Digital Nomading Part 5 of 5: The DN Community

By now Digital Nomading might be sounding pretty good.  Freedom?  Check.  Being your own boss?  Check.  Nice hut on the beach in some far away place?  Check Check.  It all sounds quite nice until you realize that you have literally lost your community.

Most people make and keep friendships with those they work with.  Social activities are planned around work and school schedules.  Everyone you know pretty much has the same Monday thru Friday, 9 to 5 schedule.  And lives carry on day after day, year after year in the same fashion.

But when you are a digital nomad, the fabric of your life changes drastically.  You don't have neighbors that you have known for years, friends are far away and keeping in touch with them slowly loses its importance, and you have no boss telling you to be at work at zero dark thirty, take a lunch break at noon, and leave at 1700.  You can sleep until noon, work on Sundays, and pretty much do what you want, when you want.  You have a lot of freedom and sometimes that can be a scary thing.

Besides creating and keeping up with a daily schedule of sorts (exercise upon waking, working during the hours you are most productive, etc), many digital nomads want to become a part of a community.  Fortunately, there is such a thing as a digital nomad communities.  While many connections take place online, there are also meet ups, and instead of heading over to the neighborhood bar to gather with friends who have a similar lifestyle, people may come from all over the world to a designated spot in Chang Mai or Barcelona to hang out, talk shop, and discuss their interesting and unique lifestyle.

Here is where you can hook up with the digital nomad community:

• Digital Nomad Sub-Reddit
• Make Use of List of Digital Nomad Communities
• Nomad Forum
• Facebook Digital Nomad Community Page
• Facebook Nomad List
• Digital Nomad Meet Ups
• Hashtag Nomads
• Digital Nomad Girls Meet Up
• Couchsurfing Digital Nomad Meet Up
• No Desk List of Communities

Of course this is only one part of settling in to a community when you are new in the area.  Although you may live by yourself and work by yourself and otherwise be fairly isolated, make a point to become a regular at a local coffee shop, participate in local community events, and make local friends who can make you feel grounded in a new community, show you around, and, in all probability, become lifelong friends.

Digital Nomading Part 4 of 5: Settling In

By now you have decided to give digital nomading a shot.  You have your business set up, your stuff in storage, some sort of client base, and you are ready to go.  But where do you go to?

Some nomads want to travel and move around as much as possible, others want to find a place and settle in for a few months or longer (summers in the north, winters in the south), and still others will use their digital nomad base to give them the freedom to live permanently in a location of their choice (at the beach, in the mountains, in a small town with a cheap cost of living or in a major city).

First, you will want to determine what your ideal location is (don't worry, you can always change this later if your ideal location doesn't turn out to be so ideal).  Then you will need to look at issues such as lodging (hotels would obviously be on the high range of the scale, house sitting on the low range, short-term rentals would be somewhere in between), internet access (a major issue if you work online), cost of living (for food, utilities, services, etc), and the general surroundings (some people like daily access to the beach, others like a lot of museums and cultural opportunities).

Next, and this is the hard part, you will need to go.  Here are a bunch of tips from when we were nomading about for a couple of years:

• Our first stop was at a friend's house for a month.  It was a slow entry into being a nomad (read homeless) and in a different part of the country (during which we decided that the southeast in spring with tornado warnings every day was not the spot for us).  Note that we did a lot of fix it work around their house, made dinner every night, and generally made ourselves useful guests so we wouldn't wear out our welcome.
• No matter where you are it pays to have some sort of schedule.  If you act like you are on vacation every day you will not be successful in your work because you will be too busy having fun.  My schedule was to exercise every morning, work for four or five hours straight, then spend the rest of the day doing whatever (being a tourist, hanging out with friends, etc).
• Internet is pretty easy to find in most places.  Even the smallest of third world country villages usually has some sort of internet service.  Note that when you do use public internet and not the internet at a friend or family member's house, you will want to use a VPN service for privacy and security.
• Depending on how long we would be at one location we would determine if we needed a local SIM and calling/data plan for our cell phones.  If you will only be in a country for a few days you can probably go without a phone (or use international roaming if it is free from your US provider), if you will be in one location for a while, a local SIM and plan is a good idea.  Skype is a very good option for hours' long client meetings.
• When we got to a new city/country we would usually stay in a hotel for the first few days until we could check out the area, determine the neighborhood we wanted to stay in, then chatted up some locals who usually had better ideas about what properties were for let than standard places where these were advertised.
• For a "vacation" from our vacation or when internet access wasn't crucial, re-positioning cruises were both inexpensive and enjoyable.
• Cheap lodgings can be found: house sitting, with friends, with relatives, via Couchsurfing, via WWOOF, via AirBnB (sometimes), via Servas, camping or backpacking, as a camp host in national and state parks, in your van (van dwelling), renting a room from a local, in a hostel or pensione, etc.
• Local transportation is generally easy.  The poorer the country, the more public transportation options there are.  Also, most developed countries (ie: Europe and Japan) have exceptional public transit option.  
• You should keep your car insurance in place is you plan on driving other people's cars (this covers you in the event of a wreck).
• When we hit the road we had very few bills--a storage unit, car insurance, health insurance, cell phone bill, and some web hosting services.  All of these were either paid annually (insurance) or on auto-pay through a credit card (everything else).  Most everything else was paid in cash (groceries, rent, etc). 
• Major transportation (ie: traveling around the US or overseas) was a mix of just about everything from Greyhound (not recommended) to Megabus (highly recommended), to trains (Amtrak was meh, Japanese trains were amazing), to local Southeast Asian Airlines that no one has every heard of (cheap but scary) to military SpaceA flights (meh sometimes the wait times were way too long, like weeks, but you can't beat the price), to churning (using credit cards to receives tons of air miles which were used for free flights).  The only thing we didn't try was hitch hiking or Craigslisting free rides.
• The stuff you need to bring with you really isn't that much.  One medium-sized backpack carried literally everything I needed.  Food and toiletries were always bought local.  One laptop died so we had to stay in one place a few extra days waiting for a delivery from on online store.
• Laundry was simple.  For a couple of bucks you can have a couple loads washed, dried, ironed and folded in Southeast Asia.  Laundromats were plentiful in pretty much every city or town we visited.  And hand washing really isn't that hard.
• Food ranged all over the board.  We preferred to cook whenever possible, got thoroughly tired of eating out when there were no cooking facilities, and generally haunted street food stalls and hole-in-the-wall restaurants.
• Work was...interesting.  There could be long stretches of time to really dive into a project.  Fast, non-glitchy internet was a joyous experience.  Getting up for noon meetings in the states when it was 2am  where we were at was a pain.  Signing off from a meeting because a tornado was on the way drew some amazement from the other meeting attendees.  Brown outs were a thing in some places (thank goodness for battery back-up).
• Traveling with the seasons is always a good idea.  It's always summer somewhere and waking up to sunshine every day sure beats being stuck in a snowstorm or lugging boots and heavy coats everywhere we went.
• Major shopping is much cheaper in the states (duty, tax, import fees, and shipping is quite expensive if you are buying something expensive in the states and having it shipped overseas).
• The currency exchange rate may also make a difference in your travels.  Obviously you want to be paid in US dollars or Euros and hopefully stay in a place with a favorable exchange rate.
• Always make sure your (document) ducks are in a row.  Make sure your passport won't expire anytime soon.   If the country you are in requires a visa, know the process to get one and don't let it expire while you are still in-country (visa runs are a thing).  Keep extra passport pictures with you as you will never know when you will need one.  Be aware of credit card, driver's license, and other important document expiration dates.
• Finally, remember that you can always change things up.  Some people get tired of traveling (we did) then find a new place to setting down/buy a house/etc.  Some people get tired of the self employed grind and go back to the employee grind.  Do what works for you.  

And more on the digital nomad lifestyle can be found here, here, here, and here.

Digital Nomading Part 3 of 5: The DN Resource List

You've decided to become a digital nomad, you are thinking about where you can relocate to, you are mulling a bunch of remote work options...when you finally decide to jump onto the nomad bandwagon full time, you will need some important resources to get you started on your journey...

• Name Cheap (my preference for domain name host)
• In Motion hosting (my preference for website host)
• Skype (call anywhere and receive calls online)
• Google Voice (one number for all of your phones)
• Free Conference Call (free tele-conferencing system)
• GoToMeeting (online meeting host)
• Blogger (free blogging platform)
• Drop Box (free online digital storage)
• Trello (free project planning website)
• Apply for a Passport (if you decide to travel internationally)
• World Clock (to keep up with clients in different parts of the world)
• CoWorking Spaces (for when you need an actual office)
• CoWorking Spaces in the US (ditto)
• PayPal (for online payments)
• Laptop (I prefer the Dell XPS 13 i7; others prefer a MacBook Air)
• Cell phone (an unlocked phone that takes a SIM card such as TMobile or ATT phone; Sprint and Verizon phones don't take SIM cards.  My preference is a Galaxy Note 4)
• Cell Service: TMobile (I like this for the free international roaming.  If you chose to relocate to a very rural area in the US, Verizon usually works better. When you are overseas be sure to pick up a local SIM)
• Free office software: Open Office, Libre Office, Google Docs
• Travel insurance:  World Nomads
• Mailbox Rental/Remailing Service: UPS Store (note there are many small businesses in your own town that also provide this type of service and may be cheaper)
• Flight search:  Google Flights
• TSA PreCheck (if you will flying around the US a lot)
• Global Entry Card (ditto)
• Online banking: check your current bank or credit union to see if online banking is offered.  If not consider Chase, BOA, Wells Fargo, etc.
• Travel Credit Card: Examples here
• Travel Gear: Steep and Cheap, Tech Bargains, Deal News
• Legal Nomads resource list
• Nomadic Notes resource list
• Never Ending Voyage resource list
• Thrilling Heroics resource list
• And another list from Thrilling Heroics
• Location 180 resource list
• Picking a domicile state (info on where to make your "official" home)

Digital Nomading Part 2 of 5: The Logistics

Yesterday we talked about what a digital nomad is (someone who works from anywhere with only their laptop).  We also talked about the benefits of such a lifestyle (you can live anywhere, travel anywhere, and still keep a paycheck rolling in).  Today we will talk about the details of how this is done...

The job.  First you will need some sort of employment that you can do online.  EVERYONE should have some sort of online side business whether you plan to keep your job and stay in your office forever or not.  This will give you a stream of income unrelated to your usual job.  From this side business you can either grow it into something that can support you long term or you can ask your employer if you can work remotely or you can do a little of both.  There are innumerable businesses that can be done remotely/done online, ranging from book authors to website designers to language translators to policy writers to video game coders to tutors to online consultants to online psychics to copywriters to online marketers...the types of job possibilities are endless.

The business.  Now that you have an idea of what you want to do, you will need to run it like a business.  Accounts payable, accounts receivable, taxes, invoices, marketing, customer acquisition...unless you are doing remote work for your employer, you will be your employer and as such you will need to set up your business, keep records, pay your taxes, etc.

A passport.  Many digital nomads choose to live and work overseas where the cost of living is lower.  Of course you don't have to do this and can set up anywhere in the good 'ole US of A if you like.  If you choose to work overseas, you will need a passport, you will need to know how to enter each country (is a visa needed?) and you will need to know how long you can stay in each country (info here).  Most importantly, you will still need to pay your taxes, even if you aren't even living or working in the US (info here).

Setting up shop.  Once you have decided to become a digital nomad, have decided on your business or source of work, and have your passport in hand, you will need to set up shop somewhere.  There are numerous websites devoted to finding the best places to live and work based on a range of needs--from low cost of living to most cultural bang for the buck (info here).  Of course you can also choose to live in the US either in an inexpensive urban area or way out in the boonies.

What to take with you.  No matter where you decide to nomad off to, you will need to take a few things including the tools of your trade (laptop, digital camera, digital camcorder, special software, VPN, etc), some cash to get started on, an understanding of how the local internet is (spotty or unavailable internet may be a deal killer for a particular location), and a good attitude (you are bound to have some disastrous days, that's just the nature of nomading).  On the flip side you will have some amazing days so there's that...

What to leave behind.  If you plan to live overseas, bringing pets is an unimaginable hassle.  And although there are stories of digital nomads leaving behind their SOs I would recommend against such a drastic move (which will then require a great deal of coordination if you both plan to nomad together).  You should ideally be debt free before you embark on such an adventure.  You will also need to decide what to do with your vehicle/house/household goods/etc.  We chose the nuclear option a few years back and sold everything (house and everything in it), put the car and a few personal items in storage, then hit the road with only what we could carry in our backpacks.  We learned that with no debt at all, no mortgage payment, and only a few monthly bills (cell phone, car insurance, storage unit) it was very very cheap to live on a month-to-month basis.

Money.  I already touched on debt above.  You will also want to have some money to get set up as well as money in savings to tide you over until you are completely self-supporting as a digital nomad.  You will want to have a few credit cards to use for emergencies or for large purchases (such as airline tickets) which have no foreign transaction fees.  You will want to have your bank accounts set up so that money will be landing in your account regularly (ie: direct deposit with your employer, a Paypal account, Adsense or Amazon revenue attached to your bank account, etc).  If you have any regular bills (we needed to keep our car insurance active even though the car was in storage so it would cover us when we drove anyone else's vehicle) try to put these on auto-pay, pay them ahead for six months to a year at a time, or pay them online monthly (don't forget to do this!).

Some other things.  Logistically you will have a "to do" list before setting out that is about five pages long.  Some things to consider: make sure your important documents, passport, driver's license, credit cards, etc won't expire in the very near future (it's a hassle to get them renewed while overseas).  You will want to set up a private mail box for snail mail that you will inevitably receive.  We did this and had our PMB service mail us whatever mail had been received about once a month to where ever we happened to be.  Back up all of the files on your computer onto a thumb drive or external hard drive (do this in triplicate and leave one copy with someone back home who is responsible, save one copy to the cloud, and keep one copy on a separate drive).  Alert your credit card companies that you will be traveling so you won't get a declined transaction because they think someone stole your card.  Decide on health insurance (some policies will cover you anywhere in the world, some don't in which case you will need to buy this insurance).  Get a Skype number.  Also bring an unlocked cell phone with you so you can easily pick up a local SIM card.

Most importantly...being a digital nomad doesn't mean kicking back on the beach with a beer everyday.  Many new DNs act like they are on perma-vacation but the reality is that you should be working and earning money everyday if you hope to be able to afford such a lifestyle.

Tomorrow we will talk about the myriad resources available to Digital Nomads...

Digital Nomading Part 1 of 5: The Basics

The term "digital nomad" has been around for a while but recently it seems to have grown in popularity.  Being a digital nomad means you earn a living, via your computer, no matter where you are.  Whether you have an online business, or several, or you can work remotely for your employer (as a website designer, video game coder, etc), all you need is a laptop and passport and you are in business.

Why would someone want to do this?  Don't they like their cubical?  For many the answer is no.  The cubical farm is often the worst part of someone's job.  Other problems digital nomading seems to solve is not having to deal with office politics, having the freedom to work when you are most productive (some people abhor having to be in the office at 8am if they are naturally night people), and being able to live where they like and/or travel while at the same time earning an income.  Many DNs as they are called, like the idea of US wages (high) while living in a third world country where costs are extremely low (think Silicon Valley pay but not having to rent or buy a place in the Bay area where costs are in the stratosphere and instead kicking back on a beach in Thailand).

The reason preppers should take a look at becoming digital nomads is that you can live as close to or as far away from the grid as you want, plus even if there is a disaster in your area, your employer may be across the country so work (and pay) continues on like nothing happened.  And while you don't necessarily have to move overseas, and can in fact work from anywhere, the possibility of working for a higher wage while paying minimal living costs can help you both save a lot of money and have the cash on hand to buy the things that are important to you (guns, outdoor gear, a BOV, etc).

Tomorrow we will look at the logistics of becoming a Digital Nomad...