And Montana isn't even the biggest state. There are counties in Texas that are too small to have courthouses, so they share them with neighbors. That are not really walking distance. Check out the book "Miles from Nowhere". It tells of two census takers who ran out of gas and were lost for days in a county in populous Oregon.
My definition of remote is likely different from yours. I would define it as no internet access other than satellite, no roads connecting the rest of the country, no waterway access. I would be hard pressed to find somewhere in Europe that is smack dab in the middle of nowhere.
Oregon's population is mostly concentrated in the western 1/3rd of the state. The central and eastern bits have some extremely empty areas. Indeed, SE Oregon is one of the emptiest places in the US outside of Alaska.
We like where we live currently (small town USA), and the thing that really keeps us here is family.
Still, as someone who has (as is still doing) the remote thing (Vlore Albania, Sackville NB Canada -pop <2000) I completely agree :)
I've been trying to figure out what I'd like to do and where for the past 12 months. I've been jumping from one continent to another, living in villages under 50 people and in multimillion metropolises - all this while working remotely for clients in Europe. They didn't care where am I as long as I replied to emails in a timely manner. In South America I had to wake up at 4am and in Asia I would go to sleep at that time, but that's the only inconvenience I had.
p.s. No, good internet isn't everywhere :)
We used to go bouldering in Buthiers, which I'm sure you've visited. It was also the location for the world mountain bike trials championships in the 90's.
One of my favourite places in the area is the sand quarry near Bourron-Marlotte (48.342808, 2.676220). Highly recommend a day trip there.
Some Googling led me to https://www.contractorcalculator.co.uk/contractor_guide_cont...:
>“Although sole traders in France receive no paid time off, extra pay or unemployment benefit, they do have access to the French healthcare system and accrue pension benefits, albeit at a lower rate than an employee.
jasonkester, is this your setup?
I've done the same in England, Spain, Thailand, Colombia, Nicaragua and Puerto Rico. And shorter stints in a dozen other countries while traveling.
It doesn't really matter where you set up shop, provided it's cheap to live there and you like it.
There are a few companies out there that play this game (Gitlab [1]), but many others (Basecamp [2]) that pay you what you're worth regardless of location.
[1] https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/people-operations/global-c...
Heh, so their answer is to take away (presumably unearned) discretionary income from people who win the location lottery?
How very egalitarian of them.
Took a few years to work that out though, personally, so I'm glad you asked for the benefit of anybody else who may not realize it yet.
You might have some advantage that is not even clear to you. Maybe you worked in a big company for 10 years and now can gather work through contacts from there. Maybe your father is well known in the industry you work. Something like that.
Keep in mind that the first 10 odd years of your career out of school should be all about building that advantage. You want to hit your 30s in a state of Embarrassing Employability, where another amazing contract gig is just an email or two, or a Twitter status update away.
Spend your entire 20s amassing a collections of artifacts you can point to to demonstrate how good you are at all this stuff, and a horde of ex-bosses and ex-co-workers to whom your name springs first to mind when asked by somebody who needs a guy to do that stuff if they know The Guy.
So yes, absolutely. Get an advantage. But know that the short list of "built in" ones you gave above is not comprehensive. The best advantages are the ones you construct yourself.
The attitude in your comment was such a bummer I had to log in for the first time in years just to respond. Try to be more positive and go after what you want. Have a good rest of the weekend.
The error in thought is limiting his perspective to people he knows personally, which of course can make it seem unlikely or impossible. For example, I don't personally know anyone who lives and works in Silicon Valley and doesn't struggle to make a living, but I do understand that it would be possible for me to try to do so if that was my desire.
If you think that your success comes from happy thoughts I bet you are in a similar good situation as the bear.
E.g. compare a western european software manager to his developer comrades in eastern europe offices. Independent of his skill he can make $70-150k a year. Most of his programmers will be in other countries where even people 5x his skill and putting in 3x his hours will earn around $18k/year. (Example could be Munich vs Brno, 600 km apart)
Who do you think can achieve more with his happy thoughts?
I don't say "do something for the poor". I don't say "you are bad for having an advantage". What I want to make sure is that one knows about ones advantage and that others can't easily copy it. In fact ignoring that difference is quite assholey.
It's still out of reach for most people in the world, but not even San Francisco can employ literally everyone.
I found even some little things like how people style their hair, if they use face masks to keep their face clean, if they paid for teeth whitening/straightening in the past, can make a difference. In some regards that is attitute, true. But the kind you can't really learn growing up in the countryside for instance, or can't afford from the pay you get in some countries.
One of the best programmers I know has even some black teeth. He'll never be invited to a meeting where financially sound contracts are made.
Last I checked for that was Wordpress and they paid like $1500/month if I remember correctly.
I live in the tiny, 1,000 person, village of Arbonne-la-Foret, smack dab in the middle of nowhere, France. That is, unless you're a rock climber, in which case it's exactly in the center of the largest concentration of fantastic bouldering on the planet. American companies are happy to pay me the same to work from here as from that little Ohio town in the article, or from the Bay Area.
I think the strategy to follow if you're in tech these days is to:
There is good internet everywhere. I'm finding less and less reason why anybody who could would ever want to work in an office.