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Ask HN: Did some of you try the digital nomad lifestyle and not like it?

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Re: Ask HN: Did some of you try the digital nomad lifestyle and not like it?

#71

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.…

Sounds interesting! And kinda exhausting. How old are your kids?

They turned 4 & 2 while we were there.

Re: Ask HN: Did some of you try the digital nomad lifestyle and not like it?

#72
I did it briefly for 3-4 months in 2014, mostly out of necessty (stuff was happening and thank God I was working remotely at the time).

My two cents: don't do it with a small-screen laptop: my ThinkPad X220 had served me good for me until then, but it has been a huge PITA to work at places with a 12.5 HD (1376x768) screen.

I would happily do it again, but now I have a 15.6" FHD ThinkPad W530.

If anyone is reading: I'd like to learn devops and I'm fairly well versed with Linux, bash scripting and stuff. If you'd like to get an apprentice/intern or something, drop me a line.

Re: Ask HN: Did some of you try the digital nomad lifestyle and not like it?

#73

I'm curious what the median age is for people seeking this lifestyle. It reminds me a lot of musician-friends I've had who in their early 20s were obsessed with busking across the world.

From my data, it's mostly 25 to 35. So they leave after graduating college and presumably come back after 35 to settle. That might change though as it's only been a decade that people have been doing this (and only a few years on massive scale).

Re: Ask HN: Did some of you try the digital nomad lifestyle and not like it?

#74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all remote jobs will be open to you keeping constantly changing and non-standard hours, right? I think freelance and self-employment would be more suited to this lifestyle.

That still perplexes me about "remote jobs", some employers still expect everyone to work synchronously. That seems to miss the point of having distributed workers. I've done a few stints of 3 months nonstop on the road, and when I had an employer we typically had weekly & monthly milestones, and no Skype meetings. Our communication was asynchronous (email back then). They'd often ask for smaller things 'ASAP', but a…

The point for the employer is access to a much larger pool of potential hires. Lots of people don't want to commute or move for a job. It doesn't always make sense to require synchronous work, but I can understand why some employers want a virtual 9-5 presence, especially if there's already an established synchronous team.

Re: Ask HN: Did some of you try the digital nomad lifestyle and not like it?

#75

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.

Where is your vacation spot? EG: you have a fixed one like a cabin or something that you always go to, or do you change it up? 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!

No fixed spot. We generally travel up and down the eastern coast of the US. Anything from Disney World up to New England. With young kids it's mostly driving within a 10-12 hour radius split up into an evening and a morning drive. Common example would be to leave Friday evening, stay at a motel that night if it was a longer drive, and finish up the next morning. Do the same on the way back the following weekend.

Re: Ask HN: Did some of you try the digital nomad lifestyle and not like it?

#76
Let me give a different perspective.

I used this lifestyle to build a remote team up to 14.

I slipped into this accidentally because my startups customers were from asia. I got hooked on the travel quick and did it whenever I could.

I also speak at conferences which helped as well.

1. relationships. Focus on a few countries not all. Switch it up between them. Otherwise you have the shallow relationships problem.

2. Have a goal. In my case it was just building my startup via hiring and sales.

3. Experience and learn the local culture. It helped shape not only my business model but also my outlook on a few things. Also learn what the locals feel is bad. Don't just look for the good.

4. Know when it will end. I made that decision in early 2016 starting this early 2015.

This has caused me to love the lifestyle moving from sf to tokyo.

Nuances: I had customers. My company also has funding. The customers abroad came before the funding. We are an open source company so not all hires were from approaching people I met abroad but it got us a few.

Hope this helps!

Re: Ask HN: Did some of you try the digital nomad lifestyle and not like it?

#77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That still perplexes me about "remote jobs", some employers still expect everyone to work synchronously. That seems to miss the point of having distributed workers. I've done a few stints of 3 months nonstop on the road, and when I had an employer we typically had weekly & monthly milestones, and no Skype meetings. Our communication was asynchronous (email back then). They'd often ask for smaller things 'ASAP', but a…

The point for the employer is access to a much larger pool of potential hires. Lots of people don't want to commute or move for a job. It doesn't always make sense to require synchronous work, but I can understand why some employers want a virtual 9-5 presence, especially if there's already an established synchronous team.

Aha! The part about widening the pool of hires makes sense. I didn't really understand why employers would want remote workers but then not then allow flexible hours. I missed that being able to hire outside your local area is a big upgrade for some businesses.

Re: Ask HN: Did some of you try the digital nomad lifestyle and not like it?

#78

I am currently doing it. Spent 4 weeks in Stockholm, two weeks in Cluj Romania, currently in Prague as I type this. Next up is Berlin. I am from San Francisco, and have one startup ( https://commando.io ) that has paying customers, and also working on a new company as well. So far I love it. Though I will admit, it sometimes can be difficult to put in the hours when there are so many things to see, people to meet, an…

I'm curious about your stay in Cluj. Whereabouts did you live and work? How'd you like it?

Re: Ask HN: Did some of you try the digital nomad lifestyle and not like it?

#79

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…

> What many people do is [...]

You've provided no sources or anything

Re: Ask HN: Did some of you try the digital nomad lifestyle and not like it?

#80

I went once to Chiang Mai, where there were quite a lot of digital nomads. Didn't see very appealing lifestyle to me. I prefer western comfort, infrastructure, culture and weather. On the other hand, the positive sides are very concrete as well. Especially living costs.

What parts did you find not appealing?
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