Contrary to some idiotic belief, you do not need a work permit to work remotely here in Vietnam or really anywhere else in the world. The only issue where you run into needing a work permit in basically any country in the world is if you are working for a company that exists in that country. If you are working remotely for some distant company as many people are in Vietnam and other countries around the world, there is no need for a work permit and it is easy to understand why that is the case: How in the hell would they even know that you are working unless they raided everyone's apartments and checked what everyone was up to in coffee shops that had a laptop?
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Working remotely is so popular in Vietnam that there are places with really comfortable chairs and powerful internet connections called "shared workspaces" or something like that which are good businesses to have right now. For the luxury of a quiet environment with nice desks, air conditioning, comfortable chairs, and close access to a restaurant and cafe you pay something like $1 an hour. I don't know how this turns into profit for the people that set these places up but they must be able to do it because there are a lot of them here.
The one that I go to that is called "Bread and Salt" is a two story building that has a rather popular restaurant and cafe downstairs that serves mainly sandwiches and cakes as well as Italian and Vietnamese coffee as a specialty. The prices are reasonable and the food is pretty damn good. The real highlight of this place is the upstairs though where there are individual desks and even rooms that you can book for as long as you want to and every one of these desks has multiple power outlets. The private rooms are slightly more expensive at around $2 an hour but they also have LAN access. The internet speeds in this facility has a dedicated wifi that is just for the top floor and the people downstairs do not have access to it. I suppose they could get the password and ride it anyway but there isn't really any reason for them to do that because the downstairs has their own wifi as well.
I have used both and the one upstairs is much much faster.
Any day that I go into this place from around 8am until they close at 5pm, this place is normally packed and it is a good idea, especially if you want one of the private rooms, to book ahead of time. Many people use this place as a way to teach English online and they have a rule that if you are speaking out loud at all that you MUST book one of the private rooms. It's wonderful that they have this rule because it can be really annoying if you are trying to work on some coding and someone nearby is singing "wheels on the bus" to a group of 6 year old Chinese kids.
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up those stairs in the back take you to the co-working space
I have the ability to do all of my work at home of course and not pay $1-2 an hour but as someone that has been doing this for many years I find that it is beneficial to my mental health to, at least on occasion, separate my work life from my home life. Places like these co-working spaces help to do that for you. The fact that their desks and chairs are much more comfortable than the one that was provided by my condo is just an added bonus.
While I have not been everywhere in the world, I realize that places like this exist all over the place. It's just a wonderful idea in my mind and because Vietnam is so inexpensive basically across the board, this might be one of the best places to work remotely if that is you thing.
There is a guy that I know that was given the chance post-Covid to continue working remotely indefinitely if he wanted to, but for a 30% reduction in salary. He is from the United States so even with a 30% reduction in salary, the cost of living is so low here that he is actually banking significantly more money than he would be capable of doing if he had decided to return to the office in California with a salary increase.
It is very easy to live very comfortably here in Vietnam for $1000 to $1500 a month. In California, so I'm told, it is almost impossible to find a simple apartment to rent for that much money. Here, this $1000 is your rent, your food, you mobile bill, your electric bill, your water, your everything combined.
This is why I am here. I could be living anywhere and do what I do for a living (which is a lot of different things but all based online). Vietnam, despite being a relatively poor country, has extremely good infrastructure as far as internet is concerned. I would say that it is probably better than the United States. So for me, this was a great choice of place to live and that is the case with almost all of the digital nomads that I know. Since I have been here in Vietnam for over 5 years already, I don't really think you can call my life "nomadic" anymore. I consider it more of working remotely. Honestly, I can't imagine returning to the traditional office life ever again. So if you are one of the people working in a computer-centric job, it might be worth asking your employer if a remote option with reduced salary is an option. I know that I would jump at that opportunity if I was you!
I was just going to say sometimes it is great to have an alternative from home especially if you do this all the time. I think even if I had the best views and best set up at home I would still use one of these spaces every now and then. here are many countries offering special visas for those working as nomads and you get all the perks a normal citizen of that country would receive.
Agreed. My home workstation has multiple monitors and my fridge is right behind me. I'm in front of a big window with a view. However, this is still my home and I want to be able to separate my work life from my leisure time and this is why I will get out and go to "the office" and I find I get down to business and focus more on actually working once I get out of the house. I suppose I am fortunate to be able to choose when and where I am going to work but I do so at a decrease in pay from if I was in an office. To me it is worth it but to others maybe it wouldn't be!
I also think I would achieve more in another environment because there are no distractions. A friend of mine rents an office in a small town nearby where he lives because it feels like he is getting up for work and not walking around at home in his jocks lol.
There are indeed too many distractions in my house as well. On the days that I go to "the office" I tend to get straight to it whereas if I am at home it is really easy for me to slip into a YouTube rabbit hole for long stretches of time in lieu of doing actual work.
Your photos truly represent your point of view. Well yes! I agree with your opinion; remote work is the right solution right now, and coffee shops are the most comfortable place to do work. Not infrequently, nowadays coffee shop owners design their business as an impromptu office as well as a place to gather with colleagues and family.
For that, thank you for sharing, and I really enjoyed it. Greetings from Indonesia!!!
hello right back at you! I think that remote work is indeed the future. Management will need to develop new methods of determining how to control employee's time though because for me at least, there is nothing stopping me from just not working some days because my employers don't really have much idea about how much time it should take me to complete what I am doing. I think this is going to be a big problem for employers but then again, if I can complete a project in time, then what do they care with how i spend my time?
You are correct about coffeeshops intentionally accommodating this sort of crowd. most of the places that I go to frequently have at least half of the customers working on their laptops.
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