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Today’s PrideNomad™ Quiz:

In Today’s Email:

Destinations: The France "just move there and work remote" claim — and why it can get you deported
Nomad Hack: A 5-minute way to fact-check any "move abroad" rumor before you fall for it
Destinations: The Riviera hiding one hill above the expensive part
One Wonderful Thing: 🥖 The most wholesome (and smelly) thing happening this Saturday

DESTINATIONS:

France Didn't Open the Door. It Quietly Locked a Different One.

There's a rumor going around, and I need to catch you before you act on it.

We've started seeing this advice repeated so often that it's beginning to sound like fact.

You've probably seen some version of it — a confident post, a comment thread, a TikTok: "Just move to France on a visitor visa and work remotely. Totally fine."

It is not totally fine.

As of 2025, France officially banned remote work on the long-stay visitor visa — even when every client and employer you have sits on the other side of the ocean. The French tax authorities decided that work done from French soil counts as work done in France, full stop. The visitor visa now comes with a form where you literally sign a promise not to work.

Get caught working anyway, and you're looking at renewal problems — or a polite request to leave the country you just uprooted your whole life for.

And no — France still has no digital nomad visa. Whatever the internet told you.

Here's the part that matters, though. I'm not here to kill the dream. Just the shortcut.

The legal routes still exist — they're just actual immigration pathways instead of internet loopholes: the Profession Libérale (self-employed) visa, the Talent Passport, the Entrepreneur visa. They take more paperwork. They also don't end with you explaining yourself to a préfecture.

The fantasy version of France — land, open your laptop, sort the details out later — is gone.

The grown-up version is very much alive. And the grown-up version is the one that actually lets you stay.

This is exactly why we built the PrideNomad Index. Countries change. Fast. Your mental picture of a place is almost always older than the place itself.

NOMAD HACK:

The 5-Minute Rumor Check

That France rumor fooled a lot of smart people. Here's how to never be one of them.

Next time you see a "just move to [country] and work remotely!" claim — before you act on it — do this:

1. Go to the country's official government immigration site (search "[country] visa service-public," or the consulate — not a blog or a Reel). Two minutes.

2. Find the visa that matches your actual situation, and read what it forbids, not just what it allows. The France trap was hiding in a single line: a signed promise not to work.

3. If a visa sounds suspiciously easy, assume you're missing the catch — and go find it before it finds you.

Influencers publish first. Governments have the final say — and the government's website is the one that can deport you. Trust the boring source.

I'm 63 With $1.5M. Can I Spend $10K a Month?

You’ve saved $1.5 million. Now comes the real test.

Can it produce $10,000 a month, or will that pace drain your portfolio?

Most retirees do not get a clear answer until it is too late.

The issue is not just how much you have. It is whether your portfolio was built to pay you, not just grow.

That difference can determine whether your money lasts decades or starts breaking down early.

Sequence of returns, taxes on withdrawals, healthcare costs, and whether the 4% rule still applies all play a role.

Fiduciary advisors created a breakdown showing what drives sustainable income and why the same $1.5M can produce very different outcomes.

If you have $1M or more invested, do not guess.

See How Long My Money Lasts

Learn More

DESTINATIONS:

The Riviera Hiding One Hill Above the Expensive Part.

Full disclosure before I romanticize the French Riviera: the last time I was there — Nice, about thirty years ago — someone relieved me of my passport straight out of the trunk of my rental car. So take my starry eyes with a grain of Mediterranean salt.

But here's what's true, and what's changed.

Most people picture the Riviera as Nice, Cannes, Saint-Tropez — the yacht-and-champagne coast, with the price tag to match. That's one Riviera. There's another one most people never look up to see: the perched stone villages in the hills right behind it.

Cabris is the postcard — a tiny village above Grasse (yes, the perfume capital), with a castle esplanade that looks clear out to the Mediterranean. Valbonne, Tourettes-sur-Loup, same story. These are the kind of places where your rent buys a view instead of a parking space — and you're still close enough to Nice or Monaco when you want community.

Why bring it up now? Because the whole region just got more interesting for us. Monaco — a short drive along the same coast — just confirmed it's preparing legislation for same-sex civil unions. Nice and Cannes have had an established gay scene for decades; what's shifting is the legal ground underneath the glamour.

One honest caveat: these hill villages are small and quiet. The queer life is down on the coast and in Monaco's orbit — not in the village square. But as a calmer, cheaper base within reach of all of it? The Riviera has a back door, and hardly anyone's using it.

(Just… maybe keep your passport on you.)

🥖 ONE WONDERFUL THING

Garlic Gays?

Quick exhale from all the visa fine print.

There's a movement spreading across the queer world, and it might be the most wholesome thing going: Gays Eating Garlic Bread in the Park.

That's genuinely the whole event. That's the name. You show up to a park, bring your own garlic bread (yes — BYOGB), and eat it on the grass with a few hundred other queer people.

It started in Seattle in 2024 — one person, homemade posters, hoping maybe 30 might come. This June, 800 showed up. It's since spread to Portland, Chicago, Omaha, even Norway. And this Saturday, July 11, 2–6pm, Calgary gets its turn.

No stage. No sponsors. No cover. No agenda beyond carbs and each other. In a year when a lot of people are just looking for community, a few hundred of them answering "right here, with bread" feels surprisingly important.

Near Calgary Saturday? Go. Not near Calgary? The whole thing started because one person made a poster. You could start one in your park too.

FINAL NOTE:

Here's the thread running through today.

The shortcut into France is a trap. The real route is more work — and it's the one that actually lets you stay.

The famous Riviera is expensive. The one just uphill is waiting.

And the best event of your summer might be a few strangers eating garlic bread on the grass.

The version worth building is almost never the shortcut. That's the whole job around here — helping you find it.

See you Friday for Latitude.

— Ken 🌈

Answer to Today’s Quiz

Know someone who's been asking "could I really do this?" — forward this to them. They're exactly who we're here for.