Working Remotely in Milan, Italy
This is part of my remote work travel series where I review places I visit as a digital nomad.
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Milan might as well be called the City of Off-Duty Models, because every street was filled with beautiful people wearing elaborate art pieces who seemed on their way to a photoshoot. The beauty of this city extends to the massive amount of design-centric boutiques. If you’re looking for a new outfit or a new couch for your loft, Milan has some aesthetic shop with a neon sign to lure you in.
There’s something fascinating about these cities that have a deeply old—even crumbling—facade, but every store has been renovated to match the modern vibe. It’s almost like a movie set of pre-war Italy has been fashioned for 21st Century modern living.
Living and working in Milan was as dreamy as it was bustling. Here are some of my top tips to get the most out of this city of design!
Where to Eat and What to Do in Milan, Italy
failing at a cooking class in Milan, Italy
Listen, I don’t want to sound like a broken record here, but once again Prague wins out with the best food we’ve had on our trip. How can that be? What is it about that single Eastern European city that seems to have won out over all of Italy? I’m not sure, but we definitely were not wowed by the culinary attempts of Milan.
So when it comes to food recs, I really can’t offer very much. We went to a ton of different hip restaurants and ramen bars and yet I can only really recommend Piz, a great pizza place where they give you drinks and a pizza slice before you even order. (Any restaurant that gives you free stuff upfront is a great place in my books!)
Actually, I take that back: the top food recommendation I have for Milan is to take a pasta making class with a wonderful older Italian woman who runs classes out of her rooftop penthouse in Milan. We made food inside, and then went out back to her rooftop garden and had dinner under the stars. It also reminded me that I could never cut it as a housewife, and she came over several times to (very kindly) tell me I had ruined my pasta dough and she gave me hers. My partner Kyle, on the other hand, was a star student in the class. (No surprise there!)
When it comes to activities, you should go to the Duomo and do a self-guided audio tour. It’s a pretty stunning piece of architecture, and we went there on a rainy day and wandered around for an hour or so listening to the history of the different sculptures inside. Cool stuff.
Going to see The Last Supper and taking a day trip to Lake Cuomo should be on your list, also. It was on ours, but we didn’t end up going as we were a bit inundated with work and choose to spend our free time just hanging around and going shopping. There’s a lot of boutiques in Milan that aren’t a million dollars, and I got a stylish outfit that is perfect for both work meetings and naps. (My ideal sense of style, really!)
Tips for Digital Nomads Visiting Milan, Italy
also failing at finding a pumpkin spiced latte in Milan’s Starbucks Reserve
Milan feels closest to an LA or NYC vibe, as there are office buildings and art museums and crowded streets and bars with a lot going on. It’s still got the laid-back Italian atmosphere, though: I remember passing someone sitting outside at a cafe drinking coffee… and then five hours later came back to find the person still there, this time drinking alcohol as the cafe transitioned into a bar for the evening. What a life.
A reminder that we were not in the states, however, was the realization that there wasn’t any Pumpkin Spice Lattes in Europe… at all. Not even at the fancy, two-story Starbucks Reserve we went to in the center of Milan. Europeans: how can you let this stand? Do you not subscribe to the cozy fall aesthetic? Is there a lack of pumpkin farming? Do you not enjoy the corporatization of seasons??? I will never understand.
There was also a few WeWorks here, which is our ideal homebase for long work days. We ended up spending several eight-hour-days at the coworking space catching up on meetings, and our brains turned to mush but at least there was free tea and coffee to combat the soupiness of our mental states. The less glamorous parts of being a digital nomad include long workweeks. I also spoke at USC to share more about how I live my lifestyle as a digital nomad, and I shared my course on how I made $100,000+ as a freelance writer on Upwork.
If you’re a digital nomad, I recommend staying in the historic part of town: we stayed near the Darsena canal and Parco Giovanni Paolo II, and there were a lot of cute restaurants and small boutiques but it was far enough from the insanity of the main shopping area that we didn’t experience the same crush of people as the center of the city does.
Walking along the canals at sunset is always a favorite experience of mine. If you’re in Europe and you’re not finding yourself near whatever random bodies of water there are in your city, what are you doing?
Developing Intuitive Remote Work Practices
We’ve got about a month and a half left in our remote work journey, and are headed to Florence, Montepulciano, Venice, and London in the coming weeks before we return to the States. It’s kind of surreal to be halfway through our trip: I feel like I’ve finally settled into a routine on the road.
I learned what my non-negotiables were pretty quick after we embarked: I ended up buying a foldable yoga mat since I needed to stick to a fitness routine, and now we’re back to our daily yoga routine + weekly HIIT workouts. I journal in my stoic journal every day, meditate for 15 minutes twice a day, stay consistent on writing on this blog, and clear out my to-do list on a regular basis. Sundays are for cleaning, goal-setting, to-do list organizing, and for prepping for the week ahead. Each day we eat healthy, vegan meals, (with a few exceptions — pizza and pasta in Italy is still a must-experience) do something challenging, and learn something new.
Intuitive work is a term I use to describe an approach to work that takes into account a more holistic daily schedule: one that prioritizes mental and physical health so that you can show up to your desk refreshed and energized. You’re mindful through your daily tasks, and reflect daily on how you can better tackle your day-to-day.
I’ll be writing more soon about how to create the ideal monthly work schedule based on a number of different holistic factors, but until then start to think more holistically about your daily routine. What feels forced? How can you get more in the flow with your daily routine?
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