Is Work Easier For 'Digital Nomads'? (forbes.com) 40
A digital nomad describes what no one ever warns you about after selling everything and then travelling to Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Thailand "before doing the Working Holiday Visa thing in Australia and New Zealand."
It was the greatest solo travel adventure of my life and I loved it. That said, I've had some time to reflect on my experience and there are some things I wish I'd known before diving in headfirst... [I]n reality, you're working just as hard, only from a different place. You still have deadlines...and you still have to hound clients who take forever to pay you after your project is done.
Did I mention that this is all done in a completely different time zone from the people you're working with? This can also be tricky when it comes to conference calls but nothing you can't figure out and plan for.
While you may have given yourself a more beautiful backdrop to work with, you're still going to spend a decent amount of time behind your laptop wherever you go, though on the bright side, you will also have the opportunity to work alongside the locals, hear different accents, taste new and amazing food and check out your new surroundings whenever you're off, so it's all good...
I once spent six months living "on the road" as a digital nomad, which felt like a nice long extended trip (rather than settling for an exotic one-week vacation). But it'd be interesting to hear anecdotes from Slashdot's readers — so share your own thoughts and experiences in the comments.
And is work easier for digital nomads?
Did I mention that this is all done in a completely different time zone from the people you're working with? This can also be tricky when it comes to conference calls but nothing you can't figure out and plan for.
While you may have given yourself a more beautiful backdrop to work with, you're still going to spend a decent amount of time behind your laptop wherever you go, though on the bright side, you will also have the opportunity to work alongside the locals, hear different accents, taste new and amazing food and check out your new surroundings whenever you're off, so it's all good...
I once spent six months living "on the road" as a digital nomad, which felt like a nice long extended trip (rather than settling for an exotic one-week vacation). But it'd be interesting to hear anecdotes from Slashdot's readers — so share your own thoughts and experiences in the comments.
And is work easier for digital nomads?
Not since the Covid-19 crisis (Score:2)
No matter where you go (Score:2)
There you are
Any headline ending in a question - answer is NO (Score:3)
If your working location is at the other end of an internet connection - your competition is people in low cost regions who can be paid 20% of what you are asking.
Some global low cost regions require sifting through to find a "gem in the rough" but for medium to large companies they can justify a full time position when you are outsourcing > 3 persons.
Money talks and unfortunately blinds people who have short term goals.
Before co-working spaces it sucked (Score:2)
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RV. Or bus conversion, depending on what kind of parks you were planning to spend time in. Mobile hotspot. Or soon, Starlink. RV spaces with full hookups are drastically cheaper than hotel rooms worth staying in, and are generally cheaper than rent as well. It won't work so well for international travelers, but it's a great deal in the states. Most RVs are crap, though.
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As soon as Starlink is available in Peru my job is going to become part-time and I'll be working from Paruro. Gorgeous town of 5,000 sitting in the bottom of a deep winding valley in the Andes, the river is 9,940 feet above sea level, and the mountains nearby rise to over 14,000. The potatoes you buy in the market on Sunday were in the ground Friday morning, and that meat was eating grass yesterday. Only 10 years ago there were more horses than cars, turn left out our front door and the headwaters of the
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It will. They've been through cholera, earthquakes, volcanoes, El Nino events, hyperinflation, terrorism, floods and landslides, all in the last 30 years.
It would be miserable now... (Score:5, Interesting)
“Living” in a country you have no right of residence creates all kinds of problems in times like this. My cousin is a US citizen, lives in Thailand but has a work permit in Vietnam, and his business is homed in Singapore. All borders are closed, so renewing his status in Vietnam is impossible, accessing his bank in Singapore is a challenge, and if he goes home to visit his family it becomes a one-way trip.
Sure, while it lasts it can be fun to be “stuck” in a place (as long as you are ok with being a prisoner in your temporary home), but when you don’t have a home to go back to in your country of citizenship the logistics are painful.
Comment removed (Score:4, Funny)
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but what about laundry?
That's easy. Work once a week in a clothing store. Try on some new clothes and leave the dirty ones in the changing room.
Your old ones will be washed, ironed and on the rack at a discount when you come back next week.
Wish I could (Score:2)
I live in Illinois and have too much family in the area to leave.
Also, my job requires fairly massive computing power. So even a desktop replacement laptop won't cut it.
And I'm too old to be hauling around an entire desktop setup.
Plus, if it gets trashed in-transit, how do I get a timely replacement?
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Remote Desktop? I was trying to get by with an iPad Pro and a Raspberry Pi plus remote resources. Not perfect, but sometimes being homeless is nice.
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No. Because homing the resources I need pretty much negates the point of living as an actual nomad.
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One solution is to have a home and rent it out, sans a small closet/office/rack that continues to run your digital home.
The whipper-snappers also talk about this “cloud” thingy, but I would just look at a Tier-2 data center for cheap co-lo. Half-rack, all-in I saw for a little under $500 a while back. (Still had UPS/Generator and dual-cords, but was in a building that was essentially just an office building.)
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Yeah. Trust some chuckle-head to NOT break into it?
Sorry, I'm a realist.
More info (Score:1)
sheesh (Score:3)
This "story" sounds more like a slashdot post, trying to make a point that isn't related to the actual article at hand.
Honestly sounds like the worst of both worlds (Score:3)
I love going on vacation. I've traveled to amazing places on 5 continents. I can't wait til the world opens up again and I can visit new places and experience new cultures.
You know what I don't want to do? Sit in my hotel on a laptop all day. If I have to spend all day stuck working, I'd rather be at home in familiar surroundings with a giant monitor and a comfy chair. And I'd be paying lots of money to do it- hotels aren't cheap (I'm not 20 and staying in a hostel anymore).
I'd rather have a full week or two to go where I want, enjoy every moment of it, and not have anything hanging over me. The quality of my trip will be better, and when I get back and work the quality of my work will be better. The idea of being a nomad is just a great way to ruin a vacation and have a shitty time working at once.
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I rented a very nice condo in Bangkok for 6 months for ~$500/month. You could get a hotel room for $1,000/month — not 5-stars, but private and adequate.
For me, I liked working as a nomad best when it was part-time. I worked an average of 20 hours a week; some weeks were 60, but most were just a couple hours per day (6-7 days a week). I made about the same as working full time in the US, but no benefits or guarantees. Also was stuck going back to the US every month or two which complicated things, but
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Disagree. I'd love to put in a workday, then in the evening go out and see the attractions and meet the people of a city around the world. And on the weekends, hike in the natural scenery of that country. And 2 weeks or a month later, repeat this in another country. I'd see twenty different countries in some depth over the course of a year.
Yes it would be nice to spend my whole trip on vacation and not have to work. But if I did that, the trip would have to be much shorter to be affordable. And I'd see a lo
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I love going on vacation. I've traveled to amazing places on 5 continents. I can't wait til the world opens up again and I can visit new places and experience new cultures.
You know what I don't want to do? Sit in my hotel on a laptop all day. If I have to spend all day stuck working, I'd rather be at home in familiar surroundings with a giant monitor and a comfy chair. And I'd be paying lots of money to do it- hotels aren't cheap (I'm not 20 and staying in a hostel anymore).
I'd rather have a full week or two to go where I want, enjoy every moment of it, and not have anything hanging over me. The quality of my trip will be better, and when I get back and work the quality of my work will be better. The idea of being a nomad is just a great way to ruin a vacation and have a shitty time working at once.
There are actually businesses that cater to this lifestyle. They travel in a group spending 1-2 months in each location and they share several AirBnB style homes next to each other. In more dangerous countries the group also ensures that the location is safe and that they have private guards protecting the travelers. You can join / exit the tour group whenever you want but you have to commit to the entire term of the rental for each location. They usually try to match up the groups based on the interest
And is work easier for digital nomads? (Score:5, Informative)
I've been a digital nomad / remote worker / location independent entrepreneur since 2014 and have met, lived with and worked along side hundreds of 'digital nomads' in that time.
The work most digital nomads do is the same work most people in offices do, just on hard mode.
As a developer in an office in the UK I'd have a laptop paired with two monitors and a separate keyboard and mouse. A solid working environment.
The cliche about digital nomads working from laptops in coffee shops is true. I've met loads of developers working from just laptops, in coffee shops, doing the same work I would have been doing in the UK. These guys have far worse working environments, noisy, loads of distractions, without the right tools, causing friction and reducing their work rate.
I'm fortunate to run my own business, so the work I do is for me, that also means I've hired a lot of contractors and digital nomads over the last 5 years and these truths keep coming up in my experience time and time again, both for myself and the people I work with. I now get every new employee to send me photos of their work setup as part of the hiring process to see how seriously they take the position they are applying for.
Is the work easier? No, the work is the same.
Is the work environment better? In my opinion, in general, the work environment is worse and impacts the quality of their results.
Does the lifestyle make them more productive? Not really, their priority will tend to be quality of life over quality of work.
In general most digital nomads doing remote work or remote client work will arbitrage less responsibilities and a lower cost of living to lead a less productive/efficient career. Unless they are building their own business in which case they will leverage the lower cost of living and less responsibilities to bootstrap their idea, working a lot harder.
Re: And is work easier for digital nomads? (Score:2)
I live/work overseas, but I'm not a digital gonad. (Score:1)
We are all digital nomads now (Score:1)
I used to work in a regular software company with hundreds of people commuting to an office each day.
Then lockdown came and everyone became a remote worker literally overnight. It's a familiar story, long hours spent working from the confines of your own home. A couple of months later, when the restrictions lifted, very few went back to the office. Most kept on working from home. But a lot of people just left the city - why pay expensive rent if you are able to move, your work can be done remotely, and you
Lunch Time is Fun Time (Score:1)
I've worked from all over the world, usually part-time. But even on those days I have to work long hours, I like the fact that when I head out for my lunch or dinner break, I'm in a new place and can try new foods and experience new culture.
I usually rent out my home in California for far more than I pay for my hostel or cheap guesthouse, usually in Asia, so I actually get paid to travel. Win-win-win.
US person? you're a prisoner, nomad or not. (Score:2)
You see, unlike the old USSR, the US does not deny this right. The US government is smarter than that, choosing instead to allow its valued citizens to migrate to other countries, and simply imposing US taxation on them wherever they may roam. The onerous amounts of accounting and paperwork involved makes it impossible or nearly impossible for US persons to cond
We all know how "Digital Nomads" live ... (Score:3)
... and the risks involved, since we all know the original term for someone living that lifestyle, and that term is "Cyberpunk".
The upside of being a Cyberpunk is that you, if you have planed well and have the resources, can move along easily, if the stability of the society you're in right now deteriorates or you want a change in scenery. The downside is that you very easily become driftwood if you don't have your wits about you.
Being a cyberpunk is enticing and I think everyone pondering that shouldn't be hesitant to try that lifestyle out. That doesn't mean you shouldn't be careful and go cyberpunk without a feasible fallback plan!
Point in case: I met a guy who had been settled in Beverly Hills with a cushy job and a cute girlfriend doing WordPress Websites for the rich. He was bored out of his mind and he and his girl split, sold all their belongings and he went on a Diginomad Worldtour with little more than his backpack, doing the same work he'd always been doing, dancing Argentine Tango around the world, hooking up with hot chikas every odd week and ending up with *more* money after a year because he wasn't spending it on useless crap. All while waking up every morning and saying: "I love my life!". Please note that he was 35 years old and good looking, so YMMV.
Anyway, that's a sort of lifestyle I can somewhat relate to and I'm itching to go Digital Expat (not Nomad(!)) myself, just to be close to a southern European beach and learn kitesurfing for 4 hours every day.
However, I am also fully aware that this only works if you are a specialist and can score at least 50 Euros an hour for a specialised task that is in demand and doesn't have you clamoring for contracts all the time.
So if I ever will live such a life, it will be with careful preparation, that includes living more and more of a minimalist lifestyle whilst still being settled.
My 2 eurocents.
--
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Really difficult to get reliable internet (Score:1)
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I also lived in Thailand for 5 years, and while the net isn't as good as in VN, it's fine. You can buy wifi net from the local telco (3BB), and at some locations it absolutely screams.
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In most of these countries, any ipv4 connectivity is going to be stuck behind multiple layers of NAT imposed by the provider, which is slow and unreliable enough at the best of times, and since you're sharing an ip with hundreds or thousands of other customers you're likely to find yourself blacklisted from various places because some random guy with an old pirated xp box is infested with 50 different kinds of malware.
If you look at the ipv6 connectivity however, it's fast and reliable, and you get your own
Sure (Score:2)
"While you may have given yourself a more beautiful backdrop to work with, you're still going to spend a decent amount of time behind your laptop wherever you go, though on the bright side, you will also have the opportunity to work alongside the locals,"
Compared to 'home' you pay a tenth of the rent, a fifth for the food, a tenth for your cleaning lady and don't have to shovel snow for 6 months.
Now, where do you pay taxes?
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great until the laptop glitches (Score:2)
When the laptop glitches, it's easy to find yourself miles from a repair shop or a place to buy a replacement laptop. It's like slamming into a wall in a speeding car.
And even with most of the files and data "in the cloud" (which is a huge problem in areas of poor internet), and an external drive backup, it still took me two weeks before I had reloaded all the programs and reconfigured all the settings and preferences to the same as before. /I would love it if all programs would allow me to back up profile