How to be a Digital Nomad
How to be a Digital Nomad
Out of Office: The Rise of the Digital Nomad explores the world of mobile workers: people who can set up shop – virtually – in Leeds, Lahore or Lagos. All you need is a computer, power and – crucially – a reliable Wi-Fi connection. Here's our 10-point guide to the pros and cons of "have laptop, will travel".
1. You can work anywhere
Olivia from Romania helps her countrywomen lose weight through online video tutorials and lifestyle products. For the last four years she's been doing this from Italy, Belgium, Portugal, Spain, Britain, and in the northern winter from Dubai, Malaysia, Vietnam, Bali, Japan, Taiwan – where it's sunny all the time. And she's about to embark on a "digital nomad cruise", sailing from Las Palmas to Panama attending onboard seminars and workshops, with shopping and fitness sessions thrown in. Although her work needn't be interrupted at sea, digital nomads (DNs) more usually base themselves in rented flats, cafés, bars or the developing number of tailor-made digital hub spaces.
2. Digital nomads are best suited to digital jobs
Typical DN jobs include copy-writing, translating, building websites, coding and SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) consulting – anything that requires digital input and which can be done without face-to-face meetings. And the scope of work possibilities is expanding all the time – some say that DNs are the future of work.
3. Rule 1: Check, check and check again that there is good Wi-Fi
Don't get caught out like two DNs who accepted a long house-sitting job where good Wi-Fi had been promised – it turned out to be a dongle with a 3GB monthly limit, shared between two people; the nearest decent connection was a 40-minute drive away. They got 3G sim cards to tether, and had to turn off images, YouTube and other apps to eke out their monthly broadband allocation – and they hadn't bargained for the disruption of Gangnam Style soaking up most of the public bandwith when the K-pop video went viral.
4. Digital nomads can live cheaply
In Lisbon, where aroung 3000 DNs are based, average earnings are under €12K a year. A pair of successful DNs might make €80K a year, making them rich by local standards. DNs, who have to move regularly to avoid being tied up in long-term contracts for accommodation, often use more expensive AirBnB properties because monthly discounts are available and bills – including Wi-Fi – are inclusive.
Charm, climate, good infrastructure and cheap living: Lisbon is a magnet for digital nomads – but at a price.
5. Local communities can be impacted negatively
Still in Lisbon, the fiscal inequality of the DN economy means that locals are being priced out of the attractive old town areas where DNs are gathering, as landlords seek to convert their properties into more lucrative holiday rentals. This is no trifling matter: it is resulting in the eviction of long-standing tenants on low incomes; and in one part of Lisbon, the number of registered voters has declined from 20K to 2K.
6. Digital nomads can boost and diversify a local economy
Some communities embrace DNs with open arms. For example, Cornwall, in transport terms, is more remote from London than Lisbon – a slow, four-hour train journey as opposed to a two-hour flight. However, it has the third-fastest-growing tech cluster in the UK: green tech, eco-tech, creative tech, embedded tech, space tech – a product, in part, of massive investment in super-fast broadband.
7. You need to know how to make best use of your technology
With a Wi-Fi connection, a laptop and a mobile phone, you are independent of land-based systems but you can still work smart, such as by using VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) apps to make calls (or audio recordings for email), internet video call systems, social media aggregators to make the diversity of online channels manageable, and online shared documents.
8. Virtual workers have virtual assistants
The development of digital tech has created a new role for "virtual assistants" (VAs) – support workers who act as digital co-ordinators on behalf of clients, but who are based at home or wherever they happen to be. VAs enjoy all the advantages of digital nomads.
Virtual Assistants enjoy all the advantages of digital nomads.
9. It's not all days of wine and roses
Like office-based workers, DNs have to rein in their capacity to work all hours in order to achieve a more balanced lifestyle, for example by working the office hours of their clients in their own countries.
And there can be tax complications: the tax infrastructure doesn't yet have a working model for a DN operating in, say two countries, using a server in a third country and working for a client in a fourth.
10. Creative economies are finding creative solutions
The Interior Ministry of Estonia, and governments in other countries, are developing a "digital nomad visa" to facilitate the new breed of tech worker. These and other developments will make it possible for today's digital nomads to be regulated and taxed.
Whether or not the free-wheeling, rootless DNs will be prepared to submit to either of these regimens is a moot point.
