You don’t have to tell Barry Frangipane that the Internet has made the world a little smaller.
Frangipane, a software engineer, was used to telecommuting from his home in Tampa Bay, but he didn’t realize how far telecommuting could reach until he read Under the Tuscan Sun, a book about an American who chucked it all to live in Italy.
“The key about Under the Tuscan Sun was that they had a ton of money,” said Frangipane, author of The Venice Experiment (http://www.veniceexperiment.com), a memoir that chronicles their year living in Europe while he telecommuted to his software job in the states.
“Shoot, anyone could move to a foreign country with a ton of money. We wanted to see if a typical middle-class couple could do it, with a job. We looked at the realities of it, and theorized it could work. On the downside, my wife Debbie wouldn’t be able to keep her job, as she did not telecommute. On the upside, we could sell both cars and eliminate the monthly tab for two car payments and the associated insurance. Further, we both prided ourselves on being great cooks, so we’d be able to experiment with European dishes in our own kitchen – in Europe!”
