How to work remotely and travel
My learnings after living in 12 countries in one year
Almost 40 000 kilometres, 12 countries and over 50 different beds - this is 2021 - my first and the last year as a digital nomad. I must admit, crossing out so many things from my bucket list was both exciting and exhausting. In this article, you can find my learnings from that journey.
What you can find here:
- What went well & wrong
- Remote lifestyle categories
- Accommodation types for nomads
- Tips and tricks for remote work
- Advice on how to start working remotely
Small retrospection
What went well
The whole plan worked despite covid — listening to all the stories about flight cancellations, lockdowns and quarantines could make you feel dispirited. However, with good timing and a bit of luck, we’ve managed to avoid almost all of this (only 1 flight was cancelled)
Trying new things — was my primary motivation to pursue this project. Most of my bucket list positions are about various activities, so we’ve tried many new sports and odd things. Surfing was the most significant discovery of all.
Proper onboarding to coliving & coworking culture — initially, it was tough to choose the right place. There aren’t many valuable rankings or listings of such places. However, it gets easier once you arrive, so you get many recommendations and opinions from other nomads. In the end, we’ve met many amazing people and discovered some unique colivings.
High performance at work — despite all journeys and planning, I’ve tried to remain professional. It seemed to work, but it was challenging to reject social activities daily. Also, most nomads work 4–8 hours a day, so you might get some FOMO If you want to work longer.
What went wrong
Over 400h in transportation (2+ months of work) — a recent report from Google with my 2021 timeline shocked me the most when I summed up the time spent in transportation. It occurred that I’ve spent over 400 hours in transport which sums up to over 2 months of a full-time job. It was a massive toll on private time, not recommended.
Too much planning and changes — especially during the project’s first months, it was hard to define our needs. We didn’t know that you should stay at least one month in one place, so we were changing them on a 2-weeks basis, which was really exhausting. Imagine you finish your work on Friday, and everybody is going on a trip. Still, you need to find your next destination and take care of reservations. Later on, we switched to longer bookings and reused knowledge from previous research, which improved in the end.
The lifestyle was too slow — I wasn’t expecting to say that at all, but leaving my community in Warsaw and joining the ranks of digital nomads slowed my lifestyle. In a way, it was really positive. Having a lot of long-night talks and weekend trips was chillaxing. On the other hand, I missed community-based startup activities and after-hours projects. I discovered that working off-site could be beneficial for me, but not for the whole year.
The motorcycle wasn’t the best choice — riding a motorcycle gives you a lot of freedom. However, this freedom was easily lost because we weren’t flexible. We had a tight booking schedule during our trip to France, and we were working. Therefore, it wasn’t possible to wait out unfavourable weather conditions. In the end, it was really tiring experience.
Remote lifestyle
Who do you imagine when you hear digital nomad? From my observations, I was mainly meeting people who were:
- Full nomads — these guys don’t have homes. They switch their colivings or villas least often, around 2–3 months per one place.
- Nomads with a base — they could travel for half a year or even longer, but when the time comes, they come back to their lovely home for a couple of months.
- Occasional nomads — these folks try to spend a few months out of their home country — probably trying to escape winter, get some rest or do sports.
- Nomad recruits— there are many newcomers to this lifestyle, and they’re often visiting “nomad places” to see how it feels like, usually staying around two weeks.
Accommodation types
Coliving & coworking
A place where you can sleep and work with other nomads. Here you can also find my ranking of the best coliving places.
Pros
- Social life — usually you will meet many sociable and likeminded nomads
- Sightseeing — you’ll get invited to preplanned trips
- Delicious breakfasts — most colivings serve breakfasts
- Low complexity — you don’t have to worry about the whole setup
- Sport and activities — most of the places offer sports, e.g. surfing or yoga
Cons
- Challenging setup for meetings — If you have a lot of calls, make sure that there is a phone booth or a good setup in your bedroom (if you have a private one)
- It could be expensive for solo travellers (esp. private rooms)
- Not every place is a great choice — some places are not adjusted to remote work, or there are not that many people, so you might be bored
Airbnb
The most popular choice for most remote workers. Available in all possible setups. From solo rental to group Villa sharing.
Pros
- Easy to book and flexible — extensive choice for most localisations
- Comfortable setup for private calls and meetings — you don’t have to share your living room (doesn’t apply If you renting with a bigger group)
Cons
- Harder to enter into local events and community — You’re on your own, so compared to colivings, you can’t relate to others recommendations.
- Similar to your at-home experience, it might be an advantage for some people, but we were looking for something different.
Alternative option — Van
Probably the best definition of a nomadic lifestyle. So popular that it is currently really hard to get a nice van at a reasonable price in the EU. We’ve met many Van based nomads on the road. One of the greatest was Mischa — here you can check her Van. Anyway, this type of living would require a separate article and probably more experience.
Learnings
Book at least one month stays — it’s not worth it to rebuild your habits and manage all the bookings if you don’t spend at least 30 days in one place. What’s more, you won’t get a chance to get any meaningful relations on a one week trip.
Lack of spontaneity — in the beginning, you think it’s gonna be a journey of a lifetime. However, If your job demands from you 40 hours of work or more — you might be disappointed. I’m not saying you won’t travel, rather that you will have joyful weekend trips and cool activities after hours. So, spontaneity is something that you could miss when travelling and working simultaneously. It won’t be as spontaneous with travelling activities as without a job.
Holiday bias — travelling can switch the brain to a sort of a “holiday mode”, which lets us treat ourselves with a little more kindness than we would normally do back home. We eat out almost every day and do many more activities because we fear missing out and think it will be long before we have another opportunity to see a sunrise over a volcano or eat fresh seafood in a beach restaurant.
Better local understanding — probably you would stay much longer in one place than you’d normally do when on holiday. So you can soak in the lives of local communities.
Additional tips
- Try to stay within 4 hours difference as it’s hard to match working hours
- If you’re working full-time, look for places with a proper desk and computer chair
- If you travel as a couple, make sure that both of you can make calls comfortably at the same time
- Before booking hotels or Airbnb flats, always double-check with the hotel staff or hosts whether the internet connection is fast enough. Ask to send speed test results.
- When booking a place, try to envision what could be your main activities there. For example, try to find places matching your sports interests.
- Define your habits and priorities — it might be hard to keep them all, but it’s worth trying, so you won’t lose your performance.
- Think about how would you like to eat. Some places serve meals, others don’t. You might have some restaurants nearby, or you would have to cook by yourself — make sure you’ll feel comfortable with the final choice.
How to start working remotely
Get the right mindset — a successful remote worker is like an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs cannot afford to wait for somebody to give them answers to the day-to-day problems they face. Instead, they must proactively create their own solutions.
Don’t go all in — you might think you need to sell your house and car to start the journey. It’s far from the truth. First of all, define your needs: whether you want to have some focus mode in the countryside, meet new people in bigger colivings or try surfing on a coastline. Then, make a test run.
Make a test — pick one month (not less) and make the booking. If you’re afraid, start with shorter trips around your country. However, If you really want to get the real experience, make the first trip long enough, so you can meet some people, learn sports and finally forge your own opinion.
Afterword
I wrote that it was my first and the last year as a digital nomad — why? Mainly because I don’t see value in travelling for the whole year. I would rather try to escape winter or organise a one month trip to do some sports or jump into focus mode in the countryside.
What are your experiences with remote work?
