It’s no secret that we love our job. Beginning our weblog and changing into digital nomads was the most effective choice we’ve ever made. We adore it a lot that our objective in life is now to get extra individuals to begin their very own blogs, discover distant work and journey extra typically.
However, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. We’ve got quite a few posts on this web site that present the constructive facet of on-line work, however there are some cons as properly. In my view, the upsides far outweigh the downsides!
On this put up, I’m going to share with you the professionals and cons of being a digital nomad. I hope that after you learn this, you’ll have a extra sincere, clear image of what distant work might seem like for you.
What’s a Digital Nomad?
Mainly, a digital nomad is somebody who makes use of expertise, specifically the web, to earn cash on-line whereas having the liberty to journey and reside anyplace on the earth. This straightforward definition is normally sufficient to persuade somebody to get into this life-style.
What might be higher? Working if you need. Selecting your individual hours. Working for your self. Working from anyplace on the earth. Making good cash. Being free.
All of it sounds so nice, and consider me… it’s.
Our digital nomad life revolves round our weblog. We began this weblog in 2012 and after a couple of yr it began incomes a bit of cash. After lower than 2 years it was incomes sufficient to pay for our travels and right this moment the weblog is incomes practically quadruple what our well-paying jobs in Canada ever did.
We selected the running a blog route, however there are actually tons of of journey jobs and much more distant jobs that yow will discover. For those who don’t get pleasure from writing, taking photographs and sharing issues on-line, there are many different methods to become profitable on the street.
One advisable distant work job is to change into a proofreader. Work from anyplace there’s an important wifi connection, study attention-grabbing matters, make your individual hours, and earn an excellent earnings.
Taking a proofreading and modifying course is one of the simplest ways to bulk up your resume and provides you with the most effective probability of securing jobs. Take a look at this highly-rated course, which is at present 15% off and presents assured work.
So long as you’re using the world extensive internet to make a residing whereas travelling and residing world wide, you’re technically a digital nomad. Learn on for the benefits and drawbacks of being a digital nomad.
SEE ALSO: 10 Steps To Assist You Succeed As a Digital Nomad
Advantages of Being a Digital Nomad
I’ve to inform you, the professionals of digital nomad life are far simpler to jot down than the cons. This text would possibly sound like I’m biased. As if I’m making an attempt to promote you a timeshare and in doing so, I make the professionals sound so a lot better than the cons, however in my expertise, that is the reality.
Had Dariece and I not pivoted our life and brought this path in direction of location independence and monetary freedom, I don’t suppose we might have ever been so joyful. In fact, my opinion is biased!
I’m a digital nomad myself and the web mainly saved my life. I went from working 12 hours per day, in a darkish manufacturing facility incomes $30 / hour, to working in my pyjamas in a seashore villa for 15 hours per week and feeling financially free.
Sure. It’s straightforward for me to think about the constructive points of digital nomad life as a result of, to me, it’s the most effective life-style I can think about.
1. You Can Have The Freedom To Work From Wherever (with Wi-Fi)
Often known as “location independence”, this freedom means all the things to a digital nomad. The web has modified the panorama of the office a lot that your office now not needs to be a selected place in any respect.
Right now, your workplace may be from a browsing village in Bali, a mountain city in Nepal or wine nation in Italy. The liberty to work from anyplace is the core of what makes location independence so nice.
Our places of work have been lovely pool villas in Indonesia, seashore huts in Thailand, volcano craters in Guatemala, a seaside home within the Caribbean, co-working areas in Bali, a metropolis house in Malta and lots of extra. We’ve created our own residence places of work in additional locations than we are able to depend and every of them was distinctive.
By working in so many alternative environments, we’re in a position to preserve our time on the pc recent and enjoyable. It by no means appears to get boring.
When your espresso break may be spent kayaking in a volcanic lake at some point and browsing the waves of Canggu the following, your job simply by no means appears to get previous.
This sense of freedom is indescribable. It’s nice. The humorous factor is that as I’m typing this now I’m searching over the ocean from my exterior workplace in Grenada and enthusiastic about how lucky I really feel.
For a travel-lover like myself, the liberty to work from anyplace on the earth is the final word professional to this digital nomad life-style. See Additionally: 15 Greatest Cities For Digital Nomads
SEE ALSO: 7 Greatest Jobs For Digital Nomads – Get Paid With These High Careers
2. You Can Select Your Personal Hours
That is by far one of many largest advantages of being a digital nomad. Once I labored in Canada as a printing press operator, my hours have been determined by the corporate. I needed to work the morning shift one week, afternoons the following, and graveyards every time there was further work to be performed.
Research have proven that nightshifts can actually take years off of your life and each time I modified shifts I felt exhausted and drained.
I bear in mind dreading Sundays as a result of I knew that I used to be going to must get up on Monday at 5:00 am to make it to work on time. Whereas I used to be at work I might watch the clock and tick every minute down, excited to hurry house to see Dariece.
Now we sleep in till we really feel like waking up. We begin the morning sluggish with a espresso and a stroll. After we make it to the pc, that’s when our shift begins. Every time we wish.
We work facet by facet and the minute I discover myself trying on the clock, I get off the pc. At that time, I’m not being as productive as I might be, so as a substitute of losing time being unfocused, we shut up the laptops and exit to do one thing.
This freedom to decide on my very own work hours has not solely made me really feel much less wired, however it’s additionally made me more healthy, nearer to Dariece and finally a lot, a lot happier.
Working if you need doesn’t imply that you just by no means do any work. I’ve discovered that now that I’m working for myself, I really need to work. Each minute I put into our weblog and on-line companies is one other step up in our entrepreneurial journey. For each hour I put in, I’m repaid in earnings, progress and success.
Not solely can we get to bid farewell to the scheduled 9-5 work hours, however we’re additionally in a position to have as many holidays as we wish. After we labored in Canada we have been restricted to only 2 – 3 weeks of holidays per yr (I had 2 weeks, Dariece had 3).
This meant that we didn’t have sufficient time to actually expertise any nation. We might go on a vacation, however we didn’t have sufficient time to journey and actually get beneath the pores and skin of anyplace we visited.
Having the ability to go on vacation for so long as you need, everytime you need is likely one of the biggest issues about working for your self, working on-line and having location independence.
3. The Pay is Good!
That is the place so many individuals get confused. For some purpose, when most individuals consider running a blog as an occupation, they image a broke backpacker working from the seashore to earn a couple of hundred {dollars} a month — simply sufficient to pay for surfboard wax and a hamburger. However that’s not the case anymore.
As of late, bloggers, distant employees, and internet entrepreneurs are a number of the wealthiest individuals within the workforce. Go to a distant working hub like Bali, Chiang Mai or Lisbon and meet a couple of individuals there.
Ten years in the past you’ll have met a bunch of destitute travellers scraping by on $5 per day, making an attempt to avoid wasting sufficient for a flight house, however right this moment these locations have boomed as digital nomad sizzling spots and the monetary demographic has shifted.
The age teams are comparatively the identical and the way in which they costume hasn’t modified all that a lot, however lately there are tons of, if not 1000’s of millionaires of their midst.
Some made it large on Bitcoin, others began a profitable dropshipping firm, whereas lots of them have constructed a weblog empire that now earns them tons of of 1000’s of {dollars} per yr.
Sure, there may be extra competitors to succeed on-line than there was 10 years in the past, however right this moment there may be far more alternative.
That’s why locations like Canggu, Chiang Mai and Lisbon are thriving with any such work. Many governments have seen such an inflow of distant employees that they’ve needed to change their immigration insurance policies to accommodate the variety of people who find themselves coming into their borders with a full-time distant earnings.
Having monetary freedom, paired with the liberty to work from anyplace and select your individual hours is the bedrock of what makes digital nomad life so superb. That is the trifecta of distant work and when you’ve all three, you’ll probably be singing its praises as I’m on this article.
SEE ALSO: Our Journey To A Six-Determine On-line Enterprise
4. You Can Earn Cash Whereas You Sleep
Whereas monetary freedom is nice, it’s even higher if you unlock your time so you are able to do no matter you need, whereas nonetheless incomes a residing.
Passive earnings isn’t attainable with all sorts of distant jobs, however among the finest methods to construct up an excellent quantity of passive earnings is thru running a blog.
By merely rising your visitors to a sure degree, you may activate adverts in your pages (just like the adverts you see on this web page) and so they can earn passive earnings. When you flick that swap and activate adverts, you’ll be incomes cash when you sleep.
Advertisements are only one method that you could usher in a passive earnings. Affiliate gross sales, product gross sales and e mail advertising are just some methods that you could work onerous from time to time reap the advantages later. This can be a passive (or deferred) earnings technique and it’s among the finest elements about operating your individual on-line enterprise.
The very best a part of operating your individual enterprise and dealing on-line is that you could cease buying and selling {dollars} for hours. If you begin incomes cash by your individual channels, you’ll begin seeing the standard methodology of hourly pay and wage to be barely primitive and old school. With the web and most types of distant work, you may make your cash give you the results you want.
Now you may set one thing up that may run routinely and generate earnings for you long run.
Take for instance a weblog put up that ranks properly in Google. After you publish that put up, you may overlook about it, however it may well repeatedly earn you cash by affiliate gross sales, product gross sales and promoting. This is called passive earnings and it’s one thing that the web has made extra attainable than ever earlier than.
5. You Can Assist Others
Relying on what distant job you go for, you could discover that you just’re in a position to assist individuals. Cash and freedom are nice perks of this job, however there may be nothing extra rewarding than understanding that you just’re having an affect on the world.
For those who’re educating English on-line, you could discover that you just’re giving younger individuals in growing international locations a brighter future. For those who’re working in tourism you would possibly have the ability to present individuals the way to benefit from their vacation, and if in case you have a weblog you may assist individuals do no matter they need.
You may give them extra confidence, present them the way to construct issues, educate them about tech, assist them be higher dad and mom, present them the way to become profitable on-line… the record goes on and on.
The paycheck that we get from this weblog is nice, however I don’t suppose we might have the ability to sustain with it if we have been simply including phrases to a web site.
The truth that we’re in a position to assist individuals get off the sofa and discover, and the emails that we get from individuals who have give up their jobs and now earn extra working on-line are extra priceless than financial institution deposits.
You’ll be able to assist individuals in so some ways on-line. The web has given everybody a voice and an viewers. By working in a subject that helps others, you could discover success in your work and in your life.
6. Not All {Dollars} Are Created Equal
When you’ve the liberty to work from anyplace, you even have the liberty to go the place your greenback is price much more. Working in Canada, it’s nearly unimaginable to get by on $1,500 / month. However in locations like Thailand, Indonesia and elements of Jap Europe, you may reside fairly properly on this quantity.
In our case, most of our earnings comes within the type of US {dollars}, so after we convert that to Thai Baht, Mexican Pesos or Indonesian Rupiah, we’re doing fairly properly for ourselves.
There are tons of of cities world wide the place the price of residing is actually half of what it’s in locations like Vancouver, London and New York, so by residing in these locations whereas incomes overseas foreign money, you may actually reside twice the life at half the worth.
7. No Extra Getting Caught in Site visitors
When Dariece and I labored in Canada, we had about an hour of commute to get to and from our jobs day-after-day. That implies that after I labored 12-hour shifts, I used to be really away from house for 13 hours.
Dariece selected to commute by foot for one hour every method, so although she solely labored 8-hour shifts, they have been really 10 hours by the point she returned house.
As of late the one commute is from our comfortable beds to our computer systems. Typically we don’t even arrange our workplace, we simply drag our laptops from the nightstand to our laps and lie in mattress whereas starting the workday. Wonderful.
SEE ALSO: Distant Work – The Final Information To Working Remotely
8. No Make-up, No Getting Dressed, No Prep
I’ve to be sincere right here. Once I labored within the manufacturing facility in Calgary, I rolled off the bed, brushed my enamel, threw on some garments (typically soiled garments) and went to work. My job was soiled and sweaty anyway, and there was no costume code, so I actually didn’t must prepare for it.
However in Dariece’s case, working for a regulation agency, she needed to spend an hour preparing and time getting unready day-after-day. By the point she completed work, she had spent about 11 hours out of her day preparing (bathe, make-up, hair, garments), commuting to and from the workplace, after which eradicating the make-up, altering garments and enjoyable on the sofa at house.
Not anymore! Right now we each work from our pyjamas and, except we’ve a video skype name, we don’t have to decorate up for anybody… ever.
For ladies, that is typically a significant professional of being a digital nomad. So many ladies discover freedom in not having to decorate to impress anybody anymore and in Dariece’s case, it’s considered one of her favorite elements of the job.
9. No Annoying Co-Staff
In case you are working in a co-working house as a digital nomad and somebody annoys you, you may merely sit elsewhere, go to a distinct co-working house or simply keep at house and work as a substitute. However in a traditional job, it’s a must to put up with these individuals day in, time out.
By working remotely, not solely do you’ve the liberty to work from anyplace on the earth, however you even have the liberty to work with whomever you need.
For those who merely need to work by your self, you are able to do that. For those who solely need to work along with your associate, you are able to do that too. For those who run your individual on-line enterprise, you’ll by no means be compelled to work with somebody who you don’t agree with ever once more!
10. You Can Journey Non-Cease
For a lot of hardcore travellers, that is the final word objective. To journey endlessly. Distant work and digital nomadism can give you this freedom, however you could discover that upon getting it, you crave a little bit of normality.
I do know tons of of bloggers, dozens of them whom I’ve met in individual, and never considered one of them has been in a position to journey continuous in perpetuity.
A few of them greater than others, however all appear to inevitably seek for a house base. However, if travelling continuous is your factor, then there’s no higher method to do this than by working on-line.
SEE ALSO: How To Work and Journey in 2019
11. The Stress of a Unhealthy Day At Work is a Factor of The Previous
I’m not saying there’s no stress in working for your self on-line. There’s and we’ll speak about these stresses a bit within the cons part of this put up, however the stress is completely different.
Each Dariece and I had comparatively demanding jobs. She was coping with multi-million greenback mortgages on the regulation agency, and I used to be creating tons of of 1000’s of {dollars} price of product every day.
Easy errors from both of us might price the corporate tens of 1000’s of {dollars} (I as soon as printed $200,000 price of unusable product at work).
This accounted for lots of stress. I bear in mind sitting within the car parking zone at work earlier than a giant, costly job and stressing that I’d mess it up. Dariece can be wired earlier than any day that she needed to do closings on mortgages and each of us can be extra on edge with one another throughout these instances.
Despite the fact that I attempted to not permit my job to have an effect on my house life, I typically got here house pissed off and irritated after a protracted onerous day. Now, if a day isn’t going my method, I’ll merely stroll away and do one thing else.
If you end up wired out of your job regularly, it’s time to make a change. Working for your self and dealing on-line can supply a lot stress reduction that you could typically really feel more healthy, extra alive and extra fulfilled.
Cons of Being a Digital Nomad
Okay right here is the half that lots of you in all probability clicked on this text to examine.
The professionals of digital nomad life are fairly clear. There might not have been many surprises there, however there are a couple of cons, and a few of them you would possibly discover substantial sufficient to think about a distinct line of labor.
1. Unsteady Paycheck
This will not be true for you in the event you’re merely doing distant work with set hours like educating English on-line, or in the event you’re working for another person who pays you a gradual wage, however for bloggers, web site house owners, drop shippers and every other kind of freelance on-line entrepreneur, the unsteady paycheck may be onerous to cope with.
That is significantly true if you first begin out, however each entrepreneur on the earth, whether or not they work in brick and mortar or on-line may have a fluctuation of funds month on month.
This was positively true of us after we have been first beginning to earn a full-time earnings on-line. We’d have one month the place we earned $5,000 and the following, we’d earn $1,500. It was a bit demanding and made it onerous to actually settle into one specific life-style.
Your month-to-month earnings dictates what sort of life-style you may comfortably reside, so if it’s at all times fluctuating, you’ll probably must reside on the decrease finish of your month-to-month earnings one month, simply in case you hardly make any cash the following.
Right now we’ve constructed a extra regular earnings and whereas it nonetheless modifications every month, we’ve a dependable base that we all know will are available in. The hot button is to diversify your earnings streams as a way to be certain of a sure sum of money every month.
2. Everlasting Wrestle of the Work-Life Stability
Earlier than you began working remotely, you in all probability simply saved a bunch of cash every year in order that you could possibly afford to journey for some time. However if you begin incomes cash on-line, you’ll discover that you could journey when you’re working. That is nice proper? Effectively, not at all times.
The flexibility to work when you’re travelling is a blessing for positive, however it may also be a curse as a result of many people are unable to “swap off”.
What was a vacation journey to Spain is now tainted by the nagging urge to “get caught up”. As an alternative of having fun with your breakfast and occasional on the cafe, you could end up frantically answering emails or replying to social media feedback which have been build up when you have been on a airplane or driving a bus.
The important thing to unlocking a wholesome digital work-life stability is to plan definitive holidays. Certain it’s nice that you just get to journey the world whereas incomes a residing, however that doesn’t imply that you just don’t want a trip each infrequently. Dariece and I lately “switched off” on a journey to Ecuador and Peru and it felt nice.
We have been in a position to put our laptops away and except for a couple of social shares, we have been utterly within the second. Earlier than our departure, we scheduled months of content material to go reside whereas we have been on the street and we employed some assist to permit us to be away from the enterprise for an prolonged time period.
To our shock, our earnings and visitors really grew after we have been away and we returned from the journey feeling refreshed and recharged.
3. Lack of Neighborhood & Native Help
One of many nice issues about working on-line is that it doesn’t matter what job you’re in, there’s probably a Fb group or a discussion board someplace that lets you really feel related to your fellow colleagues within the space.
However how related are you actually if you’re travelling from place to put each few days, weeks or months.
It’s onerous to type a strong group of associates when you realize you’ll be leaving in a short while. This lack of friendship and group led Dariece and me to type a base in Grenada.
Many bloggers, internet entrepreneurs and digital nomads are doing this lately. As an alternative of being totally nomadic, they arrange a base in a rustic they love and journey from there.
If you first begin out on this digital journey, you would possibly love not having to make plans with your whole associates, however after a couple of years or many years, you’ll in all probability miss having your individual help group to fall again on. I do know that we did. Fortunately there’s a treatment for this ailment. All it’s a must to do is ready up store someplace that you just love.
It doesn’t imply that it’s a must to cease travelling, in reality, many individuals journey much more once they have a house base as a result of they get extra work performed in once they’re house of their acquainted surroundings.
A house base can will let you arrange a greater, extra ergonomic workplace, it may well will let you make a long-lasting group of associates and may give you time to recharge your batteries each infrequently.
It’s additionally good, after years of transferring from resort to resort, to truly unpack, purchase a couple of requirements and really feel like you’ve a little bit of a house.
4. Lacking Pals and Household
As we become older, we discover that we miss our family and friends increasingly more being on the street. We at all times attempt to meet up every year both again in Canada, or elsewhere overseas, however it’s not at all times straightforward.
Seeing photographs on Fb of our nieces rising up, my mother having enjoyable with aunts and uncles and my associates going out for the night time typically makes me miss house. For some individuals, this pullback to house life proves an excessive amount of and so they find yourself abandoning the digital nomad life for a extra regular job again of their house nation.
We’re lucky sufficient to have a household that may afford to come back and go to us, and some associates that we are able to see after 5 years and really feel like we haven’t missed a beat, however for some, this isn’t the case.
Homesickness is an actual factor. For me, I don’t miss Canada, my job, our house or the issues we did. I simply miss the individuals.
5. Poor Wi-Fi
I don’t typically curse in my weblog posts, however wi-fi warrants it. There’s nothing extra irritating than making an attempt to work on-line with shitty wi-fi. It’s terrible.
There are occasions if you simply must add a photograph, be part of a category/tutorial, or put up an article and the wi-fi merely gained’t permit it. Fortunately wi-fi is bettering all world wide, however if you get to these locations with a nasty connection, you is perhaps tempted to hurl your laptop computer by a window.
6. Having To Plan For Your Personal Retirement
That is one other factor that we’ve began to consider extra as we become older. For the primary three or 4 years of our travelling life, I didn’t take into consideration retirement in any respect. I used to be younger, having enjoyable and 65 appeared like two lifetimes away.
However now that we’ve settled down a bit and have grown this enterprise, we’ve had to consider retirement. In Canada and in most developed international locations, there are a couple of automated security nets in place like pensions and previous age safety, however the longer we reside away from Canada as non-residents, the extra these funds depreciate.
In actuality, by the point we retire, we gained’t have the ability to make the most of any government-subsidized techniques and we gained’t have paid in sufficient money to a Canadian pension to get any actual return after we retire. So what can we do?
Having performed the maths many many instances, we’re assured that we’ll have extra money in retirement doing what we’re doing now than we might have if we stayed working on the similar jobs in Canada.
It has taken some time to construct up so far, however we’re assured that if all goes properly for the following 5 years, we’ll have the ability to retire comfortably.
So, is Changing into a Digital Nomad Value It?
Completely.
In my view, the professionals of working on-line far outweigh the cons. I measure success by the extent of happiness that it brings. In our case, this digital nomad life has introduced us extra happiness and success than our jobs, and lives in Canada ever might have.
We journey the world, which is our biggest ardour. We’re free to do what we wish after we need. We get to expertise new issues every day and we get to share this all with one another.
We’re now not aside for 12 hours a day. We now not come house harassed from work. We now not fear about cash, payments, unhealthy co-workers or bosses respiratory down our necks.
Changing into a digital nomad was the most effective factor we ever did.
Do you need to change into a digital nomad? Try our record of 101 Journey Jobs that may show you how to get into this life. We’ve tried many distant jobs, however the most effective by far is running a blog. If you wish to begin your individual weblog about something (it doesn’t must be about journey), Click on Right here and I’ll present you the way to begin one on 10 minutes. You’ll additionally get my free Newbie Blogger Course to stroll you thru the preliminary steps of organising, designing and constructing a profitable weblog.
*Lead picture courtesy of The Dharma Trails.
