Tired of working from home in your bedroom? Here’s an idea

So your boss said you can work from home for the foreseeable future. But he didn’t actually say that “home” can’t be an exotic island in the Caribbean, did he?

If so, provided you can figure out a way to get there in our limited-travel pandemic world, then Barbados could be just the place for you.

As with so many holiday islands around the world that find themselves without holidaymakers, this independent British Commonwealth nation in the eastern Caribbean is desperately casting around for ways to attract visitors to their decimated economies.

Year-long visa give no-hassle entry if you’re a remote worker

Barbados thinks one of the ways it can attract at least some visitors is to offer itself as a 12-month work-from-home location for people who are tired or working from their spare bedrooms or hastily-revamped window-less storerooms.

If you sign up for the concept, you’ll get a special visa that lets you live there with minimal hassle from the immigration authorities for a full year.

You can come and go from the island as often as you please, with the only real stipulation being that you are working remotely for a business overseas and not taking a job that would otherwise go to a local.

“You can come here and work for a couple months at a time; go back [home] and come back,” Prime Minister Mia Amor Mottley said in early July when she floated the idea.

The Caribbean beats a cold Jo’burg or blustery Cape Town

A home-office overlooking an eternally warm and beautiful Caribbean beach may just beat – by some margin – a winter home-office in Gauteng or a blustery and rainy Sea Point.

And if you’re concerned about jumping out the South African coronavirus frying pan and into the coronavirus fire of Barbados, then don’t worry. According to the New York Post, quoting figures from John Hopkins University, Barbados has so far had just over 100 cases and only seven deaths.

But Barbados would like to keep it that way, so you will be required to take a COVID-19 test prior to departure for the island.

International flights to the island have now resumed

On the heels of 35 days with no new cases on the island, commercial flights into Barbados resumed this past weekend with a twice-weekly Air Canada service.

This week British Airways will resume a weekly flight out of London Gatwick, while Jet Blue is tentatively set to return to the island on 25 nJuly with four weekly flights out of New York.

Flights by other carriers are expected to begin from August.