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Life Update
I am recording this episode from Cornwall, England.
This is where Ragz and I got married last year and I am fully enjoying the Cornish summertime!
Cornwall is in the southwest corner of England. It’s very, very coastal – it’s surrounded by coast.
There’s actually a really pretty coast walk surrounding the entire perimeter of Cornwall, and I just love being here.
During this time of year, we’ve decided that we’re going to be staying for a few months, I think at this point until Thanksgiving, and then I will be flying back to New York to visit my family for Thanksgiving!
The Digital Nomad Lifestyle
I have a client who I’ve been working with for almost a year now, and I’ve watched her go from quitting her corporate job to fully transitioning into this digital nomad lifestyle and helping her navigate through it all.
And we had such a great conversation the other day about the pros and cons and what was unexpected about fully going remote traveling full time and what we both loved about it and as well as the inconveniences.
We have many members in the Digital Nomad Society who also echo these pros and cons.
I have been living this lifestyle and traveling full-time since 2018, so it’s been over six years at this point, and I’ve gone from one end of the spectrum of going to a new country every week to settling down in one location for two months, three months, nine months, up to a year.
From this experience, I would just love to share with all of you in case you want to explore this lifestyle option for yourself, just so you can decide if it’s the right move for you.
Please keep in mind that I am also speaking from personal experience and from what my members share with me inside our communities.
Also, it is very individual specific: what your preferences are and what kind of online business you have or whether you work remotely, whether you have to be in certain time zones.
I am speaking from the fact that my business runs completely online, time zone independent and I travel with my husband, which is also a little different than maybe if you were to go on this adventure by yourself.
Cons of Digital Nomad Life
So I’m going to start with the cons because personally I know and love this lifestyle so much that the pros outweigh the cons.
I’m gonna start off with the cons and then kind of reshape them all to a pro because there’s really no con that would make me stop this type of travel anytime soon.
Unpredictable Planning
The first con for my business and also what I’ve heard from community members, and this is what my private client and I talked about, was the unpredictability of our calendar years and across time zones.
Although we don’t need to have standard working hours like from nine to five, we do work with clients and we do want to have our calendars available for booking at reasonable hours.
This can be hard to do if you don’t know where in the world you’re going to be next month or in three months and you’re trying to set your availability.
This can also affect how you plan your launches or how you plan certain business activities, how you communicate with your team.
Having an unpredictable calendar year can hinder some of that progress that naturally comes with having a routine.
Although it’s not impossible to grow and scale while working remote and doing this, you just have to adapt.
It’s annoying at first, and some people really struggle with the unpredictability. They don’t like not knowing where they’re going to be living or where they’re going to be flying to in a few weeks time, but with any problem, there is a solution.
Unpredictable Wifi
The next con is unpredictable wifi at your destinations.
I’ve been in many remote places with very limited internet access and sometimes it’s not fully conducive to growing your online business.
This can be extremely frustrating if you need to take client calls, if you need to host group calls if you need to just have stable internet access for uploading YouTube videos, if you rely on the internet to grow or maintain your business.
The best course of action is to make sure that there is reliable internet.
Do your research beforehand, have backup internet in case anything goes wrong.
Where to Put Your Stuff
You need to find storage or at least travel lightly.
Leave things in places because if you don’t have a home base because you’re not gonna be carrying lots of stuff with you around the world.
You’re probably not going to be checking in five suitcases with you every flight, so you need to find a different way to travel.
Personally, I am very lucky that I have my entire room still in New York at my parents’ house.
Ragz still has his room in England, and we have lots of friends who agreed to store our surfboards and suitcases around the world.
So we kind of have these bases and we’re very lucky to have this type of setup.
I know that’s not the case for everyone, so if you need to find a storage that can be tricky. If you need to sell a bunch of stuff and fully commit to this lifestyle, that can be a commitment.
But in the end, I think it truly just shows you how little you need in order to be happy. You don’t need all of this stuff with you.
What I found is I just have so many clothes that I leave around the world and I forget about them.
When I see that suitcase again, it’s a full suitcase of clothes that I didn’t need to wear for months. So I really question like, did I need all of that stuff? Do I need all of my suitcases around the world?
Visas
Sometimes if you want to stay longer in a country, it can be a hassle to apply for a Digital Nomad visa if they even have one, or you’ll need to do a visa run or you’ll just need to leave and come back at a later time.
Being a full-time digital nomad means that you kind of have to stay on the move in a lot of places and you’re going to need to think twice about signing a one year lease, for example.
You need to really commit to this full-time travel lifestyle because legally you’re only going to be allowed in most countries for two to six months at a time at max on a tourist visa.
If you do wanna stay longer, you’re going to need to think about the tax implications (check out my digital nomad tax tips here) and the visa requirements.
I think Ragz and I are also in this unique situation where he is British and I am American, and so we actually can’t stay in each other’s countries for more than a few months at a time.
Until he gets his green card, we need to navigate just being flexible and thinking ahead about where we want to travel to in the year.
Developing Community
And then the last con is that we are constantly changing our communities depending on how long we stay in a place.
Inevitably we’re going to need to find new friends, make new friends, or at this point of my digital nomad journey, I’m going back to a lot of the same places where I have communities.
I’ve found a really good balance between making new friends and then revisiting old ones. But in a year’s time, I do cycle through many of my communities and I choose not to stay in one place.
So if you are just starting out, I think community is going to be a big one. Until you find those friends around the world, you’re going to need to make new friends or else it’s going to be lonely.
How we combat that is I recommend online communities like the Digital Nomad Society where we have monthly calls and you can connect with other like-minded, full-time travelers or aspiring full-time travelers, and going to coworking spaces at your destination, or engaging in fun hobbies that you can enjoy around the world.
For me, it’s always surfing and I always have my surf communities, and like I said, these are cons, but I would call them minor inconveniences.
To some they might be major inconveniences, but there’s always a way to tackle them.
Pros Of Digital Nomad Life
There are SO many pros to this lifestyle, and I’ll list my favorite ones here.
It’s truly something you need to experience for yourself to see if it’s right for you or not.
Time Freedom, Location Freedom, Financial Freedom
First and foremost being my number one reason for becoming a digital nomad and staying a digital nomad is the freedom.
The full freedom on where to live and work and what to do with my days, my months, and my years.
I can choose between living an endless summer lifestyle where I just bounce between tropical destinations, which is what I did for many, many years.
I can choose to prioritize friends and family and visiting Cornwall and New York every year, which is also what I love doing. I can move between continents so effortlessly and easily just by booking a flight.
This also enables me to learn about new cultures, try new foods, bring me back to different areas of the world where they have my favorite foods.
I get to really take advantage of this full freedom and have it support my happiness.
I am also so blessed to be at a place in my life and business where I can afford to abundantly travel and go to any place in the world that my heart desires.
I’m not bound by financial constraints or budgets. I can choose really nice homes that give me the comforts and amenities, and when I am at surf destinations, I can be beachfront.
When I am in places like Cornwall, I can be really close to the cities and have three bedrooms.
All of this freedom, wherever I choose and whatever type of lifestyle I choose, I know that it is all within my control and I will never ever take that for granted.
Once you experience it, there’s just no going back to a constrained lifestyle, a mind stretched by new experiences can never go back to its old dimensions.
Because I’ve experienced this time freedom, location freedom, and financial freedom, going back to any of my previous positions where I didn’t have that is just insane to me.
I was like, I cannot believe at one point I had to stay in one place or work certain hours. It’s just incredible how much can change in just a few years.
New Experiences
The next pro of this whole lifestyle is the constant new experiences that you experience on a day-to-day basis because you’re not in your routine, you are at a location that is different from where you grew up.
For me, that means I’m constantly talking to people with different accents and I don’t hear American accents that often because I’m not in America.
But the default is not being in my comfort zone or where I grew up. All of these new people that I meet, all of these experiences are new to me.
I don’t know where the grocery store is, I don’t know where the roads are, and I’m constantly learning, and I love that.
I also love that I have such a solid grasp on my work life balance. I really get to dictate how much I work on a daily, weekly, monthly basis and how much I enjoy my life.
If I am traveling, I can take a full two weeks off at the bat of an eyelash, like I don’t need to request for time off.
It’s very easy for me to be super flexible. I know when I have to hustle, I know when I have to work.
Having it this way really supports my physical and mental health. I’m able to prioritize my gym days and my surf days and have that come first and work the rest of the day (Check out my tips for balancing your time as a digital nomad here).
Over the past few years, of course this has looked different in many places that we have traveled to, but ultimately I’ve found a way that works very, very well for my business and my clients and my content.
Again, I think it goes back to the freedom of being able to design your life and design your workday however you want to.
Cost Of Living
The next huge, huge pro of being a digital nomad is the cost of living benefits, also known as geo-arbitrage.
When I was working in New York City and I’ve read the Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris, he mentioned this concept which I had kind of tapped into when I was traveling and backpacking in other parts of the world.
When I studied abroad, that’s when I learned that flights in Europe were so much cheaper than flights in America.
I learned that I could travel to other countries and get insane experiences. I remember going to Vietnam and having a full board three night cruise on this luxury yacht for like a few hundred dollars.
All of these concepts of taking currency and spending it in another country where it can go so much farther, that is what I experienced on like certain trips.
Now that I am able to make my money online, take that money to any other country in the world and maximize what I’m getting with every dollar spent, whether that is an increase in the standard of living my accommodation or whether that’s the experiences I can afford.
When I am traveling full-time, I really get to choose how I’m spending each dollar.
I get to also choose to stay in one place a month at a time, so I get to tap into the midterm rental market instead of paying nightly Airbnb or nightly hotel rates.
So there are just so many benefits when you are able to stay for as long as you want and you can really map out what you are getting.
It’s usually a lot, a lot more than If you were to stay in one area that is a high cost of living area.
When I was living in New York City, I went to an omakase experience at Sushi Nakazawa. It’s an amazing sushi restaurant with one Michelin star.
And I remember that dinner with sake pairing for two people was $600 plus 20% tip.
But most recently for my birthday last month, I went to Tokyo and had the same Michelin star experience.
I had amazing fish in the center of it all in Tokyo, Japan where they didn’t have to import anything and with beverage pairing for two people was $200.
And you don’t tip there because it’s not customary and they actually sometimes get offended if you offer a tip.
So as you can see, your money can go a lot farther.
You can go to the place where the original dish or whatever it is, is offered and you get a better experience for a fraction of the price.
That’s something that I’ve loved doing over the years. There are just so many more options.
Developing Resilience
The next pro that I’ve learned to love is the resilience I’ve developed in life and business.
This is what my client and I also shared, because she’s learning how to fully embody her resilience that she is developing to what life throws at you.
Inevitably when you travel, things are gonna go wrong and sometimes you are not going to be running your business the way you would like.
And all of these different things, you build resilience and you learn how to navigate it.
Instead of emphasizing and focusing on the problem, you instead focus on the solutions and recognize that there always is a solution.
You will always find a way if you are looking for it.
When you are traveling and running your business online, there are 1,000,001 things that could always go wrong at any given time.
A lot of times when people are in their comfort zones, if some inconvenience comes up, they think it’s the end of the world.
But for us, we don’t focus on that. We just see it as like a little inconvenience that’s gonna affect us for maybe an hour, and then we get over it and then we enjoy our lives.
We cross bridges when we get there. And over time, when we look back to things that used to trigger us or make us feel anxious and nervous, we’re like, oh my gosh, I can’t believe that affected me.
You just learn so much year after year. And when you look back on your past self, you just realize how far you’ve come. And I think that is an incredible feeling. You always want to be growing.
Global & Cultural Awareness
The last pro that I will be sharing with all of you who want to embark on this journey maybe in the near future, is that you develop this global awareness and you see firsthand around the world, different problems, different ways of handling things, different ways of how countries operate, and you get to develop your own opinions instead of just digesting what the media feeds you in your home country.
All of the global economies and all of the topics that are discussed globally, you can form your own opinions.
You can read news from different news sources in different countries, talk to people who are experiencing it firsthand and recognize when your country’s biases come into place.
You’re always challenging what you grew up believing in.
I think that’s also something that’s so special because I feel like once you step out of that bubble, you get a chance to truly be a global citizen and see the best solutions to certain things like healthcare and funding.
And then you change your opinions on what is actually problematic. Like people may paint a picture of something, but then it’s happening a completely different way on ground zero.
Having this global awareness, having insights into people’s lives from all around the world, and not just your home country or your home bubble, that is just something I’m extremely privileged to be able to tap into.
I encourage you, if you have the desire to embark on this lifestyle, if there’s something that’s pulling you in and drawing you into what I am saying, please do not hesitate to reach out.
I’ve helped so many clients and community members step foot into the digital nomad lifestyle, and most of them have never looked back.
It’s truly something indescribable, and I will never get sick of this freedom based lifestyle.
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