Your daily commute to work on a stifling train or bus could soon be a thing of the past, with the emergence of a new trend in overseas commuting, according to research out today. The UK's commuter belt is set to extend to sunnier European locales such as Barcelona and Dubrovnik, where the relaxed workers of the future will take advantage of teleworking and drop into the UK when necessary, according to Thomson Holidays.

The travel company's forum on the future of travel has predicted that the trend could be well established by 2016, and says such commuters will consider their overseas home to be their primary residence. Culture-lovers may opt to buy properties in Marrakech, Barcelona and Dubrovnik, while those after a business buzz will head for Verona, Hanover and Stuttgart, it claims. Work-life balance could be improved, it says, by increasing annual leave in the form of "soft" holidays when employees must work a minimum number of hours, albeit it from the beach.

Happily, the forum also identified a rising demand for "fair trade" and "green" holidays and said customers would come to expect travel products with strong ethical credentials as standard.

Professor Nick Middleton, chairman of the Thomson Future Forum, said: "In as little as 10 years, the way we travel and the reasons for travel will be vastly changed. The rapid advance of technology and global communications networks will make international commuting highly desirable and viable."

But Tricia Barnet, director of Tourism Concern cautioned: "This trend is not new and it's rather scary. It becomes a question of the individual consumer lifestyle against the needs of the planet. It's not that we should stop travelling, but we really need to question the frequency of our travel and the implications for global warming."

Though the Flyer would dearly love to relocate to a temperate, wifi-equipped beach on the Adriatic coast, she fears that the regular flights and their associated environmental impact might tip her newly found work-life balance ... off balance.

· This blog entry first appeared in The Flyer, Travel's weekly email, on July 14 2006. Click here to subsribe.