What is a digital nomad?
Digital nomads are people that work online and can live anywhere as far as they have internet. Usually, they seek flexibility of time, resources and location. Basically, that means that they can use time as they prefer, either enjoying the day with family and working in the evening, or enjoying hiking in the morning and working in the afternoon or even working every other day.
Regarding resources, they are not tied to a fix wage. If they want, they can work more to save money for achieving a goal, or work less because they will use savings for some time off and for leisure. Finally, the flexibility of location is the freedom to choose where to live, with the possibility of living traveling, or even to live the mini-lives concept, where you live as a local in a place until you get tired, then you choose a new destination to do the same.
What is the profile of the digital nomads?
Men x women
According to a survey done in 2021 with more than 4000 interviewees from the website A Brother Abroad¹, almost half of digital nomads are women (49,81%). What is quite interesting since we often hear that it is more dangerous for women to travel by themselves.
Age
Age data is curious as well. Who do you suppose that composes most of the digital nomads? The largest group is people in their 30s. Followed by 50s. It is thought-provoking to see that is not the undergrads or retirees that choose to live a different lifestyle. Check how many digital nomads are in your age group in the picture below.
Time living as a digital nomad
On average, digital nomads have already been traveling for 6 years, and 85% of them have been traveling for more than a year. It is interesting to note that most of them said that would stay between 3 and 6 months at the same place. Indeed, when you listen to their stories, you see that initially they wanted to travel a lot, trying to redeem time lost in a 9 to 5 life. Then they slow down and start enjoying more each place, knowing that there is no rush since they have a whole life to travel.
Challenges
It is not all roses, the main challenge is loneliness. That does not haunt only digital nomads, but also expatriates and exchange students. It is always important to have community, even looking for people from your home country can help in adaptation. To change constantly and build new friendships demands effort and it is easy to feel lost when you are new.
Money
Digital Nomads normally have their income from areas like marketing, software development, design, text production and e-commerce¹. Most of them receive their salary from countries with strong currencies and use it in weak-currency countries - either living in Thailand (Chang Mai is a famous spot among them) or Indonesia (Bali is a popular island as well). Working in that way, i.e. geoarbitrage², allows them to maximize their income by living in places with low life cost. Besides, they attempt to live frugal lives to save more for retirement as Jhonny FD, founder of Nomad Summit, explains in the video "How to Retire as a Digital Nomad".
Another common place for them to live is in vans or trailers. About 17% of American digital nomads were living in vans according to MBO Partners². If you want an episode on vanlife, please comment below, I would love to do an English one on it (there is already one on the Portuguese blog).
Education
In terms of education, still on this American statistics, 57% of digital nomads have at least undergraduate level, whereas the American average is of only 35%. Additionally, 24% have at least an specialization against only 13% of the American population achieves the same educational level.
Who want to be a millionaire? Whoops, a digital nomad!
"Despite their aspirations, most of these people will not become digital nomads. Instead, they will continue to be what we call “armchair digital nomads,” those who follow the exploits of others instead of becoming digital nomads themselves." (MBO Partners, 2020)
The study shows that 45 millions of American want to be digital nomads, whereas nowadays there are only 10.9 millions. Nevertheless, the quote above should make you think in case you aspire to become a digital nomad. Do not let your dreams stay only on paper, make the first small step to make them come through!
What is your dream? Write it below so we can get inspired 😊 Try to also write what can be your next baby step to get there, so it will be more than an abstract goal.
See you soon and meanwhile enjoy your trips 🚐
Icon credits
Freepik via www.flaticon.com
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment