Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How I thought I wanted to become a digital nomad

alexp.github.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 204 posts

Re: How I thought I wanted to become a digital nomad

#61

Post by timmaah »

VLM wrote: post #18

My father did something like this in his later years and I never heard any of the complaints in the article; then again he had an RV instead of a 44 liter backpack and mostly stayed in the USA rather than crossing the world. Connectivity was the main problem I heard about. I guess its much better now. Also its not a binary decision. Its a big planet and you can select whatever tradeoff you'd prefer in a nearly pure a…

Was your father working at the time?

My wife and I live, work and travel from a 25' Airstream and can definitely relate to a lot of the point the post has made as well as the "decision fatigue" mentioned in other comments. It is tough to keep focus for 8 hours when your scenery is changing from week to week and there are so many new awesome places to explore. That said.. We are currently loving it with no plans to stop or slow today. Todays adventure is mountain biking in Bend Oregon.

Decision fatigue comes in with route planning, trying to figure out if that cool forest road everyone talks about will have cell service, where to fill up with water, where to dump the tanks... all of which are near constant. We could slow it down a bit and stay in an RV park a month or so, but we enjoy moving and don't enjoy the atmosphere of most private RV parks.

Re: How I thought I wanted to become a digital nomad

#62

Post by alexp »

hawkharris wrote: post #53

Alex, you're a very skilled storyteller. I enjoyed reading the post. I have one small piece of constructive feedback: your use of commas was a little confusing at times, and it slowed down my reading. Commas can be tricky, and I sometimes struggle with them as well. Here's a quick guide that I find useful: http://www.grammarbook.com/punctuation/commas.asp

Thanks :) I'll improve.

Best, Alex

Re: How I thought I wanted to become a digital nomad

#63

Post by kalleboo »

cmeranda wrote: post #17

Programming (for me) occurs at the apex of an extended Maslow's type hierarchy, and traveling often destroys the very foundations of it. The code I write when sleep-deprived, hungover, hungry, sunburnt, and sitting on a bumpy Thai train wondering if I missed my stop and wishing there was internet & coffee, is strongly inferior to what I write in a well-lit, quiet environment, fed, rested, fueled by engineering conver…

> Programming (for me) occurs at the apex of an extended Maslow's type hierarchy, and traveling often destroys the very foundations of it

For me, it varies with my mood. A lot of the time having some stress and interesting surroundings spurs my creativity and I've written some of my best code in a park, on an airplane or at a café. Other times I just want to lock myself in a familiar room with all my comforts and shut out the world.

That's why when I do the travel-and-work thing, I stay for 2-3 mo in a place, and I can mix things up depending on how I feel that week. I've also decided for myself that it's never a failure of travel to not be in local's dining room every night living the "real experience". I'm not on vacation, I'm still working, so I'll never see #2 as an issue.

Re: How I thought I wanted to become a digital nomad

#64

Post by personlurking »

keithpeter wrote: post #47
personlurking wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. I learned beforehand. I couldn't imagine living somewhere w/o speaking the language (though now that I'm in Portugal, European Portuguese feels like it actually is another language, lol).

Good for you. I teach some Afro-Portugese students who have washed up here in the UK. I always think they are talking German amongst themselves in the cafe!

In Lisbon, I feel like I'm hearing Russian half the time. It's like riding the bus in San Francisco, old Russian people. Speaking of, Lisbon is chock full of the elderly.

One of the interesting parts of living here is the African diaspora. It's really nice to get my fill of African culture in a language I can understand. Speaking a few words of criole is even considered cool among Portuguese teens.

Re: How I thought I wanted to become a digital nomad

#65

Post by kalleboo »

config_yml wrote: post #7

"And to be completely honest, it’s just not enough. I believe that working with a team of people that are more experienced and smarter than yourself is crucial for your development, and as a freelancer, doing minor gigs involving some MVC/CRUD application programming, you just miss out on a world of possibilities to grow and learn." I've experienced this as well, it was my main grief with working by myself and on the…

Working on a team doesn't have to be incompatible with working while traveling. I work on a global team on a single product and get challenged by my workmates all the time. We meet once a year at WWDC.

Re: How I thought I wanted to become a digital nomad

#66

Post by alexp »

dageshi wrote: post #58

Having done this a bit, the answer is in my experience, figure out a good location in a particular country, in Thailand I'd say Chiang Mai, in China perhaps Yangshuo, Cambodia Siem Reap or Sihanoukville. Get yourself a cheap place/room for a month or so, do some serious work then when you've completed whatever it is you're doing do some proper traveling. Trying to do it all at once is mostly a killer. That's not to s…

I absolutely agree. The thing is, that having been to most of those locations (except Sihanoukville and generally China), I just didn't feel that those places would be fun to stay in for a longer period of time. It all comes down to personal preferences of course. I was on the hunt for a good spot for myself and failed so far.

Re: How I thought I wanted to become a digital nomad

#67

Post by virtualwhys »

_delirium wrote: post #28
mercer wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The way I see it, one doesn't need to actively travel constantly to be traveling. When I was dealing with a difficult project, I just stayed at one particular hostel for two months, and settled into a routine. It was an odd one, of course, but it still became a routine, and I could finish the project.

The successful travel/work people I know do it in that style, moving between cities on a monthly or bimonthly basis, not daily. They'll typically spend 1-3 months in a city, renting a place on AirBnB or a local rental site, then move to another city. That removes a lot of the problems discussed in this blog post, like not knowing if you'll have internet access tomorrow, and not being able to guarantee you can spend 8…

The most cost effective way I've managed to pull off the expat existence is to find the equivalent of Craigslist in the country you'd like to visit; then arrange a 3 month rental (the usual visa limit, on an American passport at any rate), sorting out high-speed internet in advance (i.e. if no connection in place already, contact local ISP and get technician visit/installation for day after you arrive).

Next, get a local SIM card with pay-as-you-go plan and use the invoice with your apartment address as "proof" of residency (for the next step).

Finally, hit an ATM and draw equivalent of a couple grand USD in local currency and create a bank account using your pay-as-you-go invoice and passport as proof of identity.

Have bank accounts in Canada, France, Brazil, and the States, only one of which charges a monthly fee.

In SW France now, the 2-bedroom apartment I'm renting is 5 minutes walk from the beach, and runs me about $750/month, high speed internet included.

SE Asia may be cheaper, have yet to venture that far from EST where my clients are based. Might check out Sri Lanka though this winter, have heard there's decent (enough) surf and not super pricey.

Cheers to fellow code warriors ;-)

Re: How I thought I wanted to become a digital nomad

#68

Post by [deleted] »

dageshi wrote: post #58

Having done this a bit, the answer is in my experience, figure out a good location in a particular country, in Thailand I'd say Chiang Mai, in China perhaps Yangshuo, Cambodia Siem Reap or Sihanoukville. Get yourself a cheap place/room for a month or so, do some serious work then when you've completed whatever it is you're doing do some proper traveling. Trying to do it all at once is mostly a killer. That's not to s…

[deleted]

Re: How I thought I wanted to become a digital nomad

#69

Post by alexp »

spaboleo wrote: post #57

I am really wondering how you communicate with your customers? Do they know that you are living in places where most of them might even can only dream of going to for vacation? Or do you just simply "not tell them"? How do you handle call requests then? Or situations where the customers just invites you over to discuss the project in detail in person? And what are their reactions like when you tell them that you curr…

My clients always know exactly where I am, what's the time zone difference and all.

During the two month period of the 'experiment' I didn't actively hunt for new leads, so I can't relate to the lost deals part.

Call requests are done via Skype if needed.

Regarding my girlfriend, during this two months, she's on vacation, although she actively helps with prototyping and concepts.

We both had savings from day one of the trip and my freelancing gigs make up for a source of additional income that makes this thing less scary :)

Re: How I thought I wanted to become a digital nomad

#70

Post by graeme »

kalleboo wrote: post #52
seiji wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you do an eight hour stretch? At best I can work for two hours without needing food or a bathroom break. Imagine you're working in public space. To take a break you have to pack up your laptop, power adapter, water bottle, phone, headphones, go put them in a locker (or just carry them), visit a wc, eat, take a break, go get bag out of locker, find another place to sit with power, set up computer, power adapter…

I wish "hourly office rental"-type places were more common for this use case. It would also help with all the people hogging seats at Starbucks. Personally I love the internet cafés in Japan - you get a private booth, free drinks, some even have showers. They're well-equipped enough that some people down on their luck even live in them permanently. I wish that model was more widespread internationally.

Keep an eye on Breather, they're making short term spaces you can rent. Still in the early stages:

http://breather.com/

Post reply on HN