100% agree, I moved from Switzerland back to Spain for similar reasons.
Now I'm freelancing for a couple of companies in NYC and my quality of life and productivity improve a lot, the only drawback it's the 6 hours of difference.
We do a skype meeting once per week, for 1 hour or two. The day of the meeting I had to stay at work until 8-9 pm, so this day I come to work late in the morning.
Email+issue tracker for the rest of the communication. Asynchronous communication help me to stay focused.
When I worked remote for a shop out of London (I'm in St. Louis, Missouri, so the time difference is similar), I just woke up a bit earlier. It worked fine. I was there early enough to catch what needed to be done so they didn't need to stay longer just to accomodate me.
