Bored of the 9-5 and want to learn how to BECOME A DIGITAL NOMAD? Today we share this guide to help you plan your future digital nomad life.
What is a digital nomad?
After the entire planet was affected by the COVID-19 virus last year, many people started working from home, or remotely. Digital nomads work remotely, but not everyone working remotely is a digital nomad. The key here is the word nomad, meaning a person who does not have a permanent home, but travels constantly from location to location. Digital nomads work remote jobs and travel around the world at the same time, meaning their office could be a cabin in the woods one day and a sandy beach the next. The reason so many want to become digital nomads is so that you can live for yourself and not for others, enjoying every moment of life and travel!
How to Become a Digital Nomad
Traveling costs money, and if you like to travel, you have to be able to pay for your expenses. So what better way to live life than as a person who can work wherever and whenever they want? It sounds exciting, but it can be a challenging way to live. It’s still a good idea to continue to save money, but there are also a few things you should do before diving into this lifestyle.
Step 1: Consider the Following
- Pay off your debts and get rid of unnecessary expenses (memberships, streaming services, etc.).
- Have a financial safety net, because digital nomads tend to do more freelance work, meaning that there isn’t always a steady income.
- Get travel health insurance in case of any health or medical emergencies, such as suffering injuries from an accident while you’re traveling.
- There are logistics to nomading: banking, taxes, physical mail, where to live, how to get around, etc.
The issue about the digital nomad lifestyle is that there isn’t precisely a one-size-fits-all solution for everyone. Because everyone has a unique combination of talents and various levels of professional or job experience, some of you may be able to skip a few stages while others may need to do a little additional legwork at the start.
Step 2: Choose an Online/Remote Job
It’s impossible to be a digital nomad if your job requires you to show up in person. Because of the global pandemic, many jobs have become remote so it may be easy for a lot of people to make this transition without having to find a new job. You can also be an entrepreneur and be a digital nomad. Other jobs include:
- Blogger
- Consulting jobs
- Customer Service Representative
- Graphic Designer
- Marketing
- Photography
- SEO Agency work
- Software Developer
- Teacher of English as a Foreign Language
- Virtual Assistant
- Website Designer
- You Tuber
Working from home isn’t as easy as lounging by the pool with a computer on your lap and working on your tan. To get the correct revenue stream flowing, you’ll need to put in a lot of effort, and you’ll need even more dedication to keep it continuing. It’s all too tempting to put off work in order to go exploring, so keep focused and diligent to meet your deadlines and stay on track.
The majority of digital nomads begin by looking for remote employment or freelance projects to supplement their income. You’ll need to determine whether you’ll turn your initial source of revenue into a larger business or whether you’ll just locate numerous comparable occupations to combine to generate additional money once you’ve secured your first source of revenue.
Step 3: Figure out Where to Go
When working in another country, a work visa is required— sometimes even for digital nomads. Unfortunately, not all countries recognize the title of “digital nomad”, so things can get tricky. However, some countries offer remote work visas such as: Barbados, Bermuda, Croatia, Estonia and Georgia.
Pros and Cons of Being a Digital Nomad
As with any type of job, there are ups and downs that come with being a digital nomad.
Pros
- It’s a location-independent job, meaning, you get to travel around the world and take your work with you.
- A location-independent job gives you the flexibility to live wherever you want, for however long you wish.
- You get to set your own schedule, so some days you can work “9-5” on a beach, other days you can work for a few hours inside your favorite coffee shop.
- You get to experience different cultures, allowing you to learn new languages and skills.
Cons
- Constantly traveling can be exhausting, and then it may not seem so fun anymore.
- It can be hard to stay productive when you’re constantly traveling to new and exciting places.
- It can get lonely if you’re traveling alone, and traveling alone can be dangerous. You want to always let friends and family know where you are in the event of an emergency.
Once you’ve considered everything there is to know about becoming a digital nomad, and you have weighed out all of the pros and cons, you can decide if this is the type of lifestyle that is right for you.
A successful side business won’t always provide internet money right away, but because your major income is taken care of, you can spend your time getting it perfect. It will later become a question of how to generate money for a vacation with minimal effort.
This can be an exciting career that gives you the freedom to travel, but it can also be very challenging at the same time. The travelling part can be fun, but you still have to remain disciplined and get your work done.
Helpful Resources
Travel essentials:
- We LOVE this camera for our travel photography.
- For a cheap, easy and compact camera, we use this to vlog and take photographs.
- We use this travel drone (but make sure to check drone laws in your chosen destination first).
- This is our favourite travel Insurance because it covers so many activities and travel situations that could arise on longer trips but also offers year coverage.
What to pack
- No matter where we travel to, I always take these trusty hand sanitizer’s and a mini first aid kit.
- We love these toiletry bags (especially great for smaller bathrooms) and choose a laptop bag like this as our hand luggage.
- We keep our devices charged on long travel days with these lightweight battery packs and bring these worldwide travel adaptors on all our trips.
- I still struggle not to overpack so stick to using an expandable suitcase like these, over backpack and always take my trusty luggage scales to avoid being charged at the airport.
2 Comments
Excellent article. The biggest question that I have about setting up a home base, is how to get around the tourist visa restrictions, which oftentimes seemed to be only good for 30 days.
[…] Then why not abandon your 9-5 office job and live the life you’ve always dreamed of? We share how to become a digital nomad but also experiences of many who live and work […]