Before Covid hit in March last year, I was making a decent income of about $4,000 per month as a freelance video producer. But as the pandemic intensified, those gig earnings quickly dwindled to $700.

Due to all the uncertainty about the future, I found myself sleeping on a futon at my sister’s house in New Jersey. I felt restless and missed all the traveling I used to do for work.

But a few months later, my prayers were answered: Croatia announced that it would start offering a one-year residence permit to digital nomads (anyone outside of the European Union working remotely) in January 2021.

I had visited Croatia before and was utterly captivated by the country, so I decided to apply.

Getting Croatia’s digital nomad residence permit
I did a lot of prep work between April and December before getting approved for the permit.

The application processing fee was $100, and to qualify, I needed to have a monthly income of at least $2,750. So throughout the following months, I aggressively built a recurring income stream from freelance gigs (video producing and copywriting) through Upwork.

By December, I was back to making around $4,000 per month. I was also an obsessive saver and rarely spent my earnings. So with the $76,000 I had in my savings account, I felt financially secure enough to live abroad.