The Highs and Lows of Being a Digital Nomad

The average person probably wonders if the digital nomad lifestyle is as good as it looks online and the answer is a resounding no; it’s so much better. The adrenaline, the feeling of freedom and control, the constant cycle of challenge and solution, the realization that you achieved a huge goal. Everything you’ve seen pictures of is there. It exists. You can go to it.

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But this narrative of mountaintops and victories needs balance, too. You rarely see the downsides publicized. Here are some surprises, both good and bad, that you should accept before embarking on your digital nomad journey.

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Experimentation

While it’s easy to stick to the list of tourist highlights and digital nomad hotspots, it’s a beautiful opportunity to experiment with your type of living. Remote work allows you to experiment with different lifestyles without consequences or risk. You get to discover what you really value in a travel destination and a place to live, without the expense or risk of having to move there.

Costs

The financial cost of this lifestyle fluctuates greatly based on factors such as the popularity of the destination and the time of year. This can go in either direction: you may be shocked at the cost of a month-long stay in your dream destination or pleasantly surprised.

Time

You’ve heard the cliché ‘time is money’. When you’re travelling, time is something so much more valuable than money. Time is an experience. Memories. Feeling alive. You’ll develop a heightened awareness of how you spend your time, though a total command will require experience and improved work stamina.

Growth

The blitz of unfamiliar situations and daily challenges creates a growth environment like no other. You naturally evolve to become a more self-reliant and resourceful person as you learn to adapt to different environments, communicate across language barriers and handle unexpected and unique circumstances.

Confidence

Something I cherish most about the digital nomad lifestyle is the confidence it’s given me. I’m making decisions that reflect how I want to live and what I want to experience, and those choices represent my aspirations and goals instead of my fears and insecurities. I’ve done things that I never imagined I’d get to do.

Organization

The organization of your physical and digital belongings will have a massive impact on your experience. Successfully managing your inbox, workload and relationships will become second nature as your stability teeters on them flourishing. This extra time not spent apologizing for missed emails and scrambling to meet deadlines will free up an incredible amount of time for spending time enjoying life that would have otherwise been wasted.

Health

Life abroad forces you to listen to your body on a deeper level. Much more than in normal life because finding healthcare is an involved process. This demand of the digital nomad experience insists upon balance, self-care and maintaining your health.

Stamina

It’s completely normal to feel mentally and physically drained by the process of working remotely. Frequent breaks help combat this. Most remote workers struggle to take breaks and when a bad day hits, the gut response is to not pause until you’ve ‘earned’ a break.

Decisions

You probably don’t make that many conscious decisions in your day-to-day life. Decision fatigue boils down to the absence of autopilot. Remove yourself from a routine and you’re faced with dozens of questions before even sitting down at your computer.

Average moments

A surprising percentage of travelling is unglamorous: chasing a stable enough WiFi connection, waiting for hours at a bus terminal, bad weather rendering you confined to your hotel room for days. Remember to rise to all the smaller moments along your travels, not just the big shiny ones at the mountain tops.

Packing decisions

No matter how much research you do, within the first week, you will be sorely missing an extender or cord or wishing you’d brought a different bag altogether. Consider this to be your permission slip to forgive yourself and buy whatever you forgot at home along the way. Forgetting at least one important item is a rite of passage.

Social perception

No matter how much money you make or how many hours you log a week, some people in your life will never shake their perception that digital nomads live on vacation. It can’t be validated by career success or making more money. Your loved ones, no matter how supportive, may very well struggle to understand what your life looks like. You’re about to become an enigma to most people in your life and that can have an unexpected sting to it.

Job

Regardless of your employment type, a day will come when all the uplifting feelings your job once gave you are gone. The feeling of freedom that you have at the beginning of your experience will fade. Initially, you should take the best remote job that you can find, but fighting to discover what you love doing for work is a worthwhile and often profitable pursuit.

Travel burnout

Burnout from travel can manifest as homesickness, physical sickness, prolonged stress, exhaustion, decision fatigue, lack of motivation, decreased joy, apathy and practically anything else. When this hits, it’s time to identify which aspects of the lifestyle are giving you energy and which are taking your energy.

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There will be disappointments and bumps in the road; it’s OK when they happen. That’s just life and the bumps make good travel tales anyway. I don’t think there’s a single great travel story that doesn’t include a wrong turn, a flat tyre or ripped trousers.

There are no ups without the downs and isn’t the flatlining day-to-day existence what you’re trying to escape? If you’re still along for the ride, then you are ready to start packing your things and plotting your course.