worth looking at. We went to New Delhi, very busy, loved it. Some of the best food I've had in my life. Goa, uh, I'm not sure I'd recommend Goa necessarily, but I'm glad we went. Glad we went, wouldn't go back.
Al ElliottKerala.
Leanne ElliottAnd Kerala, which was incredible in the south with all the kind of the, the waters and stuff, which we got boats on, which was cool. In terms to work, It was fine. Internet, I don't remember being too much of a problem. Again, you can afford quite nice accommodation because it is very affordable. So then typically they'll come with little working spaces and things like that. We did stay in a box hotel that caught fire, which was fun.
Al ElliottMiddle of the night. But yes, so, India, yeah, maybe, maybe. I think, obviously food aside, is a cool place and it's huge. Obviously, we've only been to 3 places, so. So our experience was that, yeah, it probably is pretty good for nomading, but working remotely, but you probably don't want to be going to a cafe, I would have thought. I would have thought you want to be working somewhere at home.
Leanne ElliottYeah, it's very, very busy, as you'd imagine. So yeah, we tended to work out the hotels that we were staying in.
Al ElliottOkay, so let's get my pot of dreams and pull out the next one, which is Slovenia. Slovenia. We spent a lot of time in Slovenia. That was another place we got locked down in COVID. We got locked down in Lithuania first, and then we went to Slovenia because the rates were low. And then within 2 weeks that was shut down and we were there for 6 months, I think, in Slovenia. But Slovenia is a very, very cool place. It's kind of like a cross between Croatia and Austria.
Leanne ElliottYes.
Al ElliottBecause it does border Austria. So you'll find, particularly in the north, well, we were in Maribor, which is very close to the Austrian border. And instead of saying da, which they say yes is in Croatian and a lot of the other Slavic languages, They say ja. There's also a lot of German words there. And it's just a really cool place. If you like wine, oh my goodness, Slovenia's for you. And also go to Maribor, then go to Ljubljana because that's the capital. Cute little city. Well, I say little city, it's probably massive, but it's just really compact and lovely to wander around. What were your thoughts?
Leanne ElliottI think Slovenia is the most underrated country in Europe, and I'm still not entirely sure why it hasn't caught on. I'm not mad about it because I wouldn't want it to be. Overrun with tourists, but it's one of the most beautiful places we've ever been to. The people are lovely. The food is great because it is this melting pot of like Italian, Croatian, German food. The wine is incredible. Maribor has the oldest grapevine in the world, which is on the outdoors of their wine museum. And on the 11th of November every year, they have a wine festival. This day is bigger than New Year's Eve. Essentially what happens is at 11 o'clock on the 11th of November, the wine matures from muscat into wine, and they celebrate it as if, um, I guess, yeah, like it's, it's, it's, it's New Year, but like 1999 New Year. The whole city basically just has an all day on all the different wines.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottIt's like market stalls will have all the wineries representing their, their new wines and And the most incredible food. It's such a party and it's, it's, it's an absolute bucket list experience that people don't know about.
Al ElliottYeah, 100%. In terms of working there, there's loads of coworking spaces, very, very modern. Um, and internet's fast. Uh, accommodation we found was relatively decent.
Leanne ElliottVery, very decent.
Al ElliottUh, very decent and well priced. Um, they've got Lidl, they've got Aldi, they've got, uh, Spar. They've got Interspar. We don't know the difference, still don't know the difference between those 2. And yeah, it's, you just, you could be, you could be in the US, you could be in the UK, you could be in Australia. It's very good. So yeah, highly recommend it.
Leanne ElliottIt's such a diverse country as well that you can literally, like we were, we were sat in Maribor city centre on a cold but sunny day in February. And then we drove up to the mountains where there's a ski resort, maybe 20 minutes. And it was 3 foot of snow. So, the diversity of experience you can have in such a small place is incredible. And as a nomad, I think the beauty of nomading is when you go to places you wouldn't typically go otherwise. And Slovenia is top of the list for me in terms of nomad destinations.
Al ElliottYeah. We're just going, before we go into the next one, what we did on our first leg of our nomad tour was we call it the second city tour. So, if we were going to Croatia, we wouldn't go to Zagreb. We went to, we actually went to Rijeka, but we should have gone to Split. So, we went to, instead of going to Ljubljana in Slovenia, we went to Maribor, the second city. And that is a really great hack if you are travelling around because the second cities are often quite a bit more exciting. No, that's not true. I don't mean they're more exciting. The second cities—
Leanne ElliottThey're more real.
Al ElliottThey're more like— They're more real is the word I'm looking for.
Leanne ElliottYou get to live like a local rather than just a tourist in the capital.
Al ElliottYes, absolutely. Is it your turn or mine?
Leanne ElliottMy turn.
Al ElliottGo on, Leanne. Just excited. You're like a kid at Christmas.
Leanne ElliottOoh, Luxembourg. Luxembourg.
Al ElliottWe were only there for 3 days, weren't we?
Leanne ElliottWe were there for 3 nights. We didn't work. Um, beautiful. Public transport is free. Fun fact.
Al ElliottCompletely free. Tram, train, bus, all totally free. Other fun fact is that I think the majority of people who live there are Brazilian or something, or Italian, Portuguese. Um, very big melting pot. Um, pricey, man. Really, really expensive, but beautiful. Uh, definitely stay over for one night. Don't go there for a month.
Leanne ElliottYeah, pass through, enjoy.
Al ElliottPoland is my next choice. I'm sorry, I chose that before I should have done my little ASMR. Hey, hang on. There you go. Poland, right? Well, we spent a bit of time in Poland. We were in a place called Wrocław, which we called Raw Claw before we got there, because it's spelt W-R-O-C-L-A-W, Wrocław. And it is a cool place.
Leanne ElliottLoved it.
Al ElliottLoved it. We were there in the winter. It was like -12 at night. Snow on the ground, Christmas markets, fabulous accommodation, really cool little city. I'd say it's sort of a city a bit like, I'm going to go with Bristol or not quite as big as Manchester, nowhere near as big as London. But that was very cool.
Leanne ElliottVery cool. We also spent a month in Gdańsk on the north coast. One thing I think as a nomad, and maybe everyone's different, but Al and I are very much summer people. We enjoy being warm, but if you're travelling Europe in winter, January, February, March, there's not many places to be warm. So, we went the opposite when we did this trip, and we were like, well, let's go cold, as cold as we can, snuggly, fires, snow, beautiful. So, we did Wroclaw in December and Gdańsk in February, I think. Fabulous. Absolutely fabulous. The atmosphere, the history, the tours.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottAgain, the food is wonderful. The people are so kind, very cost-effective. We stayed in a beautiful apartment in Gdańsk for, I think, maybe £150, £200 a week.
Al ElliottYeah. Yeah. It was, it was really, really inexpensive. I mean, for obviously for short-term, that's quite, that's, that's really reasonable. Um, and also fun fact, Christmas, they tend to not take anything down or the decorations down for Christmas until sort of the end of January. So, if you, if you do enjoy Christmas and you're in the UK or somewhere where they take everything down on the 6th.
Leanne ElliottDid you know that the UK's number 1 management podcast— that's us, by the way— and the UK's number 1 marketing podcast are both on the same podcast network?
Al ElliottWe actually have a lot in common. We both use behavioural science to help people do better at work.
Leanne ElliottAnd we both had to wrangle Rory Sutherland on an episode.
Al ElliottAnd 2 out of 3 of us are devilishly good-looking. Not gonna say which. Phil, host of Nudge, UK's number one marketing podcast. It's brought to you— we need to do this in threes—
Leanne Elliottthe HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.
Al ElliottSeamless, seamless. Tell us about your latest episode, Phil. Uh, we've just done an episode on fake fandom and how New York indie bands are paying agencies to create fake TikTok videos about how much they like their work. And we talk about the behavioral science behind fandom and how that encourages people to enjoy the music and all of that good stuff, and do some big things about how this affects the world of politics, business, and brands as well.
Leanne ElliottIt is. It's such, it's such a good show. Of course, you'll hear all the stuff you want to hear about how to grow your business by using behavioural science in your marketing. But there's also just some really interesting episodes that'll be right up your street. Personally, I enjoyed Can Balsamic Vinegar Make Beer Taste Better?
Al ElliottIt can.
Leanne ElliottAnd Are We All Just Status-Seeking Monkeys?
Al ElliottI am. Go and listen to Nudge wherever you get your podcasts.
Leanne ElliottBut come back.
Al ElliottYeah, come back. Definitely come back because Nudge isn't as good as this.
Leanne ElliottSo come back.
Al ElliottI'll cut that out. Keep that in. Okay, Malip, I think it's your turn.
Leanne ElliottSlovakia.
Al ElliottHow long were we there for? It felt like we were there a month, weren't we?
Leanne ElliottWe were there a month. Yeah, this was, this was on our first Our ever first nomading trip.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottWe went to Slovakia. We did actually go to the capital, we went to Bratislava on the recommendation of somebody we know from Bratislava. And we stayed in a small place called Devin because we also travel with dogs when we travel Europe. So, if you are travelling with dogs, there's lots we can tell you about that as well. But particularly, in some places you want to be in the city centre because actually there's more stuff for dogs in the city centre of some cities than there is on the outskirts. Slovakia, we were told not so much. We stayed on the outskirts in a place called Devin, which is right on the Danube. Stunning. Oh my gosh. Completely just ignored Slovakia, isn't it? I think in favour of, of kind of Czech, its former other half. I think Bratislava does rival Prague.
Al ElliottYeah, I agree.
Leanne ElliottAnd I think again, as a non-obvious place to go, if you're trying to decide between Prague or Bratislava, I would say go to Bratislava.
Al Elliott100%. Again, in terms of the prices, I would have said half the price of Prague. And if I remember, Slovakia is euro and Prague's krona.
Leanne ElliottYes.
Al ElliottYeah. And fun fact, Slovakia, if you want to say yes, you say ano. Ah, no.
Leanne ElliottAh, no.
Al ElliottLike, you know, like the Irish. Ah, no. Okay.
Leanne ElliottAlso, what's great about Bratislava, it's about an hour train ride to Vienna. So, if you did want to include a trip to Austria, but not with a price tag, stay in Bratislava, train over to Vienna, easily a day trip.
Al ElliottBratislava's like an hour to Vienna, an hour to somewhere else. I can't remember exactly where it is, but a lot of people live in Bratislava and work in Vienna, work in this other place that I can't think where it is. Not Budapest. I can't remember where it is. Maybe it is Budapest. You can go and check on the map.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottOkay. So, the next one, France. France. We've not spent a lot of time in France. And in fact, to be really brutally honest with you, we weren't massive fans of France for a long time, were we?
Leanne ElliottUntil, until this year.
Al ElliottYep.
Leanne ElliottAl and I's line was we've never voluntarily been to France because we've been for people's birthdays or, or weddings or that type of thing. Um, until this year.
Al ElliottYeah. And so this year we came back from the UK for Christmas. We came across the Channel Tunnel. And by the way, if you do do that trip and you've got a car, just, just do the train. Don't do the boats. We tried to save money on the boats. It is about twice as expensive on the, on the tunnel, but you just turn up and then you just stay in your car, watch your stories on Netflix, and then you're in France. Whereas the number of times we've had problems with ferries. So top tip.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottDo pay the extra bit, although don't pay for Flex, which is the way they say you can upgrade and you can, says it gives you priority and all this kind of thing. It's a bit like Ryanair priority, and it doesn't really give you much because if you turn up early on a normal ticket, then you should be on a ticket already.
Leanne ElliottYeah, yeah, exactly. The other great thing about the, they call it the shuttle rather than the Eurostar. Eurostar is for passengers, like foot passengers.
Al ElliottIt's a normal train.
Leanne ElliottThe shuttle is you drive onto the train. Perfect if you travel with dogs because you stay in the car, it's 30 minutes and you're straight through. Whereas with the ferries, you're looking at least kind of 2 to 5 hours depending on where you're ferrying to and from. So, if you have an anxious dog like we do, it's a much better option.
Al ElliottAbsolutely. In terms of France, we don't know about internet because we just used our UK SIM there. So, everything else seems a little more expensive than say neighbouring Germany. So, I'm not, I don't know.
Leanne ElliottNot sure we're the best people to ask about France, to be honest.
Al ElliottWell, let's move on then.
Leanne ElliottYeah. The best place that we found was actually kind of the northeast of France. Again, Christmas time.
Al ElliottOh, and Colmar, which is in the southeast on the border of Germany. If you like wine, Colmar is the place you want to go.
Leanne ElliottOkay. Albania.
Al ElliottAlbania. Well, we were there for about 2 weeks, were we?
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottMaybe, maybe 3 weeks or 4 weeks because we went to Ksamil. We drove through from Greece and we came up to Ksamil first, which is spelled K-S-A-M-I-L. The first time I ever saw a €500 note. Pretty sure the guy was into, um, should we say import-export? Um, but a €500 note.
Leanne ElliottAllegedly.
Al ElliottAllegedly. Well, yes, I'm not— I can say it because I haven't said who it is. Yeah. Anyway, um, Ksamil was interesting. Probably a bit more developed than it was when we were there. But then we went to stay near the capital, didn't we? We were there for about 2 weeks, 3 weeks?
Leanne ElliottYes, we did. Durres?
Al ElliottYeah, Durres.
Leanne ElliottYeah, that was really nice. The thing I'd say about the south, because I see the south of Albania talked about a lot as being like the new Riviera or kind of the place to go. And I was talking to a friend about this who'd also been to Albania. I don't really get it because there's such, there's so much development. You can't really look in any direction without seeing cranes and building sites. And the sea is beautiful, but you just look behind you and you're looking at a construction site.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottI didn't, I didn't really get the hype.
Al ElliottNo. Um, I think there's, there's, there's a few people on Twitter or on, well, Instagram, whatever, who will say, yes, you're looking at beautiful pictures of, um, of Albania. But if you just flip the camera around, it would look like you were in, I don't know, Spain in the 1950s when they're still building stuff. One thing about working in Albania was we found that back then, I'm not sure it's different now, but back then, an awful lot of power cuts and power surges.
Leanne ElliottIt was an awful place to work remotely.
Al ElliottIt really was.
Leanne ElliottThe internet wasn't great. Like you say, the power wasn't great.
Al ElliottNo. So, don't take our word for it and say don't go to Albania, but Do your research first, find the place. I'm sure in Tirana, in the capital, it's different. But if you're anywhere outside the capital, expect slight issues. The other thing is, talking of issues, if you're driving through Albania, it is the craziest drivers in Europe.
Leanne ElliottGood luck to you.
Al ElliottYes, we've driven through Montenegro and all the Balkan countries. They're craziest drivers ever. You'll literally, you'll come around a corner and there'll be a car overtaking a car and then another car overtaking that car, and they'll all be on your side of the road, and one of them will probably be the police. So, yeah, just be a bit careful, but it is stunning if you were to drive down towards the Greek border. That last bit there, the last 100K, is just stunning.
Leanne ElliottBeautiful. I would say if you're going to do Albania, do it as a holiday.
Al ElliottGreat.
Leanne ElliottYeah. I don't think it's a nomad destination.
Al ElliottI agree. Okay, so we're going to do a quickfire round because we are currently on 27 minutes. Romania.
Leanne ElliottAlways recommend it, would never go back. Had the best time there. Really great. Wouldn't go back.
Al ElliottA couple of things about Romania. Number one, if you are able to hire a car and fly into, say, Budapest, București, sorry, and hire a car, do that Top Gear Transfăgărașan Highway. Do that. It is stunning. You're also then gonna go up to Brașov and Sighișoara.
Leanne ElliottTransylvania.
Al ElliottTransylvania. Those are the most amazing places. In terms of working, we used the Wi-Fi and it was okay.
Leanne ElliottIt was okay.
Al ElliottBut, and it's, yeah, it's challenging. Everything seems to be a bit of a challenge. You've got to go out to the supermarket, it's a bit of a challenge. But if you do know any kind of Italian or Spanish, then it's another romantic language, which is strange for Eastern Europe. So, there'll be a few words you recognise.
Leanne ElliottYeah, go on holiday there. Gibraltar. Never lived there. Got married there. Visited a lot. Morrison's. Never lived there, never worked there. No comment.
Al ElliottWell, to be fair, we lived maybe about half an hour from Gibraltar in southern Spain for about 5 years. And so we used to drive down to Gibraltar into a supermarket called Morrison's because they had the Tiger bread, they had all the stuff we were missing from home, and then drive back. So yeah, it's definitely worth a go, but we've not worked there and it's expensive accommodation. At the time we were there, very dated accommodation. And yeah, it's not somewhere we'd necessarily recommend. Talking of somewhere we'd not necessarily recommend, now this place is another beautiful place for holidays. It is known by a number of different names. It is now known as North Macedonia or North Macedonia. But back in the day, it was called the Former Yugoslavic Republic of North Macedonia. Macedonia, catchy. We went to, now let me see, Skopje, the capital.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottVery cool, very crazy, very strange. It's, it's honestly, the statues are still wrapped in plastic because they've just come out. They just come off the back of the van. It's made to look like it's like 100 years old and it's about 8 years old. Also, there's a big bridge that takes you across into the—
Leanne ElliottTurkish Quarter.
Al ElliottThe old town, the Turkish Quarter. That is, it's just weird because you go from the new town to the old town and it is almost completely dry. If you like kebabs, as in dry as in no alcohol, if you like kebabs, oh my God, you're gonna love it, but don't expect a beer there.
Leanne ElliottGood place for dogs, actually. We found a really good, like, doggy daycare in Skopje that Peanut went to. That was really good. We also spent some time in Lake Ohrid. Gorgeous. Highly recommend Lake Ohrid. Recommend Macedonia, to be honest. I really enjoyed it. I thought it was a cool, quirky little place. Don't remember having any issues in terms of working. Don't, don't remember much about it either way, which probably meant it was fine.
Al ElliottYeah, exactly. Okay. So, I'm gonna pull out Myanmar. Oh, Myanmar. This is the 4th. This was, if you know, if you're a bit older, you might know it as Burma, Myanmar. One of the most incredible experiences of our life there. And now you can't go. Well, you can, but it's a bit tasty.
Leanne ElliottI don't think you can actually. It's under kind of military rule at the moment, isn't it? After a coup. Yeah, I almost don't want to talk about it because there's really little point because it's so sad that we can't go anymore, but genuinely one of the most stunning, beautiful places and it's heartbreaking what's happening there. So yeah, hopefully that'll get figured out because one of the most, probably the most incredible place I've ever been.
Al ElliottAnd if you go to, if it does open up again, try and get to Napali. It's not spelt the same way as the Italian way, but try to get to Napali because it is a beautiful beach resort and it's just incredible.
Leanne ElliottAnyway, moving on. Italy.
Al ElliottTalking of Napoli.
Leanne ElliottItaly, we've done a fair bit in the north. Yeah, um, fabulous. There's a place about an hour from Venice that is now going to be our regular stop every year. We were there for a week or 10 days last— this year. Um, stunning, gorgeous. You don't— you know Italy, the food's great, there's loads to do, there's loads to see. Um, we've done Lucca, we did Pisa. Don't go to Sicily in August is the only advice I'd give you about Italy. Other than that, enjoy.
Al ElliottYeah. Quick thing about Sicily is you go, oh, well, what? Because it's hot? Well, yes, but if you get a place with air conditioning, which our very first place wasn't, we hired a place for a month, lasted 4 days, then went and rented somewhere else. Um, 'cause the landlord was weird for a start, but also, uh, there was no insulation on it and no air conditioning. Genuinely, our, we used the meat thermometer in our kitchen. And it was 37 degrees in the kitchen. So no, absolutely can't work there. But also the other thing is there's so many festivals on that the church bells go continuously and continuously. So for August, so going in August is beautiful if you're sitting there out there with your lovely, your lovely Aperol and you're looking at the church bells, listening to church bells. If you're trying to be on a Zoom call with someone, no, don't go to Sicily.
Leanne ElliottItaly is a good place for nomads to consider because it's one of the few places that you can get long-term residency. as a third country national without too much hard work and taxes to do it. So, if you're looking to extend your nomadic venture into years, then Italy is a really good option for that to do. Take a look.
Al ElliottJust a quick point on that. You have to apply when you're outside of Italy, as opposed to most of the other digital nomads where you can arrive and then apply for nomad— nomad— nomadasi, but you can't do that. Okay, so the next one I pulled out is Greece. Can't really talk too much about Greece. We've only spent a few days in Greece, but Yeah, passing through on holiday. We weren't working. Yeah. So, uh, Greece, I really don't think we should talk about it because we've not worked there. We've only just relaxed there.
Leanne ElliottYeah. But it is another place that does do a digital nomad visa of sorts. So again, if you're looking to extend, Greece is another one to look at.
Al ElliottAbsolutely. So, my replacement there is Spain. Spain, you beautiful, beautiful, beautiful bitch. Um, we would live in Spain if we could.
Leanne ElliottHeartbeat.
Al ElliottLet's go now. Yeah. Um, the only reason we don't is that they currently tax worldwide wealth, which means that it's not, it's not feasible for us right now. Perhaps that'll change. Um, but, um, yeah, and income tax is like in Andalucía, it's 50%. Uh, then also if you want to be self-employed, you have to pay €250 a month each before you even make any money, which is why most people go to Spain and don't tell anyone they're working in Spain. Just be careful because they're getting onto that. But there is a Nomad Visa. In terms of internet, when we were there, it was relatively pricey. 4G was a bit pricey, but I think it's come down quite a bit since then.
Leanne ElliottYeah. And when we went back, actually went to the north of Spain a couple of years, because remember Valladolid, they had lightning-fast internet in our Airbnb. So yeah, I think internet's got loads, loads better now. It's fabulous. Go get the DN Visa, have a wonderful time. Don't fall in love too hard because I promise you, you can't afford it.
Al ElliottYes, absolutely. This honestly, we could do an entire— while Leanne's choosing, we could do an entire episode Should we do a quick—
Leanne Elliottyeah, we have done entire episodes on Spain. We have, yes.
Al ElliottSo we're gonna do a quick, quickfire.
Leanne ElliottJust like a one-word fire round.
Al ElliottYes.
Leanne ElliottOkay. Indonesia, Lombok, paradise.
Al ElliottLombok, right. Don't go to Bali, go to Lombok. That's all we need to say. It is the most amazing place. Belgium, never actually worked there. It's always been us stopping over, I think. We've been on holiday there and we've stopped over there, but I don't think we've ever worked there, have we?
Leanne ElliottNo. Great chips.
Al ElliottGreat chips. Yeah. Fries, if you're not from the UK. Yes. Great fries and great waffles if you're into that kind of thing. And great mussels. Oh my goodness. Oh, and Pinot Gris. And you've got to go to Belgium for the seafood and for the wine and for the fries.
Leanne ElliottAnd good beaches if you've got a dog to run on. Oh, Peanut loved it. Sweden. We did a couple of days there, didn't work there. Really enjoyed it. We went to, um, Yeah.
Al ElliottYeah. And that was, it was cool.
Leanne ElliottIt was really cool.
Al ElliottYeah, really cool.
Leanne ElliottReally, really cool.
Al ElliottAgain, quite expensive as you'd expect for the Baltic countries, but, or is it Balkan? Baltic.
Leanne ElliottIt's meant to be a speed round now.
Al ElliottSorry. Indonesia, Gili Islands.
Leanne ElliottYes.
Al ElliottThat's all. Go.
Leanne ElliottGreat for working.
Al ElliottYes. Internet's pretty quick. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful place. Gili Trawangan. Go there. Go to a tiki bar. We did an interview on our last podcast from the tiki bar, from the guy. They're really cool. Ex-actor on IMDb as well.
Leanne ElliottIreland. Love Ireland. It's, it's honestly, I'm one of those like annoying Americans that are like, I have Irish heritage, therefore I feel at home in Ireland. Went to Galway, Dublin, of course, and County Mayo.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottThe west coast of Ireland is just an absolute must. Go spend a lifetime there.
Al ElliottDon't, yeah, don't go to Dublin. Go somewhere else. Go to Kerry. Go and go to the local bar and get a proper Guinness and eat. And we were there and there was a Guinness, there was fiddlers, like violinists. It was brilliant. Okay. Oh, sorry, have you got one more?
Leanne ElliottNo, go.
Al ElliottNext one I pulled out is Liechtenstein. It's a cheat us keeping this because I think we were only in there for either one night or even just one day. Cool little place.
Leanne ElliottNot a lot to do.
Al ElliottThere's not a lot to do. I think you could probably walk it from end to end in about 3 hours. The actual old town itself is tiny, but cool. Definitely go. Next one I've got here is Lithuania. Now we know a lot about Lithuania because we spent 4 or 5 months locked down. Our first lockdown in Lithuania.
Leanne ElliottYeah, our first lockdown.
Al ElliottFrom what I remember, internet was very fast. We stayed just outside Vilnius, in the city, but in a beautiful, like, townhouse. The neighbours were amazing. Neighbours kept bringing us food. In fact, when we left, they sent us a WhatsApp. Well, actually it was Viber up there, but sent us a WhatsApp message Uh, with what they'd made, which was like, um, Time to Say Goodbye, and it got like tears and stuff, and they were like, we miss you. And I was like, oh, Lithuania, definitely, definitely go. Bit more expensive than some of the neighbouring Baltic countries, but still worth it.
Leanne ElliottYeah, it's just, it's really cool. We couldn't, we got so lucky with our lockdown. It was in the best place. I remember people at the time saying, are you gonna come back to the UK? And it's like, why? A beautiful townhouse in a country with a really low COVID rate. We were right back onto a lake so we could walk the dogs. We were a 10-minute drive into the city centre, which was only locked down for 6 weeks. Where am I going? And actually couldn't because the borders were literally closed. Loved it. Also, there's a, what's it called? A spit?
Al ElliottOh, yes.
Leanne ElliottThat's like a really thin bit of land that we went to that's kind of separated by the sea and then a lagoon. And it's actually connected with Russia.
Al ElliottYes.
Leanne ElliottIncredible. The best smoked fish ever had in my life. Sand dunes like I've never seen before. It was like out of a movie. Huge fan of Lithuania. Love it.
Al ElliottDefinitely go to Lithuania. Okay, speed round. Ireland. You just said Ireland, or did I write it down twice? Laos. Laos. L-A-O-S. I'm never quite sure how to say it. Beautiful place. Very French.
Leanne ElliottYes, it was colonised by the French.
Al ElliottReally good place. We were only there for maybe 3 or 4 days, and we don't think we worked there, did we?
Leanne ElliottWe did. We went for a week.
Al ElliottWe went to a coworking Oh, that was, yeah, that was Laos. Brilliant food. Luang Prabang, brilliant food. And we went up a mountain to watch the sunrise, sunset at the top of a monastery. Temple, yes.
Leanne ElliottStunning.
Al ElliottFood, great. They have a, they, it's, if you imagine Asian food, but with like French influence, they have like these sort of like roast sausage things that are just incredible.
Leanne ElliottIt's like 2 of the best cuisines in the world mixed together and it does not disappoint. Incredible night markets as well. We actually went to, there's a little island, In the middle of the Mekong River that runs through Luang Prabang that is only there during the summer periods. It gets flooded in the winter and every year the locals rebuild it and it's a little cucumber farm. So, you have to go and get a boat over and they have beers and cucumber salad and that's it. But it'll be the best, coldest beer you've ever had, the best cucumber salad you've ever had. And we just sat there for hours, didn't we? Just watching.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottWatching the sunset.
Al ElliottSo, yeah.
Leanne ElliottFabulous. Beautiful. Anyway, Thailand.
Al ElliottWe haven't got time.
Leanne ElliottWe haven't got time.
Al ElliottYes.
Leanne ElliottYeah.
Al ElliottEverywhere we went to Thailand was just incredible. The islands, the— and the only thing is that some of the islands when we went back in '17, '18, the internet wasn't brilliant. I'm sure that's changed now. I'm thinking of that one where we literally had our place on the sand. And that wasn't brilliant.
Leanne ElliottBut if you go to Koh Lanta, that's kind of like the digital nomad island. And then from there, you'll find people and Travel with them. Yes, absolutely brilliant. If you've never been to Southeast Asia before and you are a digital nomad, Thailand is a place to start.
Al ElliottYeah, maybe avoid Chiang Mai just because Chiang Mai is in the north and it's very expatty.
Leanne ElliottThe kids love it though.
Al ElliottI don't know why, because you just want— you see old men coming around the corner with like 2 young girls on their hand and it's just weird.
Leanne ElliottChiang Mai is one of the places where people will stay as nomads for months. Like they'll do the visa hop where you can get like a 3-month visa and then they'll leave for a week and then come back and get another 3 months. Yeah, meh. To Chiang Mai, the rest of Thailand, amazing.
Al ElliottOkay, I've got Netherlands. Unfortunately, we don't think we can tell you much about that. We've stayed a few times. Very nice, beautiful, lots of bikes. We didn't partake in any of the activities. Well, I didn't when I went, any of the activities that are there. You know the ones I'm talking about. But otherwise, really lovely place. Very similar to Belgium, I would have thought.
Leanne ElliottGreat Christmas market.
Al ElliottYes. Fabulous Christmas market.
Leanne ElliottDenmark, best Christmas market in Europe.
Al ElliottYes.
Leanne ElliottAustralia. Loved it. We did Sydney, we did Melbourne. Um, slightly different experience for me because I was there with my client from Australia. Um, so I very much loved it and they helped us around seeing things and getting the most out of it. Um, yeah, I think every nomad has to go to Australia, don't they?
Al ElliottYeah, of course you do. Of course you do. Uh, next one, Malta. Now we only went on holiday, so unfortunately I can't tell you about that, but our internet was pretty decent there. It's a really cool place. It's kind of, Kind of got a weird sort of like Italian/Spanish vibe. And it's definitely worth going, really good. Just don't go and get the rabbit, which is the local delicacy. I mean, we like rabbit, but it was just a bit disappointing.
Leanne ElliottIf you're not keen on nomading, but want to look at expatriation, but don't have any language, Malta and Gibraltar that we've both talked about are really good options for that. So, do take a look, particularly if you're in the gaming industry. If you're in the gaming industry, you'll already know about Malta and Gibraltar. And Gibraltar. Anyway, Montenegro, love it. If we didn't live in Bosnia, we'd live in Montenegro.
Al ElliottYep. Great internet. Although you do need it, as I said before, you do need a passport to go and get your SIM card in Montenegro for some very strange reason. Crazy, crazy drivers. Kotor is beautiful, but you probably don't want to go to Kotor and stay there because it'll be expensive unless it's off-season. But yes, Montenegro, absolutely stunning. Just be careful of the drivers. Talking of rabbit, Hungary. There's my joke.
Leanne ElliottWe've only ever done Budapest.
Al ElliottYeah, yeah.
Leanne ElliottI really liked it. You weren't so keen, were you?
Al ElliottI thought it was okay. I thought it was okay. I think we'd just come off the back of several Eastern European countries, and so it was getting, I hate to say it, getting a little samey. But it's just, it's a very cool place. And if you like the likes of Prague and Bratislava, I would imagine you'd love Bucharest. Budapest, sorry. Don't get it wrong.
Leanne ElliottYeah, I really liked it. And again, I mean, we, I'm a big fan of Christmas and Christmas markets, so you might not be surprised that we've been to a lot of them. If you're looking at like an alternative Christmas market tour, and you don't want to do too much of Germany or the obvious ones, Budapest Christmas market is incredible. Oh, Budapest is great. The entire city is basically one big Christmas market, and because it's cold and crisp and yeah, it's very, very cool.
Al ElliottI believe you get blackcurrant wine there, I think is the predominant wine.
Leanne ElliottAnd goulash.
Al ElliottGoulash. So next one pulled out is Portugal. Um, we only spent a little bit of time. We spent maybe about a month in Portugal, perhaps.
Leanne ElliottA week.
Al ElliottWas it only a week?
Leanne ElliottYeah, a week in Lisbon.
Al ElliottUm, Lisbon's a cool place.
Leanne ElliottIt's where all the nomads hang out.
Al ElliottYeah, I don't think we need to say anything about that because if you're ever thinking of working remotely, then you'll have already thought of Portugal.
Leanne ElliottUh, Czechia. Do you know what? There are many digital nomad hotspots that are hugely overrated, overhyped. I would never recommend them. Bali. There are others like Prague that are totally worth the hype. Prague is awesome. Go.
Al ElliottUh, they, they split up the, the location into like Prague 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, et cetera. Prague 4 was very cool. We stayed there for a month and we went to Prague 6 for a month as well. So basically the tip is to go slightly outside because the, uh, the Um, trains or the trams taking you to the centre, it's so quick and so cheap. So, definitely look at Prague.
Leanne ElliottAnd if you do travel with a dog, Prague is probably the most dog-friendly place we've ever been to. So, all public transport dogs can go on. There's no need for muzzles or any of that nonsense. Restaurants will let them in. We went to a really nice restaurant for my birthday and took the dog with us. Pubs and cafes are absolutely fine. So, yeah, if you, if you travel with a dog, Prague is a must. And of course, there is 100 million coworking spaces in Prague.
Al ElliottYes, there are. Next one comes up is Bulgaria. Now we have to talk quietly here because we're in Bulgaria right now. Bulgaria is a cool place. It's definitely one I would rather be on holiday in than necessarily working in. But then we are in rural Bulgaria right now, south of, if you've heard of a place called Haskovo, we're probably about an hour from the Greek border. So yeah, I mean, it's cool. Definitely come and have a look at Bulgaria. It's like we said the other week, they nod their head when they say, when they mean no. They go, what do I mean? Yeah. So, you'd go, yes, and nod your head, and they actually mean no and nod their head. And there's also lots of storks.
Leanne ElliottYes. Cool things to do in Bulgaria. Go to the Black Sea. Very, very different coastline. Go to a place called Plovdiv. Huge amounts of history. Beautiful, beautiful place. We haven't been to Sofia, but heard good things.
Al ElliottSorry, I was distracted. Yes, absolutely. So, I'm just looking now, and what we're gonna do is cheat, I think, Leanne. We're gonna take out the rest of them and just pick out the ones we wanna talk about because we've still got about 4 in there, 5 in there, 6. Okay. So I'm going to start off. We've got San Marino here. We were there for a couple of days. It was a beautiful place, really cool. Latvia, went on holiday back in the day to Latvia.
Leanne ElliottYeah, it didn't work for me.
Al ElliottDidn't work for me either, those places, but both lovely places. Switzerland, we stayed with our friends in Switzerland, which is a little bit of a cheat because we didn't actually pay for anything because Andrew and Fanny, his missus, wouldn't let us pay for anything. But it was, it's a beautiful, beautiful place, but it's not somewhere you go if you're budget conscious. What do you got, Leanne?
Leanne ElliottUh, I've got Denmark. We only went on holiday there, but absolutely loved it. Um, Indonesia, Bali. I think we've said that's a hard no. Malaysia, we stayed in KL for a couple of days. Again, I don't think we were working there.
Al ElliottI don't think we were.
Leanne ElliottBut obviously we were in KL, so the internet was incredible. There's loads of places to work. It's all good. Um, Serbia. We spent a month in Belgrade. I love Belgrade.
Al ElliottYes.
Leanne ElliottBelgrade is one of my most favourite cities in Europe. It's dirty. It's big. It's gritty. It's... Noisy. It's everything you want a capital city to be. Great shopping, beautiful parts, grungy parts, dive bars, fancy restaurants. So much diversity. Absolutely loved it. Only place in Europe we did get a little bit of beef with somebody local. A local taxi driver asked us to get out once they realised we were British.
Al ElliottBut then we did bomb the ever-loving shit out of them, so, as NATO, so.
Leanne ElliottWe did. So, if you're British or American, there's a small chance you'll experience a little bit of hostility, but that was our The only bit that we did and the vast— when everyone else was completely lovely to us. And if anyone's under 30, then it's not even on their mind, I don't think. No.
Al ElliottAnd also it's really, really big on tech. It's like the Europe Silicon Valley is kind of like in Serbia.
Leanne ElliottYeah. So lots of nomads actually remote working.
Al ElliottI've got Germany written down here, which we've never actually— it's another transit country for us. We've only ever stopped over on the way to somewhere, but it's Germany. It's going to be efficient and amazing and everything's going to work and It's also going to be delightfully weird.
Leanne ElliottAnd it's huge.
Al ElliottYes.
Leanne ElliottAlways takes us like 2 days to drive across Germany.
Al ElliottIt is. There's a lot of Germany. A lot of Germany. My last one is Vietnam. Vietnam, I've got mixed feelings about. It wasn't our favourite place to go.
Leanne ElliottNo.
Al ElliottWe stayed in Hanoi. That was really busy. So, we went down to—
Leanne ElliottWe were there over Chinese New Year, though, weren't we?
Al ElliottWe were. So, that was busy. And then we went down to the middle one, which is called...
Leanne ElliottThat begins with H. Hue.
Al ElliottHue. That was cool.
Leanne ElliottYeah, I like that. That's my favourite part.
Al ElliottAnd then we went to Ho Chi Minh, the capital. Very smart. If you've been, it's like Bangkok. It's just really progressive. What it doesn't have, what we didn't find there was the grittiness of, say, the Chinatown in Bangkok where you felt like you could have been coming in 1980 and it would be the same.
Leanne ElliottWe found that in Hanoi.
Al ElliottYes, we found that in Hanoi, but for the obvious reasons. So that's how I'm out, Leanne. Have you got any more?
Leanne ElliottI've got one more. BIH. Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Al ElliottThat's our home. That's where we should be right now.
Leanne ElliottI don't think we need to say anything more other than it's the place of all 50 countries we've travelled to where we'd actually want to spend the majority of our time. People are great. It's a very diverse country in terms of its people and its landscapes and its Everything really. Internet is decent, very affordable. A growing number of backpackers there, I'd say, rather than necessarily nomads. I don't— not come across many nomads, so there's not really a community there as there would be in somewhere like Belgrade.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottUm, but it's a very beautiful country, and as a place in terms of if you are nomading, it's a great hideout from Schengen if you're getting close on your Schengen days, because it's non-EU and non-Schengen. Very cost-effective. You'll be finding easily places to stay for probably like €10 a night. Um, you could probably get entire apartments for €20 a night.
Al ElliottYeah.
Leanne ElliottIt's, it's heaven. We live in Mostar or just outside. Herzegovina is our favourite. Sarajevo is a very cool city. Lots of history. There's a film festival there this week. It's getting more and more in terms of events and stuff like that, but it's a great place to Including your hopping, because you'll get from Croatia to Montenegro to Bosnia to Macedonia to Serbia, probably within a week if you wanted to go that fast.
Al ElliottYeah. And it's, uh, and if, if you're kind of more of, if you're more on the intrepid side of remote work, digital nomad, traveling, backpacking, then go to Bosnia now before, actually technically Herzegovina is the one we prefer, but go to Bosnia and Herzegovina now because give it 10 years, I reckon it'll be part of the EU and it'll be, you know, it'll just be like, oh yeah, yeah, we've been there. Whereas now it's cool, really cool. There's oil train trails, wine trails. Keep mentioning wine. Talking of which, I think I've run out of my wine. So should we, should we wrap things up, my love?
Leanne ElliottWe should. So from all of those, for somebody who is maybe new to nomading or on their first nomad experience, we'll look at what are maybe our top 3 places we would recommend to nomads.
Al ElliottYep.
Leanne ElliottI'm going to go straight in with Prague.
Al ElliottOh, that was in your mind.
Leanne ElliottI think if you're new to this, it's the perfect starting point. It's gonna be a very friendly introduction to Central Eastern Europe. There's loads there in terms of community, so you'll meet other nomads. It's a great city. I think it's nice. It's a nice starter.
Al ElliottYeah. Okay. Well, in that case, then I'll come in with, so what did you just say? You just said Prague. I was gonna say Thailand, because if you're in Prague, if you like sort of city vibes and European weather. Thailand, if you just want to sit on a beach somewhere, you just can't go wrong in Thailand, I don't think. Well, you can. You can go to that place. I want to say Phayang, Pattaya.
Leanne ElliottOh, yeah.
Al ElliottYeah. There are certain places which are built for people who've got other touristic intents, intentions. Yes. So that's, that's our—
Leanne ElliottKoh Chang was our favourite.
Al ElliottKoh Chang. Yes. It's, in our opinion, we prefer it over other Islands, which are a bit more developed.
Leanne ElliottYes.
Al ElliottNumber 2.
Leanne ElliottI would say, I would say Italy. And it's not necessarily because it's my favourite place. I think there's lots to explore. I think it's more that if you are nomading and you catch the bug and want to live abroad, it's one of the few places where you can get a long-term visa fairly easily. So, it's probably good to know if that's even an option for you early on. And you could probably spend easily 6 weeks in Italy and have a fabulous time.
Al ElliottWell, weirdly, my— I couldn't decide between Slovenia and Croatia, which is basically, that's the route from Italy. I would probably say go for Slovenia, even though I don't think they have a nomad visa right now, but I'm seeing them promoted a lot more on Google News and all this kind of stuff. So, I suspect they will soon. Out of the two, Croatia or Slovenia, you can't go wrong. I think if you're A bit more, if it's your first time, perhaps go to Croatia. If you've done nomading before, maybe try Slovenia, or just go and do a month in Maribor in Slovenia and see if you love it and stay. And if you don't, then go to Istria in Croatia.
Leanne ElliottI would then, staying on kind of the city vibe, I would say Belgrade. I think it's a city that you will, yeah, it's an experience you won't forget, particularly if you are a bit younger. It's very known for its kind of nightlife and party scene. I think Belgrade will be one of the coolest life experiences you'd have.
Al Elliott100%. And my last one is quite obviously Spain. If you can go, go. Just like Leanne said, don't fall too hard because she's not, she's not the best place to live full-time.
Leanne ElliottAnd if there's only one thing you take away from this entire rant of a conversation, please, for the love of RuPaul Charles, do not go to Bali.
Al ElliottSorry, darling. See you next week.
Leanne ElliottBye.
Al ElliottBye-bye.