Make more money while working less;
Travel, see the world, meet interesting people and experience new things.
These are some of the most widely held professional and personal ambitions, dreams or the ‘one day when I get my big break’ fantasy many of us cling to just to make it through another gruelling week at the office. But did you know that this is already the reality experienced by hundreds of thousands of digital nomads and freelancers word-wide?
What would you do if your salary were to suddenly double or triple overnight?
This is what happens when you take on a digital nomad job working for a company in the UK or US or any other industrialized Western Country then you move to a country where the cost of living is significantly lower.
Countries such as Indonesia, Thailand, Argentina, Brazil, Hungary, Kenya, South Africa (the list is virtually endless) have been hosting digital nomads for decades. While the local economy may not be booming, which has the effect of lowering the prices on rent, leisure and necessities such as utilities and food, with a salary coming in from overseas, digital nomads live in these countries like kings and queens–not to mention the richness in culture, natural landscape, fun and diverse experiences they acquire.
Whereas a computer programmer living in the UK may need to keep to a strict budget in order to make the rent on their shared, cramped flat. They may allow themselves the occasional excess, splurging on special occasions: going to the best restaurants, ordering whatever they’d like, buying rounds for everyone at the pub. But if they were to make the same salary and live in a country with a significantly lower cost of living, these expenditures wouldn’t be considered excess, but practically peanuts.
This is what it’s like to have your salary doubled or tripled overnight. And this is what hundreds of thousands of digital nomads have been experiencing for years.
However, a boom to their standard of living is not the only motivating factor frequently sited among digital nomads.
- Richness of experiences
- Meeting a diversity of creative people
- Climate
- Natural landscape that favors extreme sports: mountain climbing, surfing, paragliding, etc.
- Developing a greater understanding of the world and its citizens
Who are these Digital Nomads?
A digital nomad could be anyone from anywhere who has decided to take their career or carry out their job remotely, and has decided to leave their native home and travel the world while they work.
While the digital nomad life is open and accessible to anyone, from anywhere they do tend to be young people (in their twenties and thirties) with generally no children or spouses (though not always). They are adventurous, outgoing and highly open to new experiences. They value liberty of movement and self-expression. They are attracted to the ‘be your own boss’ idea.
Most digital nomads are tech savvy, though that is not a requirement. They tend to be creative, often with entrepreneurial ambitions.
The Most Popular Jobs for Digital Nomads
While the tech industry makes up the largest percentage of the digital nomad community, being a digital nomad is still an option even for those with little to no IT knowledge or experience.
- Programmers
- Writing code for software, video games, websites, and apps
- Website developers
- Either programmers or digital artists
- Building, fixing, and maintaining websites
- Language teachers
- Native speakers offering instruction or conversation either online, in person, or in company
- SEO specialists
- Search Engine Optimization: Organizing a website’s code and its content in order to maximize the possibility of the site being referenced in search engine searches
- Social media marketer
- Creating and maintaining a brand’s presence in social media
- Creating and promoting content for social media
- Interacting with a brand’s followers across various platforms
- Customer support representative
- Interacting with a company’s customers, answering their questions, solving problems or issues with a product or a purchase
This list is far from exhaustive, and it’s growing by the day.
The Most Popular Destinations for Digital Nomads
In addition to a low cost of living, digital nomads are particularly on the lookout for destinations that can provide creative inspiration, fun, and a richness of diverse experiences, and a host of other motivating factors that vary from person to person.
Here is a short list of some of the more popular destinations for digital nomads along with a few of the advantages they find living in these locals:
- Bali, Indonesia
- Beautiful beaches
- Dynamic nightlife
- Friendly locals
- Water sports: parasailing, scuba diving, windsurfing
- Low cost of living
- Koh, Lanta, Thailand
- Low cost of living
- Great climate (except June – September, which is Thailand’s wet season)
- Friendly locals
- Low crime rate
- Fantastic food
- Belgrade, Serbia
- Low cost of living
- Friendly locals
- Dynamic nightlife
- Proximity to beautiful natural landscapes and other European destinations
- Lisbon, Portugal
- Fantastic beaches
- Great surfing
- Cosmopolitan ex-pat community
- Great food
- A popular flight hub which makes travel to other destinations from Lisbon easy and more economical
- Budapest, Hungary
- A beautiful city with interesting architecture
- Dynamic nightlife
- Cosmopolitan ex-pat community
- Low cost of living
- Dynamic art scene rich with creative expression
With the prevalence of low-cost flights, with more and more countries developing high-speed internet networks, and with companies, like Airbnb, that cater to digital nomads, the list of popular destinations keeps growing and growing.
With more and more companies hiring remote workers, the number of digital nomads is expanding. Maybe you are ready to become part of the community. Where will you go next?
