So you want to become a digital nomad? I don’t blame you; it’s basically a dream lifestyle. I should know, I’ve been location independent for a few years now.
But what exactly IS a digital nomad? What are the downsides? How do you start getting paid while you travel? What do you need to succeed in the cut-throat world of working online?
Put simply, a digital nomad is someone who is able to work online and earn money, wherever they go. The only real requirement for being a digital nomad is an online job – or for those just researching how to become a digital nomad – a skill that someone will pay you to use online. Oh, and Wi-Fi, obviously.
The main perk of the digital nomad lifestyle is location independence. Yes, that means you can work from the beach ( although I’ve learned sun, sand and the inevitable beers that accompany a beach day are not conducive to a successful work day).
As a full-time travel blogger and freelance digital content consultant, I can class myself as a digital nomad. I have worked online from Mexico, Colombia, Morocco and various other places around the world. I earn money from my travel blog and also from my social media clients and other digital content work.
You can check out how I became a full-time travel blogger if you’re hoping to go down that route. You might also be interested in my post about the perks of self-employment and freelancing.
I’m not a typical digital nomad, because I have a home base in the UK now, but I do have the luxury of working while I travel, whenever and wherever I want.
If you’d love to travel long-term or live abroad while earning money online, these tips for becoming a digital nomad will help you get started.
Things to consider before you decide to become a digital nomad
Here are a few things to consider that will help you on your journey to becoming a digital nomad or online entrepreneur.
1. What’s your motivation for becoming a digital nomad?
When I took the plunge to step away from the drudgery of office life and into building a career online, my motivations were pretty basic. I loathed the daily commute to a stuffy office and my favourite mental escape was to picture myself working from the beach in Bali. But as I’ve grown up, my reasons for working online have changed.
These days, I love that I can work from home and pop back to the island where I was raised and where my parents still live. I can also travel abroad whenever I want, for as long as I want, and continue to earn money while I’m seeing the world.
There’s no need to request holidays from a boss. I can work from my mum’s house, an airport lounge, a cafe in Mumbai or a riad in Marrakech.
It’s important to figure out your why. We all have to work to make a living. But why do you want to work abroad and build a digital nomad lifestyle? Is it because you want to see a lot of the world, or do you want to slow travel and experience one particular destination deeply? Do you crave the freedom and flexibility that a ‘normal’ job doesn’t allow? Are you passionate about your work?
Once you know why you’re following a different path to the one well-trodden by everyone at home, you’ll be more inclined to work harder to make it a success.
2. What job(s) will you do to support yourself?
There are a ton of jobs you can do online. Teaching English online is a common one, but you can also work remotely as a web designer, freelance writer, graphic designer… the list is long.
If you’d like to teach English abroad, you’ll need a qualification which you can gain online. Inverness-based company The TEFL Org is the most accredited TEFL course provider in the UK – having trained over 120,000 students worldwide. They offer flexible classroom and online TEFL courses, with course graduates going on to find work within two months of completing TEFL course.
They’ve given me a 50% discount code for their 120-hour Premier Online TEFL Course. You can complete the course entirely online and it is self-paced. You’re given 6 months to complete the course and on successful completion of their TEFL training, you’ll receive a digital PDF and hardcopy of their TEFL Org certificate. My discount code is danniellelily.
The world is a connected place these days, and SO much stuff can be done without ever having another face-to-face meeting where you have to inhale someone else’s stale morning coffee breath again. Companies are waking up to the fact they don’t have to pay people to warm seats in an expensive office anymore.
You can work for someone else, which means you’ll still have someone to answer to (likely the best choice for people who might be tempted to procrastinate). Alternatively, you can set up your own business online.
Not sure whether you have the skills needed to work online? It might be the case that your current job is one you can do remotely. It’s even worth asking your current employer if it’s possible to work remotely for a period of time. The worst they can say is no!
I would never recommend boarding a one-way flight if you don’t ALREADY have online work sorted. It’s best to try out working online in your home country for a while before you leave for long-term travel. This way, you have reliable clients and some experience to build on when you start travelling.
Trust me, it’s no fun being in a new destination with no income, desperately trying to find online work before your spending money runs out!
3. Do you have what it takes to maintain a job online?
I had been sold a dream that involved watching my bank balance soar while sipping cocktails by the pool. Now, I have tapped out emails with my toes in the water on more than one occasion, but the reality of life as a digital nomad is often tough.
Aside from the actual skill you’ll be using to earn money online, you’ll also need certain personality traits in order to make it work.
Ask yourself whether you have the right mindset to be a successful digital nomad. Working while you travel isn’t easy. It’s searching for a coffee shop with decent Wi-Fi so you can respond to emails on a hot day in a foreign town. It’s making the decision to stay in your hotel room finishing a project instead of joining new friends at happy hour.
Often, the digital nomad lifestyle involves discomfort, inconvenience and hard work. Everyone struggles to get their work/life balance right, but digital nomads have to juggle work with life abroad, which is even harder.
People often tell digital nomads how lucky they are but really, luck has maybe 1% to do with creating a digital nomad lifestyle.
To be a digital nomad who actually makes money, you must be disciplined, determined and you’ll need to possess a strong work ethic and solid time management skills. You’ll need to have the maturity to choose a day on your laptop over a day-trip to another cool place. Otherwise, you’re in danger of pretending you’re just on a never-ending holiday. That holiday will end pretty abruptly when your money runs out.
4. How will you protect yourself?
By becoming a digital nomad, you typically sacrifice the safety nets that come with a ‘normal’ job. Most online jobs don’t offer pensions, sick pay or any of the usual perks that are the norm with an office job. You need to take steps to protect yourself – financially and medically.
Have you got insurance for your laptop? After all, it’s the one tool you need to work location independently. Have you saved a ‘just in case’ fund you can use in the event you need to get out of a country quickly?
If you’re pursuing long-term travel, it’s vital that you sort out comprehensive travel medical insurance before you leave. The problem with insurance for long-term travellers is that it’s almost impossible to find a policy because you usually won’t be able to give an end-date or many definite answers. The digital nomad life is unpredictable, and travel insurance providers can’t handle that!
There is a way to get around all of this though. SafetyWing is the world’s first International Travel Medical Insurance developed especially for entrepreneurs and remote workers travelling or living abroad. It works like a subscription. You can choose your start date, cancel whenever you need to, and you don’t need to know how long you’ll be traveling in advance – which is a huge benefit for anyone starting out as a digital nomad.
SafetyWing’s travel medical coverage starts from $37/4 weeks – which is 1/3rd of the price of their biggest competitor.
SafetyWing offers worldwide coverage as well as up to 30 days of home country coverage every three months. You can set up monthly auto-renewal payments so there’s no danger of your cover expiring if you forget to renew. Check them out to see if it’s a fit for you.
5. Where will you go?
This is the fun part! But, get it wrong and it could halt your career as a digital nomad before it has even started.
Some destinations are more suited to digital nomads than others. Mexico City or Chiang Mai in Thailand (South East Asia in general, actually) for example all offer a low cost of living, strong Wi-Fi and plenty of co-working spaces. If you’re looking for the best cities to be a digital nomad, you aren’t short of options.
On the other hand, somewhere like Norway which is famously expensive might not be the best choice – unless you’re rolling in online income. If so, share your secrets? My DMs are open.
Before you choose your route, whether you plan to live abroad somewhere for six months or prefer to travel continuously, you should assess the cost of living in each destination. Research how much stuff costs in the place or places you plan to go.
Calculate a realistic monthly spending budget (accommodation, food and drink, travel costs etc) and work out how much you would have to work online to actually earn that money. Is it a good fit for you? Would you be working so much in order to pay for your life in that country that it would defeat the purpose of even going?
Strong Wi-Fi is essential for any digital nomad, so going somewhere like Cuba definitely isn’t a good idea.
6. Will you balance work and travel, or find a base abroad?
Working online while living abroad is very different to working online while you’re travelling full-time.
If you’re planning to find a home base overseas and stay in one place for a long period of time, choosing the right destination for you is crucial. You’ll need to sort out long-term accommodation, a suitable visa and ensure your environment is conducive to you being productive. The place will also have to be cheap enough for you to live in long-term.
If you’re going to travel continuously you have to contend with the very real issue of exhaustion. In addition to the stress of keeping on top of work, you’ll also need to make travel arrangements and plans for your next stop. That adds up to a lot of time staring at your laptop or phone screen.
Less time in each destination means you’re more inclined to skip work days in order to explore. Ask yourself if you’re committed to online work enough to miss out on once-in-a-lifetime memories. If not, the lure of full-time travel might be too strong and you won’t get any work done.
Trying to upload content to a website or take a video call when you’re constantly on the move is stressful and you could end up losing clients if you don’t plan your travels to accommodate your online work.
Which kind of digital nomad lifestyle will you pursue?
7. Can you establish multiple streams of income?
This is important for almost every kind of freelancer, but it’s particularly handy for freelancers who are also digital nomads. If you can set up more than one stream of income, it’s less devastating when you lose one of the other streams.
For a digital nomad, losing a job can mean being stuck in another country with no money – or worse – having to go home and get a normal job. Ugh! Diversifying your income sources makes it easier to keep travelling for longer.
The gold dust category of income streams is passive income. Passive income is money you can literally earn while you’re sleeping. Or you know, exploring a far-flung village in your latest destination. Passive income is something that takes time and hard work to establish, but once it’s all set up you can sit back and watch the money roll in.
For instance, as a travel blogger I earn passive income from display ads (which are my bread and butter) and affiliate links. I also make money from sponsored partnerships with brands.
I supplement my blogging money with other income streams: freelance writing gigs, an ongoing digital content editing project and a few social media management jobs. That’s a lot of different streams of income! All of this is work I can do online, from anywhere.
The digital nomad lifestyle is hugely attractive and I won’t lie, it’s a great feeling to travel while you work. The thing to remember before you get an online job though, is that you do have to work. Living as a digital nomad is not a holiday, and dreams only work if you do.
Do you have any questions about earning as you travel? Feel free to drop me a DM on Instagram, or get in touch on Twitter or through my Facebook page. I’m also on Pinterest and have a Youtube channel.
As mentioned at the beginning, this post is sponsored. Views are my own.
Pin this
