How to be a Digital Nomad

A Digital Nomad is a person who works online and can therefore work in any place in the world just with a laptop and an internet connection. Because of that many people who work online travel a lot and live in different countries. That’s why they are called “digital nomads”.

Being a Digital Nomad gives you freedom as you are not bound to a specific place. You can travel the world, travel in your home country, or stay at home – the choice is yours. Some people who work online are not even bound to a certain time which gives them even more freedom. I’ll explain that in the paragraph “Work online”.

Being a digital nomad has also many advantages for traveling. As we all know traveling costs money - unless you do some crazy “no spending trip” by sleeping in parks and taking rides from unknown people which can work out well, but most people don’t travel like that. You will need money for accommodation, food, transportation and activities. There are different ways of getting money to travel. The most common one is to work hard in your home country and save money so you can travel afterward. The problem with this is that your money will finish one day and then your trip is over and you have to go home. The second option is to get a job in the country you want to stay. The problem with that is that depending on where you come from and where you are going you might get a very low salary so you might not enjoy your time abroad fully. For example, in Pakistan, the minimum salary for a 40-hour/week job is 200$ and as a European that seems low even though you can survive on that easily in Pakistan, but you won’t do many activities - just food and accommodation. Being a digital nomad allows you to earn money while traveling without having to get a job in the country itself or having to work hard in your home country and travel afterward.

You can work online for almost everything. There are more and more people offering different services online which seemed impossible some years ago: teachers, psychologists, etc. I even heard a midwife in a podcast who is now offering online services (only partly of course). There are also other jobs like copywriters, videographers, etc. When choosing which kind of work you want to do you should keep two things in mind.

The first question is whether you want to work as a freelancer with a company or start your own business. The advantage of working with a company as a “middleman” between you and the clients is that they will get you clients quickly and easily meanwhile if you start completely from zero that will be very challenging. The disadvantage is that they keep a part of your money.

The second question is whether you want to work “time-bound” or “not time-bound”. Time-bound work means that you sell your time for money and usually can’t choose your own work timings because they depend on your clients. This happens often when your job consists of face-to-face meetings. Not time-bound work is work where you deliver a result on a certain day, but it doesn’t matter how much it took you to get that result or if you worked in the morning or the evening for it. For example, if you offer teaching or coaching services you get paid per hour and you have to adapt to your client’s time zone and schedule meanwhile if you are a videographer or copywriter you get paid for the result and you mostly have a deadline but you can organize your time however you want as long as you deliver on time.

You can actually work from anywhere as a digital nomad. Whenever you go somewhere you should check two things in advance. The first is the “legal aspect”. What is required to work as a digital nomad in a certain country? Which visa or permit do I have to get? Always stay on the legal side – this is super important. The second aspect is money. How much money do you earn and how much does it cost to live in a certain country? For example, if you work on a European salary you can probably live a good life in Pakistan – but I am not sure if it also works well the other way around. When working as a digital nomad it’s crucial to have control over your finances. Typical Digital Nomad Hotspots are Greece, Turkey, Thailand, Vietnam, Spain, USA, Brazil, Colombia, South Africa, Bali etc.

Like everything in life, the digital nomad lifestyle also comes with challenges. The first challenge is discipline. If you are a digital nomad you have to be disciplined because you will work for yourself and on your own. If you need someone above (like a boss) to tell you what to do this type of lifestyle is probably not for you. The second challenge is of course the money and how to take control over your finances. This is so important in general, even more, if you are self-employed and even more when living abroad. The third challenge is the social contact. If you are a person who loves to go to the office and work in teams or loves to talk to colleagues all day long, then maybe this lifestyle is also not for you because you will spend a lot of time in front of your computer and often alone. To help with this problem there are places called “Co Working Spaces” where you can work and meet people who also work online at the same time. For these places, you have to pay though because you are using their facilities (computers, internet, sometimes coffee, etc.).

As a recommendation: I would recommend co-working spaces only for people who work “in silence”.  If you work with clients in face-to-face meetings, I wouldn’t recommend it because you can’t have meetings and calls in co-working spaces - it’s too loud. You would probably disturb the other workers by talking all the time and they would disturb you too. What you can do is rent a private room in a co-working space but that is more expensive and, in my opinion, not worth it (Why would you pay money to meet people if, in the end, you are staying alone in a room?)