It’s certainly not for everyone, but for some it’s the best, if not only option.
Become an adult star, move abroad. The new American Dream.
Okay, so not exactly. For probably 99% of people (myself included), turning on the webcam and doing whatever adult webcam models do never entered my conscious. At least not as a way to move out of the country (I’d be lying if I said I never wondered what life would be like if I could make millions of dollars streaming what I shamefully do in private).
All of that changed the other day when a woman from Nigeria messaged me, asking some follow-up questions about a video I made regarding the Latvian digital nomad visa (DNV). As a recipient of more than a few Nigerian royalty correspondence, I was initially skeptical, but the message didn’t include any requests for money and was much more specific about how to qualify for the visa as a Nigerian citizen, so I decided to bite and respond.
The woman was very much real, so I asked some basic questions. What kind of remote work did she have, and how much did she make in an average month? She worked as a virtual assistant for a Nigerian company and made $500.
Both of those answers were problematic, specifically for the Latvian DNV. To qualify, she’d need to make just shy of €4,000 a month, and her remote employer needed to be located in an OECD country. Short for Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development, the group of countries is comprised of European nations plus Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, the U.S., the U.K., and Israel.
In short, she’d need to find an entirely new remote job and start from scratch. As you can imagine, someone living in Nigeria (or similar countries) can’t easily land remote work in these OECD nations. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but it’s unlikely without high-end specialty degrees (something she did not have).
She cared less about the location and more about a DNV that led to residency. However, based on her job and financials, I suggested it might be easier to focus on a country with a lower income threshold, secure that visa, and then, while…