It’s getting harder and harder to pick up a magazine or read a newspaper without hearing about people who have adopted the “digital nomad” lifestyle. These are people who have given up on the traditional ways of working and living to travel around the world, working as they go with no (permanent) fixed abode. It certainly sounds attractive – seeing more of the world without needing to squeeze all of the tourist stuff in, and making a living doing it – but is it practical? More importantly, is it something you could do yourself. Read on to find out:
Your current life situation needs to be ripe for the change
There’s no easy way to say this: if you’re married with three kids and a mortgage, becoming a digital nomad is a dream that will, at best, have to wait. You need to be able to travel light, and to roll with sudden changes, and that’s not really possible with multiple dependents. Even if you can get the whole family to agree to it, it won’t be practical to actually live the life. If you’re single – or a couple with like minds when it comes to life experiences – then it could work.
You need to know how to maximise a variable income
As someone with a fixed lifestyle, most days will be much the same – you get up, you go to work, you come home, etc. And for many, this is what gets boring, and why they want to become a digital nomad. The trick these people have learned is to have as many income streams as possible – monetising a blog and/or a YouTube channel, making money from affiliate programs which you can find out more about if you click here, and often having enough local knowledge to pick up seasonal work. If you can pull off this balancing act – and many do – then the lifestyle can be among the most rewarding imaginable.
You need to prepare for mood whiplash
Being a digital nomad is, in some ways, like being on permanent holiday. Because nowhere is technically “home”, you can flit from place to place, living like a tourist in the evenings and being the mysterious foreigner wherever you go. That’s the fun part – but because this is your life now, at least for the moment, you need to be ready for the fact that sometimes it won’t be fun. If Cancun is simply the place you tread on brilliant sands, it will always be wonderful. If it’s the place you experience a negative, life-changing event – which we all do from time to time – it can lose that magic. This doesn’t make the digital nomad lifestyle a bad thing, but your expectations need to be realistic.
You’ll probably love it
Although you certainly need to be ready for a digital nomad lifestyle, the headline to the story is that if you can fit it into your life, you’re sure to enjoy it. Essentially, it offers a variety that is absent in the more conventional way of living life – and that absence of variety is what makes so many people prone to burnout or lack of satisfaction in their present lives. So as long as you go into it with eyes open, the experience should be fantastic, and is one to recommend!
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