Out of Office: This High-Design Retreat in Portugal Promises Paradise for Globe-Trotting Creatives

Picture a digital nomad. Maybe he has long hair. Or maybe he’s bald and probably Australian. He’s an engineer or a writer or a dancer. He swings from sublet to sublet but has a mailing address in Berlin or Brooklyn. He winters in Bali or Cape Town, only to return home for a few weeks in the summer when the weather’s nice. Most of the time, you’ll find him by the beach at Burning Man or scrolling Reddit at the nearest airport lounge. And if you’re passing through Portugal, you might just find him at Fools’ Valley.

A self-proclaimed "sanctuary for creative weirdos," Fools’ Valley spans a 40-acre private valley in the municipality of Sobral de Monte Agraço, north of Lisbon. I feel a bit lost as my cab pulls up: To my right, the valley descends into thick greenery, interrupted by the pointed cap of a yurt. I turn left to face a steep cliffside with few signs of human life. All I hear is a dog and a few chickens. As I watch my driver disappear down the dirt path, I wonder if I’ve made a mistake.

"The fool is an archetype from tarot: It symbolizes stepping into the unknown and dropping all preconceptions," Chris Wray, a British philosopher and lawyer and the cofounder of Fools’ Valley, tells me as he leads me down a footpath and to the heart of the valley.

Founded in 2021 by Chris and Liza Simonova, an entrepreneur from Russia, Fools’ Valley is one of a growing number of co-living communities around the world that cater to the itinerant class of remote workers. Some guests stay for a week or a month. Others set up shop for years. These digital-nomad hot spots celebrate an alternative way of living. Here, shared experiences are more valuable than private bathrooms. Walking barefoot is the norm. At Fools’ Valley, everyone is a little bit free.

The land is the property of a company owned by Chris and a British investor—a contact from Chris’s time as a lawyer specializing in mediation and blockchain technology whom Chris declined to identify. Guests can rent rooms, either in a house designed by Portuguese photographer and architect Victor Palla in the 1990s or in the "octopus building," one of three new structures designed by Porto-based architecture firm Fala.