Disclaimer: Before anyone comes at me, let me say that this article isn’t an absolute-radical fact, nor is it meant to discourage you from becoming a digital nomad if that’s what you really want. This is my experience, and the reason I’m writing this is to tell you: Look, here’s what you may go through If you decide to try.
Becoming a digital nomad is not a quick fix to your current unhappiness, nor a fast bucket list kinda thing to achieve. It’s the opposite from easy and it would suck to achieve it only to realize it’s not what you really want after all. Orrr maybe this will help you be a more knowledgable nomad than many of us were and avoid some of these situations all together.
As usual, this post is illustrated with photos I took on a trip. Today we’ll feature Roma, Italia.
There are TONS of digital nomads out there trying to sell you the idea of working on your laptop by the beach sipping a piña colada. Let me tell you, that’s totally unrealistic. Not because it’s impossible, but because it’s actually incredibly uncomfortable to work like that. We’ve all tried, believe me. You’ll be all sweaty, you’ll overheat yourself and your laptop, you will get sand all over it and the flare won’t even allow you to see the screen properly.
Here’s my hot take: a lot of internet people will show you an hyper-romanticized idea of the nomad life just to later sell you a course with their “secret super unique formula” to “win in life and live the dream” or get you to consume the content they monetize. To be honest I have never purchased any of these courses–there’s gotta be one that’s good, who knows?
Anyway, let me tell you, nobody warned me about this…
Nomadic Loneliness
I believe there are two kinds of loneliness. The physical, when you’re literally alone because there’s no one around you; and the emotional loneliness, when you do have people around but you still feel lonely. On the road, you get to experience both.
The truth is, if you become a digital nomad or embark on a long journey on your own (without close friends or family), loneliness will come knocking at your door (or hostel room or guest house). Everyone handles it differently, and we all have different levels of comfort with it. Even if you ARE traveling with someone, making new deep long-lasting connections while on the go-go-go is extremely rare. You’ll make all sorts of friends only to follow them on ig and in five years wonder who that person is.
I mean, it also depends on what you may be going through at the time. Sometimes, we welcome her, invite her in and have long coffee pauses with her; so much that we enjoy her company. Yes I’m still talking about loneliness which, to me, is feminine. But when we least want to see her, she shows up and stabs you in the back. It’s a bit of a bastard when we’re not in the mood to put up with her.
If you’re lonely as a digital nomad “it’s because you want to” ¿?
I posted a TikTok about this a while back and a nomad-influencer replied to me. She said if I’m lonely “it’s because I want to”, considering there are many ways to meet people online. It’s like when you tell someone you’re unhappy, and they’re like “Oh no, don’t be” Well, thanks for that (?)
Again, don’t get me wrong. I’ve always thought that the people you meet during your travels are the best part of the experience. But the truth is, they’re not your lifelong friends or your family. The time you spend with them is often so short that it’s hard to build a truly close connection. It’s as simple as comparing the kind of friendship you can have with someone you’ve known for a week to the relationship you have with your best friend or your sibling. The level of trust, companionship, and reliability just isn’t the same.
If you get sick, injured, robbed, harassed, have an accident, or run into any kind of problem… There are so many situations where you’d want to be able to just go see your mom or dad for a hug, show up at a friend’s place with beers, or ask someone for a not-so-easy favor. And in many cases, all you’ll have is yourself.
A piece of advice:
Stay long enough to build a community and make nomad friends that are also traveling around the world. Yes, most people may come and go, but no one talks about how amazing it is to make a friend while exploring rice fields in Bali and then meeting each other back again across the globe while sipping mezcal in Oaxaca.
Traveling is like dancing, it’s all about the rhythm.
The main problem for me was that at some point, instead of my trip feeling like a Chill Still Woozy song, or a waltz or a balad, it turned into a Marc Anthony’s Salsa spinning me around making me completely dizzy.
Basically, moving around with travel visas will cut your time short. And in my case, I was traveling FAR so I had to spend a ton of money on getting to my destination to only be there for maybe one to three months if I was lucky.
A month abroad may sound like aaaages if you’re used to short traveling for a holiday. But moving countries every month or two is simply not reasonable non sustainable for a long term digital nomad travel plan. At least, it was not what I was looking for if I wanted to keep going for years. Fortunately now there are more and more digital nomad visas to counteract this issue.
The urge is real
And then there’s the FOMO, or to sound more current let’s rephrase and call it “the urge”.
The urge of traveling all around Europe because international flights are $20 EUR. The urge of hopping around major Asian cities because you spent $2000 USD on a flight NOT to sit all day in the same coffee shop doing “digital nomad work stuff”. The urge of trying all your favorite international foods in their places of origin. The urge of learning about a new culture, or religion, or a new language… the urge is real.
But the excitement can wear off after your fifteenth “new city,” and your twentieth time searching for a laundromat. The first few months can be intoxicating. Every corner holds something new and every meal feels like an adventure, but your brain will adapt quickly to the constant hits of dopamine. What was once extraordinary and exciting becomes tiring.
A piece of advice:
The digital nomad dream isn’t dead just because the novelty wears off. The real value doesn’t come from endless motion, but from finding a rhythm that allows you to have a balanced life while experiencing the world on the way.
I recently started “slowmading” and I definitely think is the way to go for me. Becoming a slowmad basically means staying longer and immersing yourself in the culture you’re in at a deeper level (for more details about this check my article about slow travel.)
If you’re the digital nomad that moves around quite a bit…
So let’s say we haven’t read the article about slow travel yet and we’re giving into every urge to hop on the next train, bus, or cheap flight. It’s okay, we’ve all done it. But here’s what none of those digital nomad influencers really tell you: life in constant motion can get exhausting.
Second-guess each item you choose to bring
Carrying your entire existence in a suitcase sounds romantic until you have to, well… carry it. You will find yourself dragging all you own through an unpaved muddy street full of puddles while the full strength of the sun hits your face. Mark my words.
Every little item you own goes with you no matter where you go and each purchase has to run through a brutal filter “Do I want this badly enough to haul it on my back like a turtle that regrets its choices?,” I just picture myself at the airport with it and that mental picture helps me decide whether I’m willing to deal with it or not. An oversized $3 straw hat? Looks amazing at the beach, now picture sprinting through an airport wearing that. Not so amazing anymore.
To be honest the level of annoyance of this task will depend on how good or bad you’re at packing your things. After +3 years of experience I can honestly say that … I suck. I often end up playing suitcase Tetris at midnight realizing I actually didn’t need that extra pair of shoes. Anyway, you’ll eventually end up leaving things behind and picking up others along the way. Don’t worry, you may get better at it over time.
A piece of advice:
Never pack for “just in case”. If you need something and you didn’t bring it, you can almost always get it at your destination.
Struggles of finding accommodation as a digital nomad
I wish packing was the only challenge. Sleeping in different beds every other week, never having a space that feels truly mine while having to constantly re-learn the basics of daily life carries a heavier weight than the suitcase itself. So the longer I travel, the more time I spend looking for the right accommodation. This can totally make or break your trip, specially if you plan to work from home and spend a lot of time wherever you’re sleeping for the day, week or month.
Depending on your budget and preferences there are plenty of different options. From fancy hotels, airbnbs, guesthouses, to hostels. The cheapest option, and the best for meeting people, is staying in hostels. But the thing with hostels is they’re kind of like blind dates. You never really know what you’ll get until you’re there. It can be beautiful, comfortable, clean, friendly… or the exact opposite.
You might find hostels designed for digital nomads with coworking spaces, morning coffee, great internet and respectful guests since everyone’s working. Or you might end up in a party hostel where people show up drunk at 4 a.m., turn on the lights with zero mercy for your sleep and on top of it, shouting.
I did start my nomad adventure staying primarily in hostels (because budget.) But it didn’t take long before I traded them for airbnbs and guesthouses.
A piece of advice:
You often get a juicy discount if you book over 28 nights with Airbnb or directly with guest houses and they tend to be much more suitable for a nice, balanced, productive digital nomad life. Staying longer in one accommodation helps outweigh the overwhelm of constant change – the rotating cast of mattresses, roommates you didn’t choose, or an endless hunt for the basics – and it does feel a little bit more like “home” even if it’s temporary.
To plan or not to plan?
A key step to survive without losing your mind: book well in advance.
We know common sense is the least common of the senses. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been borderline desperate because I booked transportation into a city during peak season or decided, on a whim, to stay “just one more night”, only to discover every remotely decent bed in town was gone or priced like it came with room service from the Ritz. And judging by the number of travelers I’ve seen go through this exact same mess, I know it’s not just my insanity.
That said, I won’t lie–each of those situations turned into unforgettable experiences. Event that one time I paid €70 for a 10-bed room hostel night in Hvar, Croatia.
Maybe you’re a better planner and this will never happen to you. Me? I used to thrive on uncertainty, the freedom of being able to just drift wherever the wind, or the cheapest plane, happened to take me. However, as I said before, it’s simply not sustainable to live like this. Let’s leave the backpacking to the backpackers. We’re here to be digital nomads after all, right?
Your body WILL change
While everyone’s experience is different, traveling changes our habits and as a result our bodies will change too. For some people, this isn’t a problem but for others it can be and it’s nice to be aware in advance. Personally, exercising and eating healthy is a major priority, but balancing the life of a digital nomad with a healthy lifestyle has been very challenging.
You might gain a lot of weight from eating out often or indulging in the amazing foods of the places you visit (hey, no blame! if you ask me, food is a major reason to travel and no need to be too restrictive).
Sometimes we’d rather use our free time to explore, meet people or having too many night outs instead of exercising or taking the time to cook. On the other hand, you may lose weight from walking everywhere (specially if you’re traveling in Europe) or wanting to save money (specially if you’re traveling in Europe and you’re from Latam like me) or simply getting distracted and end up skipping meals. Neither extreme is healthy. It’s all about learning to find balance, and the reality is that it will be a process until you find yours.
Piece of advice:
Something I started doing to kinda turn around these nasty patterns is looking for a gym right away. Day 1 after arriving I’m already checking out places and paying in advance when possible. If you’re not a gym fan you can always find other activities, choose yours and do your best to show up!
Visit your inside world too
I’ve had people assume I travel far away because “I’m running away from something.” I don’t know about you, but when I move around my inside world and my problems follow me everywhere I go. I don’t think the emotional rollercoaster is just a me thing, though. While traveling, you’re exposed to so many intense experiences so quickly that finding our center, balancing and managing everything inside can be a challenge.
The main purpose of this article is to highlight that being a digital nomad isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. Just like any path we choose in life, there are highs and lows. Sometimes we idealize travel thinking it will be just like a vacation, surprise surprise, it’s not. And when life’s troubles happen, it’s only human to feel bad. When the ups and downs of traveling get combined with the human experience, the emotional snowball can turn into an avalanche… of happiness, fulfillment, loneliness, confusion…
Piece of advice:
To anyone going thought this experience–the one of being human–I’d very highly recommend seeing a therapist at least once in your life, just to get to know yourself a little better. The best we can do, both as people and digital nomads is to learn how to process what we’re feeling. Work on understanding, experiencing, living, enjoying, and eventually letting go of our emotions. And sometimes we can use some guidance.
Anyway, in conclusion
I once read a book that said: life is about choosing your problems. Because we’ll never be able to eliminate problems–they’ll always show up one way or another. So, according to the author, happiness becomes easier to achieve when we know how to choose our complications.
As a digital nomad: You’ll be moving a lot, you’ll spend a lot of money, you’ll miss your friends and family, you’ll get exhausted, your body will ache and change, you’ll get lost. And all of this will happen while you work and go through the natural processes of human existence (insert situation: illnesses, family or relationship issues, expectations, accidents, complex emotions, depression, anxiety, insecurities, debts, loneliness, fear, confusion, etc.).
If, knowing that you’ll possibly face one or more–or even all–of these challenges, you still believe it’s worth it for all the incredible things you can discover in the world through this experience, go for it. I’ll see you on the other side. I won’t lie, it’s amazing, and becoming a digital nomad it’s been the best decision of my life.
I hope this information helps, and if you have any travel-related questions, feel free to contact me on Instagram
