Keeping up with clients when working abroad and more notes from our meet up on 4th March 2026
Posted by Paul Silver
On the 4th March, 16 freelancers got together in the Battle of Trafalgar pub, Brighton to talk all things tech and self employment. This is a little of what was talked about:
- The state of contracting
- Potential future projects
- Python
- Keeping up with clients when abroad
- Should we stay at the Battle of Trafalgar?
- Deputyships and Power of Attorney
- How freelancers in different sectors work
- Highdown restaurant in Worthing is very good for celiacs
- F1 and fantasy F1 leagues
- A mis-schedule in a house move
- Trump attacking Iran
- 1 in 80 people in Dubai is an “influencer”
- When working in Dubai, there being a “slave class” is obvious
Keeping up with clients when abroad
There’s two sides of this…
When on holiday
Some freelancers take a laptop with them on holiday and will tackle emails and occasional calls to keep up with clients.
Personally, I’ll only do this in an emergency. I don’t get a lot of solid family time and like to spend my holidays definitely not thinking about work unless someone relying on me has an absolute emergency. Fortunately, my clients are good about this and won’t bother me when I’m away unless something is seriously wrong. In the last two years, I haven’t had to do anything for any of my clients while I’ve been on holiday.
You will need to work out what’s best for you, and understand that in your early years, you might be tempted or need to be at least a little available for clients, even though it’s not ideal. I have the advantage of having done this for a very long time now and I have had time and the priviledge to keep clients who are great and let ones who weren’t so much move on to other people. You might not be so lucky, but you can work towards clients who will respect your holiday time. Being contacted all of the time is not an inevitable part of freelancing.
When working abroad
If you’re working while you’re visiting another country, you’ll need to make sure to schedule any meetings to make it easy to attend them while in the timezone you’re visiting. You don’t want to have a bunch of client calls at 10pm while you’re trying to explore another country and culture.
If you haven’t told your client(s) you’re working from another country, make sure it’s not too much of a surprise if you’re on a Teams/Zoom call and they see a palm tree or mountain behind you.
Remember that you have every right to work from wherever you like in the world (local laws permitting.) If you like visiting other countries and work in all sorts of tech jobs, you can definitely take your work with you. Just make sure you can keep your motivation to work up while you’re there. Otherwise, it might be better to just take the time to have a proper holiday and leave work behind for a while.