The digital nomad primer

As more lifestylers join this global tribe, veterans and pandemic adopters tell The Hindu Weekend what works while on the move and what can get you in trouble

Shahzada Arora, 25, became a digital nomad at a time when the concept wasn’t as popular as today. The podcast host (@theshahzadalife on Instagram) started travelling full-time in 2017 and has already ticked off places like Albania, Serbia, Laos and Cambodia on his travel checklist. Now, post-pandemic, Arora is more the rule than the exception. In his podcast, Remote Explorers, he shares why he thinks the digital nomad trend is no less than a revolution of sorts. “Earlier, someone living in a village had to travel to a city to get an education, then to a bigger city for an internship, and finally an even bigger one for a job. Today, you could sit in a village and work for a company in Silicon Valley!”

Needless to say, companies and countries are helping to facilitate this. Barbados was one of the first to provide a 12-month Welcome Stamp-a visa in June 2020. Malta, Iceland, Australia, Croatia and many others followed soon after (Italy and Spain are likely to introduce a digital nomad visa this year). There are even digital nomad villages popping up in places like Madeira, in Portugal, and the Canary Islands (some to shore up declining tourist numbers, and others to combat their rural depopulation crisis).

But in the midst of all this movement, what many forget is the toll the lifestyle can take. “It didn’t take long for [my boyfriend] Paul and I to realise that the instability of digital nomad life added an extra challenge to working full-time on the road,” says Brittany Sneller, a travel blogger (Bucketlist Bri). “It’s just one reason, among others, that we prioritise slow travel — living and travelling for extended periods in one destination, as opposed to jet setting or moving often. That said, we still work ‘set’ hours during the week; typically from 7 am to 6 pm. The difference of our nomad lifestyle versus a 9-5 office job is that we get the luxury and freedom of choice. To choose when we want to work or play.”

So, we asked a few nomads — both newbies and those with experience — for a nomad lifestyle 101.

Working from Mexico since 2020 | @nomadictravelscapes on Instagram

“One month into my first-ever full-time job and I knew I couldn’t work with someone breathing down my neck constantly,” says Shah, who now works as a graphic designer for a German restaurant and, parallelly, runs a travel blog. She first made her way out of India in 2017, when she went to Japan on a volunteer programme. And she still abides by a lesson she picked up there — to be with people. “You need at least two good friends or acquaintances in every city you go to. Use Instagram to connect with people even before you arrive, to know how things work locally. Earlier, I wasn’t open to talking to strangers. But with this lifestyle, I can’t do without it.”

Network and connect: Friends are great to fall back on for help in times of need. “Take a gift from your town, build a connection with locals. Even Reddit is a brilliant platform to get advice. Just go through the profile of the person you’re interacting with online for credibility.”