Very good text. I'm struggling with the same problems right now, typing this from a beautiful medieval city in Istria, Croatia, and trying to look at my laptop and not at the wonderful landscapes and Adriatic sea on the horizon. It's harder than it might sound and extremely distracting. And I have to sit here because it's the only place around with a decent wifi. Self-discipline is a b__ch...
How I thought I wanted to become a digital nomad
171–180 of 204 posts
Re: How I thought I wanted to become a digital nomad
#172I see there's lots of insightful comments here from "digital nomads." Are there any good forums or communities online where you congregate to discuss these issues?
I also have been looking for this and have found nothing free & compelling out there.
I'm considering building a platform for a self-organized digital nomad community. I am currently exploring ways to provide initial value to have it grow organically and would love to get other people's perspective.
Re: How I thought I wanted to become a digital nomad
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'll be in Budapest for a week from the 8th of October with my wife. It would be nice to meet for a coffee and discuss our gypsy lifestyle problems :)
Hey, cool! That would give me a great excuse to go into town! My email is in my profile, so let's definitely hook up. Neat venture you have there, by the way - social reservations, I like it! I just did the Craigslist thing in Budapest a couple of years ago (before we moved more permanently) and it worked out nicely - but I think we got lucky. A little more triangulation would have been nice, and it looks like that's…
great! I sent you an email.
It's funny you label it as social reservations. Did you see this page? http://www.adormo.com because we also launched a test project (italan only for now) http://social.adormo.com/ where it's much more social. I just wonder what site you did visit :)
Re: How I thought I wanted to become a digital nomad
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Regus does it. Of course it's much more cost effective to get a monthly rental if you'll be using it frequently.
You can occasionally get a year's free use of Regas facilities via various promotions. Worth keeping an eye out for.
Re: How I thought I wanted to become a digital nomad
#175I've been living 9 months per year in coastal pacific south america -- for the past 7 years.
I am not a "nomad", and my experience is the opposite -- I am much, much more productive working remotely. I did actually enjoy the article for the useful information it can provide others considering this, but (as many of the comments in this thread point out) the author is clearly Doing It Wrong. I don't think it has much bearing on working internationally.
Two thoughts:
1. 'I changed a massive part of my life and, 2 months in, I feel less efficient!' Gee, really? 2 months is just about long enough to investigate a new location, but it pales in comparison to the amount of time you've spent optimizing your life in your old locations.
2. Home base. Living. Everyone here is saying the same thing: you need a solid, stable home base. Maybe there are rare butterflies who can flit from hostel to hostel and feel good. The rest of us typically have more of a relationship with our surroundings.
I hate traveling. I love living in great parts of the world, though.
I have a modest 2-story house I bought, one block back from the ocean in an 800-person fishing village. It's my home base.
I am fantastically productive when I am there. Far, far, far more so than when (maybe close to launch date) some clients request that I sit in their lovely, stylish, noisy open-plan offices, where you cannot take a nap and where you have the mental barrier of a commute bookending your days.
Re: How I thought I wanted to become a digital nomad
#176Having been semi-location independent for 4 years now, I have come to a similar conclusion. The theory of decision fatigue -- that you get exhausted by making a certain number of decisions -- seems to be true to me. And the thing is that when you are in a new place, there is a large number of decisions to make about petty things like where is the nearest supermarket, where can I work out, how do I get proper internet…
>>Whenever I've set up in a new place, my productivity suffers severely for a week or two. The language you are using here - specifically the word "suffer" - is indicative of a certain type of (generally Western) mindset where productivity plays a big role in a person's happiness and satisfaction. I went on a two week vacation to my home country of Turkey back in July. For the first few days, it felt really odd to no…
This is why all my vacations are "zero technology". I bring absolutely no electronics except for an old non-smartphone in case of emergencies. This way I don't have to feel guilty, because I can't be "productive" anyway.
Re: How I thought I wanted to become a digital nomad
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
Exactly. I thought this was what I wanted. Now that I'm somewhat location independent, I keep thinking about where I should move to take full advantage of my freedom. It's exhausting! I want to settle somewhere but can't decide.
Excuse me if I don't feel sorry for you. Don't you think that's a pretty good problem to have?
It's certainly a luxury problem, but it's also a tough problem. Think about it: If you are location-independent, how do you even start to come up with a good decision on where to live? What are the factors you consider and the metrics to see whether or not your decision was good or not afterwards?
I'm in a very similar position and just thinking about the endless possibilities of choosing a new place to live can be very overwhelming.
But if you haven't been in this position, you won't know how it feels I guess.
I figured it is very similar to everybody joking about how they want more free time to do "their stuff". And if you ask "So, what stuff would you do, if you had all time of the day and still get your monthly paycheck?", the answer is often much less clear. Everybody dreams of having all day off, but when it comes to that situation, too much leisure can be frustrating as well.
Re: How I thought I wanted to become a digital nomad
#178I've been living 9 months per year in coastal pacific south america -- for the past 7 years. I am not a "nomad", and my experience is the opposite -- I am much, much more productive working remotely. I did actually enjoy the article for the useful information it can provide others considering this, but (as many of the comments in this thread point out) the author is clearly Doing It Wrong. I don't think it has much b…
> I hate traveling. I love living in great parts of the world, though.
Good point. This is my view as well, though I've moved many times in order to try out new places...in order to find those great parts of the world. I'm on my 2nd country and I'm a lot closer to what would be ideal for me. The nomad life I live is, in reality, more of a nomadic mover than a nomadic traveler. The hard part is when the grass is always greener.
Re: How I thought I wanted to become a digital nomad
#179Being and having been a digital nomad for the past several years, it can become tiring having to switch up location and work setting so often. While living in Rio de Janeiro, I often wondered how people who are from there work in office buildings in the wealthy neighborhoods (which are a stone's throw from the beach), deal with knowing that fun and sun is literally 5 minutes away at any given moment, that people are…
I can totally relate. I'm living in SF now and previously lived in both Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. Both SF and SP have the issue that going out always costs a lot of money and time, whereas in RJ, it was fast and cheap to spend time with friends.
True. Plus Rio is thin and short while SP is wide and, well, just big. Rio-like living in this sense can be found in some of the smaller capital coastal cities of the northeast, but they'll have less activities to offer.
Props on the portmanteau/compound username. I suppose your name as an action would become malandrewgem, then.
Re: How I thought I wanted to become a digital nomad
#180I see there's lots of insightful comments here from "digital nomads." Are there any good forums or communities online where you congregate to discuss these issues?
It's certainly a great idea and would be excellent for getting a leg up on opportunities near where you happen to be living at the moment. The difficulty in it is the chicken and egg dilemma and the initial non-concentrated userbase.
I only know of various expat community forums and sites which anyone can find with a Google search and a few subreddits (like /IWantOut).
Edit: I found this via Google http://www.digitalnomadcommunity.net/