Being a professional digital nomad is serious descision, but one I am glad I made. For almost 4 years I have worked in 7 countries, met new people and had the most wonderful experiences.
Ever wondered what being a real life digital nomad is like? Not the Facebook group "I took my laptop on holiday" version - but the real deal? For the past 4 years I chose to live and work in new places, experience how business cultures work in different countries. The experience continues to enthrall me, and despite sometimes being the most challenging thing we have ever done, embracing the opportunity that the digital economy affords us, my partner and I would not swap it for the world. Recently I decided to start keeping some kind of diary, not an every day "here is my breakfast" affair, but at least a start at charting some of the highs, lows and do's don'ts of digital nomadic life. I don't have a format, though I hope to find one. For now I'll just write what and when I can. Expect the entries to abruptly stop/start as time permits (after all choosing your own pace is a greater part of why we chose to be digital nomads)
Follow my journey on Twitter
Twitter is my favourite social media platform! My handle is @softwareguru1 I use the hashtag #therealdigitalnomad to post updates that may or may not make it to this page. Some posts will link to specific articles that may be of particular interest to digital nomads, projects and info in general.
If you like to sleep late - Digital Nomad life is probably not for you!
Today is my first entry, so welcome to my digital nomad diary. It's Friday and my working day started at 5am Paris time, I was awake early because the broadand connection in the location we are staying in has a tendancy to become swamped after about 10 am and I have an iTunes store update to complete and a client emailed some support queries overnight. A big advantage (and disadvantage!) of digital nomad life is time differences. You find a rythym with some clients, often I like US ones because you can work whilst they sleep. Depending on the nature of the problem, that extra few hours either way can really help. What I would say is that (in my experience) sleeping late is not a characteristic of a successful digital nomad.
Connectivity is pretty much your main consideration as a digital nomad. The Internet actually becomes your life blood and making sure you have 24/7 access is priority number one! You can get access in coffee shops for sure, but I find it is not a long term solution at all. Unless you are just doing a week here and there, the life of a true digital nomad requires much planning and having your own connection is a luxury you cannot afford to live without. The reasons can be complex, but for example this week the location we live in has a shared broadband / WIFI system. It works really well, but some days ago the operator decided to block almost every port other than 80, 20 and a few others. That's OK if you are on holiday and need a bit of FaceBook time, but a lot of remote jobs require access to VNC clients, SSH and other stuff. Loosing these ports meant that Xcode could no longer submit to the Appstore! great huh!
OK, time to scoot for now. Please share/favourite this page and do check back in often!
Adios,
Scot
