The New Nomad: Is It The New Normal?

In this newsletter, I discuss the idea of the ‘NEW NOMAD’ and how it is about, the concept of it brings the new normal and tackling the question of "will it last"?

The idea of the 'new nomad' came from some research we did with our Startup while in an accelerator program with Startup Madeira last year in 2021 when we were invited to participate in the program as a travel tech startup.

The team at Nomad Stays went to the beautiful Madeira Island after being invited into the Startup Madeira program for three months. So we decided to delve into the psychographics and demographics of who our customers are and whom we serve and all the different subsets in between. We dug deeper and asked questions, we drew on our experience so far as digital nomads and looked closer at how people are behaving. Then to discover what we call the "new nomad" and how the digital nomad shape-shifted and evolved during the time of the global disruption of 2020-202. Simply because we all experienced 'the new normal' of remote work we can now all relate to this remote working and working from anywhere. Now the world was educated on the Digital Nomad.

So...

Who are they?

What does the 'new nomad' stand for what are their values?

Why do they travel?

Who identifies as a digital nomad; who doesn’t like being put into this box?

What job enables them to travel and work on the road full-time other than our own subset which we identify with?

What is the future of travel and how can we serve them in the best and fastest way possible?

So many questions, and so much to discover about how they identify themselves. How the digital nomad was seen and understood by individual travellers and the travel industry. The advantages and the disadvantages.

Our primary goal is two-sided. One is to understand the shift in how the global disruption changes (it's not over yet) the way people choose to live and work. This is for the supply side the Stays and the nomad customer.

We tackled the big questions of "what the future looks like?" for the travel industry, these kinds of questions lead us to some interesting discoveries and also, (being digital nomads ourselves) it married up with what we were seeing first hand in the industries.

In our deep dive, we discovered 20+ sub-niches of the new nomad.

So what does the 'new nomad' look like and will it last?

The ‘New Nomad’ has created a 'new normal' of travel and work from lovely locations and now the travel industry recognises the digital nomads' $ value.

These travellers are now slow travelling, spending more time and money for longer periods with sometimes a minimum of 1 month or 3-6 months in each place depending on visas.

But what is normal? It all depends on your perspective some don't even identify as digital nomads and this is why I call it the 'new nomad' because they came in all, colours, shapes and sizes.

What is normal these days anyway? It's always been a matter of perspective. What's normal for someone who knows how to earn and travel, is different to someone who only travels once a year for holidays as a family. Now they are hitting the road and taking the family with them.

Yes, remote work is the new normal, and becoming a full-time traveller is for the passionate explorer type of traveller. Being a digital nomad is having the tech that enables the nomad, Which these says is anyone with a smartphone and travels. But, sometimes we forget, that we still need to do the basics of building relationships and community as we go.

The Great Escape

Who was to know the world would lock down and the ease of travelling the world stop, and will it happen again. Some countries even broke their own constitutional laws with the enforcement of lockdown. So now it's like the great escape, with individuals not liking how their governments behaved during the pandemic and trust has been lost. Families, Startups, and businesses are now all Country shopping for the best place to live work and do business.

These recent experiences brought home the reality of maybe never seeing Paris France or the ancient cities of Peru became all too real. Our dreams of travelling were on hold and became full locked down; lost for a brief moment in time.

Not being able to experience travel was a shock to the system. Having these freedoms so quickly and easily taken away from us was all too real with the global disruption. And so the revenge traveller begins to spread his wings. Looking further abroad than ever before.

During this time of lockdown, we were interviewing new nomads who just found a way to travel during the lockdown. not waiting for the lockdowns to finish they found ways around it.

Travellers were testing the borders because it changed so rapidly that not even the border guards knew what was happening, so they were finding ways to cross borders.

These 'New Nomads' were still travelling they were also testing their own boundaries and seeking a digital nomad lifestyle. The search to find out if travelling and working remotely is really a viable option with all its challenges and its benefits. Since the experience of remote working was no longer a mystery.

A few months before the pandemic I was travelling to Irland and Scotland, like a good startup founder does (talking to the customers and suppliers), walking the streets and talking to hoteliers (understanding the supply side struggles) I spoke to them about the opportunity of longer staying guests and digital nomads.

What I noticed was a lot of hotels had unused bars and rooms that could be shifted into coworking spaces or their ability to shift into a new market. Some looked at me like I was speaking alien and others; of the larger players in the industry understood and had seen it. Now everyone is jumping on the digital nomad bandwagon. At the time I discovered I needed to educate people, now the world has been educated on this full-time travelling nomad we needed to dig deeper.

The Great Resignation

Of course, then, a result of lockdowns and being forced to working from home changed people’s minds about what was important to them now, which created the "great resignation."

The outcome of the global pandemic of 2020-21 was not just the great resignation but revenge travellers. More people stepping out to explore how to live and work on the road and just travelling because they can. As individuals, we also had the delusion of "now we have time" because we were in lockdown. We thought we had time but we had to make sharp hard decisions on what the future would be, for some businesses it meant closing doors on business to others it was a pivot and so on, some discovered a new opportunity or career change.

This intern caused people to reassess their personal values, and nobody wanted to go back to what was normal and was ready to resign if they didn’t have any other option but to go back to the office. Because now there was proof that some jobs could be done from home or somewhere else in the world.

And an on-flow effect sadly now a huge shortage in the hospitality industry is now being experienced in the summer of 2022 for hoteliers, hospitality and travel industry. Which is a whole other article and discussion.

The Reality of Work & Travel

Living and working as a 'new nomad'; there is a need to ensure a seamless connection… between work, rest and play.

The excuse of?“the wifi here is not good enough here”?is not a valid excuse anymore. Right! It just doesn’t cut it! You have to make it so that there is no disruption in the workflow and trust me there are many.

You have to travel and have backups batteries, and well your own Wifi router, extra phone sims to a hotspot or hey just jump on the phone and have a chat “keep it simple” it seems everyone is so mad about video calls that they have forgotten to just pick up the phone. Just pick up the phone man, it’s OK! It's funny how things change we forget to do the simple things. I say this because I have fallen for it too.

The New Nomad - Will it last?

Full-time travellers are not a new concept only now we just have more freedom enabled by the innovation of a laptop and smartphones. Interestingly; handheld computers were released about 40 years ago. The first being in1973 - The first portable computer, the?MCM/70, was introduced. It weighed about 9 kg. 1975 - The second portable computer, the IBM 5100, was introduced. It weighed 50 pounds (24 kg). But people didn't know how to use it in there day to day life. Now, we can live without them. And over 30 years ago, On?April 30, 1993, the World Wide Web announced that it was for everybody.

People have been nomadic since time began, following food and water for survival. People have been travellers because of necessity and trade and now for pleasure. So yes, the new nomad just evolves with time and necessity.

THE NEW NORMAL

The new normal is disruption and the ability to find opportunity in it.

With disruption comes opportunity and massive shifts in all areas of life and business.?Change is the new normal, so why wait for things to go back to the way they were? Opportunity is rife, all you need is the desire to help others solve problems.

Living and working while exploring the world was a far-fetched dream now it’s the ‘new normal.’

It is as simple as packing the basics; a smartphone (which is really a full-blown computer in your pocket, whether we use it for that is beside the point) and your laptop, drone, all the charging cords and extension cords. Some people might take a router and antenna to ensure we have Wi-Fi...

So, why not book a flight and accommodation; check visas and restrictions; pack a bag (one bag because, after all, it's pretty likely there are shops where you going).?Grab your passport and jump on a plane, train, or hitch a ride in a Blabla car, motorbike, or van, however, they prefer to travel. And GO... off into the wilderness to explore more about how you want to experience life now because you can work from anywhere. Embrace the change.

THE REVENGE TRAVELLER

These people are travelling and crossing borders and seeing the world as much as possible. They were crossing borders during the pandemic and revenge travel whenever the opportunity arrives, some have made it a lifestyle.

Meet the Nomads

Our company has been?interviewing?Nomads who started their?digital nomad life?in the middle of the Global Pandemic.

We ourselves also took every opportunity possible to revenge travel. After being locked in France for 16 months as soon as we got our vaccine passports and were able to travel internationally we took off and worked our way through fourteen countries over 10 months. Ours was not an uncommon story as many nomads continued to travel right through the pandemic restrictions.

People like to hang out with like-minded communities with the same passions, interest and they like to build trust, find familiar ground and we all identify with something that we relate to. And it’s all about things we value and hold dear to us. One of these things that have been bought to the forefront of the global disruptions is the discussion of FREEDOM. How to create more of it, and the fact now that “maybe it won’t always be accessible, like we always thought”.

More than ever before we are seeking a better way, a new way, a different way. It is a massive shift on a global scale but everything is changing and if you’re waiting for things to go back to normal, stop waiting and start doing what is important to you.

So who are you and where are you going?

READ MORE ABOUT THE 20 SUB-NICHES OF A DIGITAL NOMAD...