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- For working parents, uprooting family to travel and live abroad isn’t an easy decision — nor is it an easy move.
- Mauro Repacci founded Boundless Life to “make travelling around the world seamless and memorable for families.”
- Speaking to Allwork.Space as part of the Future of Work Podcast, Mauro explains how he and his team are helping families live the digital nomad dream.
For digital nomads, working and travelling is all in a day’s work. But for those with family, it’s a little more complicated.
That’s where Mauro Repacci steps in.
Mauro founded Boundless Life to “make travelling around the world seamless and memorable for families.”
Boundless Life sets out to help families experience the digital nomad lifestyle by providing furnished homes, coworking spaces, and a structured learning program for children based on the Finnish curriculum — along with step-by-step support for visas and other paperwork.
Currently, Boundless Life provides its unique family-oriented digital nomad experience in Portugal, Greece and Italy. It was founded in 2021 and already has more locations on the way.
CEO Mauro Repacci joined the Future of Work Podcast to talk about Boundless Life and how he and his team are making what was once just a pipe dream a reality for a growing number of families.
Interview responses have been edited for clarity
So where did it all begin?
“What led me to start it [Boundless Life] was the fact that my oldest daughter, Victoria, was turning seven and had joined the public system in Canada where I was living at the time. That was during the pandemic. And, like many parents, because we were working from home, we actually had the opportunity for the first time to really see how the school system works.”
Mauro didn’t like what he saw.
“I was shocked. Nothing had changed from the time I was a kid 30 years ago.”
In some ways, Mauro felt it was worse than ever, with 30 children per class and no personalized learning. He wanted to find a better solution. At the same time, he wanted more freedom and flexibility; he wanted to be able to move around rather than being tied to one place.
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“I wanted a lifestyle of being able to move. I was born in Brazil, my ancestors are from Italy, Portugal, Lebanon. So, I really never felt like I could live in just one place. I wanted flexibility.”
The main reason for staying in one place was his daughter’s education. But Mauro didn’t just want a vacation. He wanted something longer term (besides, as every parent knows, taking vacations during school breaks is chaotic and eye-wateringly expensive).
As an entrepreneur, Mauro got to work creating a solution.
He realised that the digital nomad movement had evolved.
Although this lifestyle is dominated by location-independent entrepreneurs and freelancers, it has a more mature side.
There are the digital nomads who have lived the lifestyle and want to continue it. Then there are those who want to experience the freedom of travelling and working on the move. But in both cases, it’s not easy to drop everything and take off when you have a family to think about.
That’s who Boundless Life is appealing to.
It’s offering a solution for working parents who want to be able to move and travel without disrupting their children’s education.
Unsurprisingly, interest has peaked since the pandemic.
During Covid-19 and the rapid shift to remote work, people began evaluating their work and lifestyle decisions. Some of these thoughts may sound familiar: Why live within commuting distance of an office I no longer use? Why live in a small apartment in the city when I can live in a larger house in the country? Or by the sea?
Perhaps as a kickback to the pent-up frustrations of Covid confinement, some people are now taking these ideas a step closer to reality.
They are ready to uproot. They aren’t prepared to wait for retirement. The pandemic was an emotional rollercoaster that made the fragility of life all too clear.
But interestingly, Mauro discovered that most people don’t want a sabbatical experience. Many of the people who choose Boundless Life want a more permanent switch. They want a foot in two countries.
“This was a big surprise for us,” said Mauro. “The majority of our clients are people that say, I love London, I want to be there six months per year, but I also want to be in another city because of the weather and lifestyle, the mountains, or the beach.”
Some have family in more than one place, while others have location-independent businesses and people who work from multiple locations.
Rather than taking a trip to see family, or a company retreat to work with colleagues, Boundless Life makes it possible to spend much longer, often three or six months, living and working remotely in multiple locations.
Above all, it creates the opportunity for people to move around, which is exactly what led Mauro to the idea in the first place.
And the digital nomad community is responding. Since 2021, Mauro has made rapid progress.
“We have been growing very, very fast. In just seven months, we went from 4 people to 50.”
As for next steps, the team is doubling down on improving the quality of its education offering for children as well as seeking out new locations for the future.
“I’m taking my family to scout a bunch of Asian locations, and then we’re moving to Italy to launch the third location of Boundless.”
Remote work is here to stay, but ‘remote’ doesn’t have to mean working from home. Boundless Life is making it possible to blend local education, coworking, and travel into a transformative experience for every generation, and introducing a fresh twist to the future of work, too.
Listen and discover more about Boundless Life on the Allwork.Space podcast.
