Great article. I lived a ‘digital nomad’ life for 9 months. On the one hand I loved the freedom of it, but it left me feeling physically and mentally exhausted. It felt like I was packing & repacking my bag every ten days, even if I stayed longer. Not having a TV in my last fixed flat, I still found myself longing for a living room in which to vegetate. The mental load just felt huge. I didn’t miss that when I settled down. And my first purchase? A sofa and a tv!
I absolutely second your point on the physical and mental exhaustion. I've actually been dealing with all sorts of physical illnesses since I started nomading, with the constant changes in climate, diet, environment, etc. I think my body has been screaming, 'Please, give me a break!'
Also, you made me chuckle about the sofa and TV! I recently stayed put in one place for 4 months and felt like a "proper adult" when I bought an $90 vacuum cleaner haha did you write anything about your 9-month digital nomad experience? I'd be curious to read it!
I just wrote an article along the same lines in regards to nomading was debating on posting but you have inspired me to post it! I agree most of the times the reluctance is the story we tell ourselves. I do think working remotely while traveling is hard, and it is glamorized, but still do able if the person really wants it. Def not a permanent vacation! After 6 years of nomading i am finally done, but nomading helped me realize i wanted to live abroad!
Please, do post it! I am very curious to read it. And yes, I agree with everything you just said, especially that nomading is not a permanent vacation! Also, 6 years of nomading is crazyyy! I never realized you'd done it for that long. No wonder you want to catch your breath now! :))
Totally true! I think my friends think I’m living this glamorous life when in reality I’m sitting on conference calls at all hours of the day and night. At least when I was working remotely.
I’ve been a ‘semi-nomad’ for 21 years, 15 of those with kids. I’m now officially tired and am pursuing the following: buying a house in regional Bretagne with a backyard big enough for my husband and I to build a wooden catamaran that we can then still explore on but also have a home to come back to. I got tired of backpacking and changing accommodations all the time so the boat is also like a home you can just move locations in without having to pack, unpack and repack your bags all the time 👌🏼
This sounds like an amazing endeavor, Angie! What a cool mission your family is on. Although I don’t envision a catamaran in my life (yet), I feel like I’m slowly transitioning toward something similar to what you described: I’d also like to have a home base at some point, but still keep traveling when I want to. The fully nomadic life is hard to sustain for very long periods!
Hi Caterina, I definitely think the nomad life can be over glamorized if you just look at Instagram, etc. No one ever shows waking up at 4am to do a conference call, the lack of wifi or sun glare making your laptop unreadable when you’re trying to get that fake photo showing you working at the beach, and we definitely don’t like to talk about getting so lonely you pack it up and return home, as if that’s some kind of failure. It can be fun for a short term trip, or you can make it your entire life and become an expat but we should do it with honesty and eyes wide open.
Agreed with everything you said, Dave! I tried once to work on the laptop at the beach and I was like "Nope, this is never gonna work" haha it's definitely harder than the way the "glamour digital nomad content" makes it appear!
This is so true. I often talk about wanting to live a few months in one place and the next few months in another. But really, do I really want to? What would I do someplace else after the novelty of a destination wears off? I don’t really know. I think I may be holed up in a cafe pining for my current state.
Admission is key as you say. I want to be rooted in a place I call home where my furry dog greets me daily and the children can come home to me whenever they please. A vacation in a dream destination is cherry on top. 💛
It must have been the early noughts. I was talking to a friend who owned a very successful restaurant in Brussels. He told me he was selling it. He'd been stuck to the restaurant for decades and he wanted to travel. Not a fortnight here and there, but a couple of months at a time, in various places around the world.
The idea stuck with me. I came home and told my wife. She was all in favour. With 2 teenagers, a gigantic mortgage on our house, heavily in debt after buying a chocolate company, the timing was slightly off...
Next thing I heard from my friend was his obituary. He died from a heart attack just after he sold his restaurant.
That stuck with me too.
We took up his idea during covid and have, since then, spent about 4 months per year somewhere in the world in periods of 6 to 8 weeks: Uruguay, Buenos Aires, Mérida (MX), Rome, Athens, NY, upstate Florida,...
That took some preparing. Our kids grew up. We paid off our mortgage. We sold the chocolate company. My wife—a creative director for fashion companies—went freelancing. And most importantly, we created a new project for ourselves that wasn't limited by people, locations, or time zones and made sure that we had the resources to see it through. The publication of our book "Aesthetic Nomads" is the first tangible result.
A long intro to say what exactly?
A nomad life may be what you really want, but you need to prepare in advance if you want it to be a success.
Thank you for sharing your experience! It's very inspiring. You’ve highlighted the exact point I would change if I could go back in time: better preparation. As a young professional with limited work experience, it was challenging—and still partly is—to understand which skills I wanted to hone or which area I wanted to focus on when I first started. I needed a longer experimentation phase, which I believe is easier to achieve in person rather than virtually. I'm glad I still managed to become a digital nomad, but with more experience, it would have been easier to decide what I wanted to focus on.
One of my next posts will be about regret. I'm at an age that I can write about this subject with knowledge... Spoiler alert: you always regret what you HAVEN'T done.
So, good on you that you did what you wanted to do.
Friends, family, influencers all inspire us to take that first step on any path. But after that, it’s on us to decide if we want to continue moving forward. It’s also okay to stop if you’ve found out that nomadic lifestyle isn’t for you. At least you can live the rest of your life not wondering what if.
Thanks for this Caterina, i particularly applaud your mention of our real self v our ideal or idealised self...very often two different things without some commitment, tough decisions and opportunity costs
I agree we often lie to ourselves and don’t admit what we want. Sometimes we need an external push to finally make a decision that scares us. I wrote an essay today about becoming a nomad—I could have never predicted it would go this way.
Great thoughts here Caterina and thank you for the mention. I’ve always been curious to get more perspectives from digital nomads and appreciate the honesty. My wife and I have worked remote for several years now and could, in theory, travel while doing so, but I’ve always felt that I’d be anxious trying to coordinate that lifestyle for some of the reasons you mentioned. But also most of our time working remotely has overlapped with having our first child so that limits things quite a bit for us. I’ve always thought seeing the world through tradeoffs is the correct outlook to weigh our opportunities. Thanks for the great read!
Thanks for sharing your perspective, Justin! I must say, when I first contemplated nomading, one of my strongest rationales was, 'I only need to provide for my self-sustenance right now and things will only get more complicated over time. So if I don't take the leap now, when?' This is just to say that your point makes so much sense—I can't even imagine how different things would have been if I had to provide for another human being! :)
I loved this! I was exactly like your friend. I had all the possibilities to 'jump off' and go abroad. I had a safety net and, let's be honest, I wanted to do it, I didn't HAVE to. It took a random stranger asking me: what are you waiting for? before realising this is what being an adult is like. Nobody is going to tell me when to do things or do them for me. Also, the last part, being honest with oneself? 100% agree! I wrote about it with Monica https://open.substack.com/pub/monicanastase/p/the-migrant-questionnaire-1-barbs?r=2puiwd&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Great article. I lived a ‘digital nomad’ life for 9 months. On the one hand I loved the freedom of it, but it left me feeling physically and mentally exhausted. It felt like I was packing & repacking my bag every ten days, even if I stayed longer. Not having a TV in my last fixed flat, I still found myself longing for a living room in which to vegetate. The mental load just felt huge. I didn’t miss that when I settled down. And my first purchase? A sofa and a tv!
I absolutely second your point on the physical and mental exhaustion. I've actually been dealing with all sorts of physical illnesses since I started nomading, with the constant changes in climate, diet, environment, etc. I think my body has been screaming, 'Please, give me a break!'
Also, you made me chuckle about the sofa and TV! I recently stayed put in one place for 4 months and felt like a "proper adult" when I bought an $90 vacuum cleaner haha did you write anything about your 9-month digital nomad experience? I'd be curious to read it!
I just wrote an article along the same lines in regards to nomading was debating on posting but you have inspired me to post it! I agree most of the times the reluctance is the story we tell ourselves. I do think working remotely while traveling is hard, and it is glamorized, but still do able if the person really wants it. Def not a permanent vacation! After 6 years of nomading i am finally done, but nomading helped me realize i wanted to live abroad!
Please, do post it! I am very curious to read it. And yes, I agree with everything you just said, especially that nomading is not a permanent vacation! Also, 6 years of nomading is crazyyy! I never realized you'd done it for that long. No wonder you want to catch your breath now! :))
I am today! haha.. yea i starting slowing down after covid but didnt have a home you know!
Totally true! I think my friends think I’m living this glamorous life when in reality I’m sitting on conference calls at all hours of the day and night. At least when I was working remotely.
Exactly! People think I take months-long vacations whenever I go somewhere and stay there for a considerable amount of time 😂
I’ve been a ‘semi-nomad’ for 21 years, 15 of those with kids. I’m now officially tired and am pursuing the following: buying a house in regional Bretagne with a backyard big enough for my husband and I to build a wooden catamaran that we can then still explore on but also have a home to come back to. I got tired of backpacking and changing accommodations all the time so the boat is also like a home you can just move locations in without having to pack, unpack and repack your bags all the time 👌🏼
This sounds like an amazing endeavor, Angie! What a cool mission your family is on. Although I don’t envision a catamaran in my life (yet), I feel like I’m slowly transitioning toward something similar to what you described: I’d also like to have a home base at some point, but still keep traveling when I want to. The fully nomadic life is hard to sustain for very long periods!
Hi Caterina, I definitely think the nomad life can be over glamorized if you just look at Instagram, etc. No one ever shows waking up at 4am to do a conference call, the lack of wifi or sun glare making your laptop unreadable when you’re trying to get that fake photo showing you working at the beach, and we definitely don’t like to talk about getting so lonely you pack it up and return home, as if that’s some kind of failure. It can be fun for a short term trip, or you can make it your entire life and become an expat but we should do it with honesty and eyes wide open.
Agreed with everything you said, Dave! I tried once to work on the laptop at the beach and I was like "Nope, this is never gonna work" haha it's definitely harder than the way the "glamour digital nomad content" makes it appear!
This is so true. I often talk about wanting to live a few months in one place and the next few months in another. But really, do I really want to? What would I do someplace else after the novelty of a destination wears off? I don’t really know. I think I may be holed up in a cafe pining for my current state.
Admission is key as you say. I want to be rooted in a place I call home where my furry dog greets me daily and the children can come home to me whenever they please. A vacation in a dream destination is cherry on top. 💛
Thank you for sharing your perspective! I do believe that when someone can connect with this kind of honesty, everything unfolds much more easily ✨
It must have been the early noughts. I was talking to a friend who owned a very successful restaurant in Brussels. He told me he was selling it. He'd been stuck to the restaurant for decades and he wanted to travel. Not a fortnight here and there, but a couple of months at a time, in various places around the world.
The idea stuck with me. I came home and told my wife. She was all in favour. With 2 teenagers, a gigantic mortgage on our house, heavily in debt after buying a chocolate company, the timing was slightly off...
Next thing I heard from my friend was his obituary. He died from a heart attack just after he sold his restaurant.
That stuck with me too.
We took up his idea during covid and have, since then, spent about 4 months per year somewhere in the world in periods of 6 to 8 weeks: Uruguay, Buenos Aires, Mérida (MX), Rome, Athens, NY, upstate Florida,...
That took some preparing. Our kids grew up. We paid off our mortgage. We sold the chocolate company. My wife—a creative director for fashion companies—went freelancing. And most importantly, we created a new project for ourselves that wasn't limited by people, locations, or time zones and made sure that we had the resources to see it through. The publication of our book "Aesthetic Nomads" is the first tangible result.
A long intro to say what exactly?
A nomad life may be what you really want, but you need to prepare in advance if you want it to be a success.
Thank you for sharing your experience! It's very inspiring. You’ve highlighted the exact point I would change if I could go back in time: better preparation. As a young professional with limited work experience, it was challenging—and still partly is—to understand which skills I wanted to hone or which area I wanted to focus on when I first started. I needed a longer experimentation phase, which I believe is easier to achieve in person rather than virtually. I'm glad I still managed to become a digital nomad, but with more experience, it would have been easier to decide what I wanted to focus on.
One of my next posts will be about regret. I'm at an age that I can write about this subject with knowledge... Spoiler alert: you always regret what you HAVEN'T done.
So, good on you that you did what you wanted to do.
Life's a work in progress...
Friends, family, influencers all inspire us to take that first step on any path. But after that, it’s on us to decide if we want to continue moving forward. It’s also okay to stop if you’ve found out that nomadic lifestyle isn’t for you. At least you can live the rest of your life not wondering what if.
Thanks for the great reflection.
Absolutely, Jon! You have to give things a try before you can truly understand what’s right for you.
Thanks for this Caterina, i particularly applaud your mention of our real self v our ideal or idealised self...very often two different things without some commitment, tough decisions and opportunity costs
YES, Ruth! You nailed it: all these elements are needed to transform ideas into reality.
I agree we often lie to ourselves and don’t admit what we want. Sometimes we need an external push to finally make a decision that scares us. I wrote an essay today about becoming a nomad—I could have never predicted it would go this way.
Absolutely agree, Claire! Gonna read your essay right away!!
Great thoughts here Caterina and thank you for the mention. I’ve always been curious to get more perspectives from digital nomads and appreciate the honesty. My wife and I have worked remote for several years now and could, in theory, travel while doing so, but I’ve always felt that I’d be anxious trying to coordinate that lifestyle for some of the reasons you mentioned. But also most of our time working remotely has overlapped with having our first child so that limits things quite a bit for us. I’ve always thought seeing the world through tradeoffs is the correct outlook to weigh our opportunities. Thanks for the great read!
Thanks for sharing your perspective, Justin! I must say, when I first contemplated nomading, one of my strongest rationales was, 'I only need to provide for my self-sustenance right now and things will only get more complicated over time. So if I don't take the leap now, when?' This is just to say that your point makes so much sense—I can't even imagine how different things would have been if I had to provide for another human being! :)
I loved this! I was exactly like your friend. I had all the possibilities to 'jump off' and go abroad. I had a safety net and, let's be honest, I wanted to do it, I didn't HAVE to. It took a random stranger asking me: what are you waiting for? before realising this is what being an adult is like. Nobody is going to tell me when to do things or do them for me. Also, the last part, being honest with oneself? 100% agree! I wrote about it with Monica https://open.substack.com/pub/monicanastase/p/the-migrant-questionnaire-1-barbs?r=2puiwd&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web