51–60 of 88 posts
I just got back from 6 months traveling Europe and working. I traveled with my Wife and two small children. No regrets and now that we are back (for a while), I'm ready to do it all over again. No matter how many photos of friends/acquaintances who have done it and their always smiling photos - its still real life. Not every day is rainbows and butterflys. Routine (as others have stated) in very important to define.…
I've done it from 2013-2016, on and off. What many people do is travel then think "this is it, I want to do this forever", then travel, isolate themselves from their home communities, live in cheap places, make some money, share cocktail by the pool photos on Instagram with a hashtag #nomadlife and then get clinically depressed. Then they return to their home countries after 3 years, but they've lost touch with their…
I've done it from 2013-2016, on and off. What many people do is travel then think "this is it, I want to do this forever", then travel, isolate themselves from their home communities, live in cheap places, make some money, share cocktail by the pool photos on Instagram with a hashtag #nomadlife and then get clinically depressed. Then they return to their home countries after 3 years, but they've lost touch with their…
That freedom is the holy grail, and I think has more to do with financial independence than anything. It's cheaper to be a full-time nomad because no rent, but money is worth trading for comfort. It all depends on individual preference. Confidence in your goals will bring you where you want to be!
I've done it from 2013-2016, on and off. What many people do is travel then think "this is it, I want to do this forever", then travel, isolate themselves from their home communities, live in cheap places, make some money, share cocktail by the pool photos on Instagram with a hashtag #nomadlife and then get clinically depressed. Then they return to their home countries after 3 years, but they've lost touch with their…
> I moved back home and use it as a homebase to fly everywhere. I like that I have the freedom to take a taxi to the airport and be there in 10 minutes, board a plane with my laptop in a carry-on backpack and fly somewhere random, work from there and stay there until I get bored and fly back. That's extreme freedom and it means I still can have my home life and friends + have amazing travel experiences. That freedom…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I moved back home and use it as a homebase to fly everywhere. I like that I have the freedom to take a taxi to the airport and be there in 10 minutes, board a plane with my laptop in a carry-on backpack and fly somewhere random, work from there and stay there until I get bored and fly back. That's extreme freedom and it means I still can have my home life and friends + have amazing travel experiences. That freedom…
If you leave you can Airbnb your place and mitigate that (and even make a profit).
I've done it from 2013-2016, on and off. What many people do is travel then think "this is it, I want to do this forever", then travel, isolate themselves from their home communities, live in cheap places, make some money, share cocktail by the pool photos on Instagram with a hashtag #nomadlife and then get clinically depressed. Then they return to their home countries after 3 years, but they've lost touch with their…
You're essentially still paying the rent/mortgage costs of having a fixed home + any travel expenses. I thought the advantage of the DN lifestyle was that you didn't have the costs of a fixed home and could funnel that towards seeing the world.
I found a happy medium in working remotely from a vacation spot one week a month. On months where I didn't want to take a week, we spent a weekend somewhere. This worked fine with two kids under four. Admittedly I was already in my thirties and perfectly happy with my life.
How far is it from your non-remote location? I guess with a week you could spend a fair amount of time driving there without it being too bad because the drive time is aggregated over 10 days (presuming both weekends are at the vacation spot.)
Anyway, this is a great idea!
It was wonderful in a lot of ways, but there were a couple problems:
-- We still spent too much time getting acclimated and set up in the new place to work. For instance, we stayed in AirBnB places almost the whole time, but we kept having to buy office chairs because most chairs in rental places are not conducive to sitting for 8 hours a day.
-- It cost too much. It's hard to "go native" quickly and optimize your food and other expenses, so we would be spending more than we needed to even in poor countries eating like Americans either because we didn't know what a lot of the food was or we ate out too much. We were not earning enough from our apps business to cover our expenses.
-- Visas are a hassle, and border agents don't understand the concept of "I'm going to spend 90 days in your country and I haven't planned out all 90 of them, in fact, I haven't planned out any of them." Almost got refused entry to England when I wasn't able to name a lot of specific tourist things we planned to do. "We're gonna go to Bath and hang out, basically". Got chastised as if it was somehow rude for me to answer the question honestly. (Personally I think it was low class low income tinpot dictator with a beef taking it out on me for being able to live like this when she was stuck in her stupid job.)
There's a lot to recommend it, but it involves a nontrivial cost and effort.
One mistake we made: we would often spend the time with ourselves. It wasn't until we were in one country a couple years (got year long visas there) that we started mingling with the local groups where locals and foreigners would meet regularly (to practice language skills). That was a mistake- had a lot more fun once we started doing that.)
A lot cheaper, a lot nicer (plus more space) apt/amenities at my doorstep (pool/gym/tennis courts/malls & stores if I feel consumerist) and cheaper travel in asia for my visa runs every 30 days if I don't want to bother for a longer visa. My gf and her fam are pretty cool, so I kinda have "home" life. Traffic is shit, but gojek and uber make it not matter much. I feel like I'm getting more for less compared to in Boston. Though use of decriminalized substances in Boston wont result in penalties like death, I think its a fair tradeoff.
This works for me more than trying to travel so much which just sounds tiring both mentally and physically.