@dave_chakrabarti

I’m toying with the idea of hosting on AirBNB, in a city that doesn’t have a large digital nomad presence (Calcutta, India). What would the ideal hosting ad look like for a digital nomad?

My personal preferences:

1. Clean (as clean / organized / decluttered as I’d expect a non-backpacker-y hotel to look like), so I actually feel like working. In India, this goes double for bathrooms; I’m willing to pay a lot more for a dry, clean bathroom.
2. Fast, reliable wifi. Everyone seems to have a different definition of “fast” or “broadband”, so some indication of actual speeds / bandwidth caps / reliability would be ideal, but I never see this in ads.
3. Things within walking distance (mostly, I mean restaurants / bars, but sometimes department stores / malls / coffee shops are convenient).
4. A couple of different places to work / read (hammock + desk, desk + coffee table on a balcony with a view of the mountains, standing desk + beanbag, etc).

I know that’s a pretty specific list, and most AirBNB hosts aren’t developers, so much of this isn’t likely on their radar. What would you guys ad to the list? What makes you AirBNB over a hotel, and / or what would be a must-have AirBNB feature?

Thanks,

D.

I’m building a longer-term base in Calcutta, India, and was wondering what digital nomads would think of renting a room here, or what they’d consider a fair rent.

Quick overview:

Newly renovated, ground floor, in a nice residential neighborhood (Salt Lake), a ten minute walk to the City Center mall. Restaurants, pharmacies, public transportation, etc are all within a five minute walk.

Jacuzzi tub in the bathroom, fancy shower stall, nice patio with hammocks and bean bags. AC in the study and bedrooms.

The study has high speed internet access with redundant internet lines (the main line is an actual physical DSL connection, not cellular, extremely reliable, goes down for a few hours maybe once every three years), extra network storage if you need to backup or dump large files, and there are a couple of raspberry pis around if you’re a techie and want to make something while you’re bored.

New paint, new tiles, new electrical wiring, granite bookshelves; the entire apartment was rebuilt (everything from the floor tiles up) this month.

The downside, of course, is that Calcutta is very far off the digital nomad path Assuming anyone’s interested in seeing this side of the country, what would a reasonable rent be for someone sharing the apartment with me in a private bedroom? I suspect I could make the place work at $250/month.

What else would you like included or available as an option? Food (I’d normally recommend against this; food in Calcutta is cheap and amazing), tours, travel in this part of India, other stuff I haven’t thought of yet?

Thanks! All ideas welcome. I’ve been toying with the idea of making this a space more friendly to digital nomads since I started the renovation, so I figured it’s time to start vetting the idea.

It’s that time of year again, where I see cool swanky new tablet / laptop hybrid things and start wondering if I could actually replace a Macbook Air for shorter / longer travel.

Anyone have any thoughts on Google’s new Pixel C? Anyone have experience writing code (or for that matter, writing long-form text, like a novel) with either Android or IOS as your main operating system? Would you leave the Macbook at home for a one week trip? A one month trip? Long-term?

1. I know the software’s not quite there yet. I anticipate major issues being the lack of web dev tools for mobile OSes (I write a ton of front-end code!), and flaky alternatives to Sublime. I’m interested in figuring out if it’s “good enough”. For example, how’s Cloud9 on Android? Any workarounds I should know about?

2. Anyone living tethered to Tmux / Vim on a Linode (or other VPS) full-time? I’m not drinking the Vim Koolaid (or well-aged single malt) yet, but might consider it if there’s a tangible reason for it.

3. Is the hardware trade-off likely to hurt a lot? $500 - $600 buys quite a lot of laptop, running Intel 4th gen processors + the never-ending clunkiness of trying to make Ubuntu work on Windows hardware. Where should I expect to feel the pain on a Pixel C?

4. Anyone figuring out a semi-reliable way to multi-task with multiple windows in Android? For example, how painful would it be to run two terminal sessions, a Cloud9 window, and a Rails tutorial window at the same time, switching between them constantly?

5. Is there a compelling reason to consider an Ipad Air 2 over the Pixel C? They’re in the same ballpark, and though I’ve stuck with Android as a phone OS, I’m very used to working within the Apple ecosystem for work stuff (downloading El Capitan as I type this).

Note: I’m fairly anti-Windows these days, especially as a dev environment (haven’t used it since XP), so an older Surface isn’t likely to be a good alternative unless the Ubuntu support is rock solid

Thanks! All feedback appreciated.

I am nomad from past 1 year and i always find very difficult to find travel buddy. Local people i meet have jobs and are free on weekends only. How you guys find travel buddy or how you meet local people?

Last summer I spent some time travelling through Thailand and Cambodia and jumped on mopeds to get around. I fell in love with them, the freedom, the ability to get off the tourist trail and see areas of a country not written about in tour books.

Recently a friend of mine cycled from London through Western Europe down to Morocco. His journey, stories and photo blog have all inspired me to see Europe by road rather than missing it all by plane.

I’ve been encouraged to do the same longer term through Europe. Next month I’m heading off to Spain to start that journey.

I was wondering if any nomads here are on similar journeys? Does anyone motorcycle between cities setting up to work for a couple weeks then moving on?

If so, have you got any advice/tips for someone just starting that journey?

I am going to India for a few months and am planning on going to Kerala, Goa, Varanasi, Dharamshala, Rishikesh. What phone company has the best coverage and data speeds for those places, or India in general?
I also heard of people using a wifi stick to work remotely while traveling in areas where you may not be able to find a coffee shop, hotel, etc, with reliable wifi. What company sells the best one of those and where can you get it?
Thanks!