@skatkov

Hello,

This is my first post in nomadlist although I’ve followed the forum for a while! My question is about finding 1-2 month housing. For shorter stays, in the past, I’ve used airbnb with some success, and for longer term stays, I assume you search the apartment rental market. I’ve done some 1 month stays at airbnbs, but I imagine one month in advance that’s inefficient because many places will have at least 1 day filled in the month you are looking and consequently won’t show up on your search. You’ll only be searching places with no bookings in the next month.

So, my question is, what to do in this situation? Do you just make the best of airbnb slash hotels, or is there a better way to look for one month sublets and the like? I’m looking specifically at Saigon but also curious about in general.

I feel bad connection has always been a DN restriction. I just came across this OpenCellular article, and it seems like a solution to rural area internet access

Any thoughts? Or any similar product recommendation?

I didn’t become a nomad, but I joined Nomad Forum to understand more about it. I have been freelancing remotely thru Elance for the last two years so I would like to know if there are other who have been impacted by their merge with Odesk and migration to Upwork.com. Just curious to hear more about it.

I’ve noticed that recently a lot of us tend to prefer the ‘slow-travel’ rhythm, which is more about moving to a place for a month or two, and then living there, instead of changing your place every couple days.

However, what about those that still like the fast pace of travelling, with meeting lots of other travellers on the road? Are there any nomads here, that still like the backpackers’ lifestyle? That is: you travel through a whole country by yourself; you change your place of living much more often; but you still have to work a bit digitally in the meantime?

If yes, then how do you hang out with backpackers and keep up with their pace, while still having to work remotely?

Related questions:

• How do you choose which hostel (or place, area to go to in general) to stay in as a next one?
• How do you maximize your way of meeting other travellers and your own travelling experience (by seeing other places, people and their cultures), while still having to work remotely in the meantime?

I like both digital nomads & backpackers, but so far, barely I’ve seen any digital nomads in the backpacker places or vice-versa. I’m wondering why? In the end, it would be a clear connection of Work & Travel at the same time, two things that a lot of us propably enjoy very much at this moment.

I’m looking for a great virtual assistant service that’s affordable. I looked into Zirtual and found it to be rather pricey. Anything out there that’s more reasonable? Basically, I’m looking for a virtual assistant who can help with research efforts, fact finding, and some other work related to a large writing project.

What are some MUST HAVES in a co-working/living environment? ** other than stable wifi and awesome people

So far I have:
Buffer, Toptal, Maptia & Upworthy - fully nomadic, the employees & founders are always on the go

Basecamp, GitHub, Mozilla - known for their distributed teams and mobility but majority of workforce still in HQ

Can you help me find more? I am doing research for digital nomads infographic.

Please share your tips for keeping healthy while travelling. My 2 favourites, that have helped my out numerous times are:

1. Probiotics to avoid stomach complaints (yakult, yoghurt, kimchi, etc)
2. Red/raspberry fanta to settle stomach issues. May not work all the time but a couple of bottles of red fanta early on has not failed in settling my stomach.

I’m assuming a lot of people on here are also members of #nomads. I’ve considered joining, but I’m curious about what value you get out of it, how it’s been useful, etc.

Note: I’m certainly not trying to ask “is it worth it” or undercut its’ value in any way – I’m mostly curious about how it’s useful and trying to figure out if it would be a good fit for me, and figure other people might benefit from that discussion as well

I’m a 25 year old Australian girl, newly single, working remotely for a SF startup. I’m looking for a location to settle for the next 6 months, starting in May. All countries are on the table (although stable wifi is required).

I’d love to be by a beach & somewhere that has a relatively bustling vibe, restaurants etc. Bonus points for surf or a gym.

Logistically, I have a visa to be able to stay in the Schengen zone for 4 years so Europe is doable. I guess I’m concerned about it being high season?

I’d love to hear any suggestions.

Hey fellow nomads!

I’m working on an article and would love to know: what are the most common questions people ask you about nomading/travel/working from the road?

I’m trying to organize my winter 2016 getaway and plan to spend a couple of months working from a beach in Thailand.

So far I have my eyes set on Ko Lanta and/or Ko Phangan as these two seem to offer good co-working spaces and lots of great beaches.

I would love to hear from anyone who has been to either of the two (or both) and what you liked/disliked about them or if you’d recommend one or the other?

Thanks!

Hi Nomads!

I’m looking for someone with one or more “Digital Nomad horror Stories” to share with other Digital Nomads here (as a comment of this post) or even better:
in Berlin (actually outside Berlin in a beautiful workation retreat), in mid-August, around a campfire organized by http://coconat-space.com/ .

If anyone has some stories to share, We’ll be happy to host him/her in Coconat for couple of days in exchange of his/her horror story

Thank you!

<15>P.S.
Digital Nomads’ horror stories are those “horror” stories happened to a digital nomad while travelling, while working. They could be about a client lost because of a no-internet-connection-situation, a important flight lost, an exploding server that couldn’t had been reached, a transfer from-city-to-city where a Laptop got stolen, etc.

Anything that could remind that Digital Nomadism could become horror for non-experienced travellers/nomads.
Something that might remind people that Digital Nomad is a choice (with ups and downs), and not only a simple vacation.

– It doesn’t have to end up to be the scariest story ever.
– It can be an horror-comedy story or even have an happy ending
– It can even be a story that didn’t even happen, but that –at least– includes a bit of realism (a sort of Digital Nomad Fabel )
– It can have been happen to someone else you’ve met (as long as the person you’ve met is ok with you telling it)

Thank you for sharing.

So far I’ve found that 3-5 months is a good amount of time to stay in one place before moving to a new location. I have time to get accustomed to the city and save up for another flight. This also affords me enough time to explore the city I’m in as well as a few weekend trips to see nearby areas of interest. I’ve found that moving after just a few weeks creates a lifestyle that’s too turbulent for me to feel comfortable. I’ve met nomads who stay for 6 months - 1 year in each place as well.

What has been the ideal length of stay for you?

I am thinking about becoming a digital nomad. I already have a startup in my mind that’s ready to be build. I will make this website by myself, it should take me roughly about 2 to 3 months to complete everything. From that point on it will be a matter of time before it will generate a income. Before my website will make a steady income i would need money to survive. I do have some savings but it is not enough to keep me on my feet for half a year or longer. Is it wise to take a loan as a Digital Nomad to make the startup allot easier?

Today the EURUSD rate is around 1.05, a multi-year high. While it was predictable that the Euro would collapse (it was always way overpriced), the speed of it’s collapse is surprising. It’s the same thing with the Australian $, the Canadian $, the British pound, the Yen and many other currencies.

Are you affected by those forex moves? Will they influence your future plans? Maybe a change in destination?

I just got laid off of my job as a software developer. I have 60 days to figure something out. I’m not very confident in my skills, though I have a bit of entrepreneurial experience. It’s just very hard for me to imagine making the leap. Where should I start ? Elance, Odesk, Freelancer.com, I also have a couple of websites I can try to monetize, though I’m not very confident in my ability to do this. What are the other options!? All I know is I must be free!! Please add me on facebook https://www.facebook.com/mirona.constantinescu or here: http://linkedin.com/in/mironaconstantinescu

Hi, I am Sten, co-founder & CEO of Teleport. We build software for startup people on the move. We have released Teleport for Startup Cities, Bay Area Teleport and Teleport Flock to date.

Moving ourselves and our families around the globe we have become all too familiar with the hassles this lifestyle brings. Figuring out where to stay, what to expect, where to pay taxes or which visa to get. Rinse and repeat.

We mapped out hundreds of relocation nuisances we could fix with software. Once these get solved millions of people like us could benefit. So there was no choice but to start this company.

Over the last decade most of our team were busy building Skype which turned out to be quite effective making the world smaller in the metaphorical sense. We believe we can now rearrange the human population physically as well.

I’m joined here with my co-founder @keskkyla and possibly other members of our 9-people-across-6-countries team – depending on what you guys want to know.

Hey everyone,

Thanks for having us! We’re DuckDuckGo, the anonymous search engine that doesn’t track you.

The company was started in 2008 by Gabriel Weinberg and has steadily grown to a team of more than 20 people serving over 9 million searches a day.

We have a small headquarters in Paoli, PA, but the majority of our team is distributed around the world. I’m personally based out of NYC and work on the Front-end of the site.

I should be joined by a few others on the team, including: Zaahir, Doug, Chris, Adam and Jag.

Ask us anything!

I wasn’t exactly expecting to be in Thailand - so I have a winter coat, a few books, and more clothes than I need to travel.

I want to donate or give these things away while I am in Bangkok.

I figure if there is anyone in Bangkok traveling to a chilly place - I have a winter coat for you!

And I figure I can give my books to some hostels - any recommendations?

Hi everyone, I work as a personal trainer and have started recently to build up an income online so I can travel again on a more permanent basis. would some input on this

Just looking for some places where everyone has had good luck with internet. I’ve had some bad luck, so I’d love to play it safe when planning out the next few months.

Any thoughts on the Phillipines? Taiwan?

Hey everyone!

I’ve seen a lot of nomads here who are based out of Chiang Mai. Given the changes in visa rules lately with Thailand making it harder to do visa runs, etc. I have a few burning questions that I would love to get some insight on:

1. Taxes - Does Thailand still not tax internationally earned income? As in, if it’s earned outside Thailand, and stays outside Thailand, it’s not taxed? (I read somewhere that this was the case but just need some solid answers…)

2. Visas - How do you now manage to stay in Thailand for more than 60 days? Or do you just get a double entry 60 day visa back home from the consulates and then stay 120 days (with a short trip outside), or do something else? It seems like having to move around every few months can be quite a hassle, especially without a guarantee of getting in again. To frame this differently, what is the easiest way to get a longer term residency in Thailand? What is everyone doing these days now that the duration of the visa exemption on arrival at land borders has been shortened?

3. Do any of you bank locally or is everything in offshore accounts or incorporated elsewhere?

4. Is it possible to avoid farang rates after you stay for a while and most importantly, is it possible to integrate at all with the local populace given the language/cultural barrier? To put it differently, did you manage to make any/many Thai friends or do you mostly hangout with expats?

Just a few questions I had because Chiang Mai looks like a lovely place to settle down for 6 months to a year but especially on the visa front there seem to be some administrative hurdles.

Thanks in advance for any info

Quite happy to announce that the next Coworking Camp will be in Tunisia from November 2nd till December 13th.

If you haven’t heard or read about Coworking Camp before, it’s a temporary coworking space in a beach resort to escape the European winter. Lot’s of information including some videos from last year and links to various newspaper and blog articles is on our homepage at http://coworking.camp

The final hotel has not been decided yet, but I wanted to make sure everyone is aware early enough (as last year a lot of people told me they learned about it too late to join), plus we have a 35% super early bird discount on the tickets for the next few weeks. (code “iamin”). There are also some volunteer spots left for free tickets in case you want to help organizing the event.

The general idea is to bring a group of about 60 like minded startup founders, digital nomads and freelancers together in a productive environment to make new connections, share experiences and have fun in the winter sun.

I am currently in Tunisia (only for a few more days), but will be in Chiang Mai soon, so please message me if you want to meet in person to learn more about Coworking Camp. Or just have a coffee.

Hello, guys! My name is Maksim. I am from Belarus originally, but during last 7 years I live mostly in Russia.

I spend last year almost like a digital nomad. I have been in Vilnius (Lithuania), S.Petersburg, Moscow (Russia), Ho Chi Minh, Phu Quoc (Vietnam), Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia), Istanbul (Turkey). I spend from 1 to 6 months in each city. Now I am in Moscow and I pissed off.

I really want move somewhere (probably want to start from Thailand). BUT my wife is pregnant, 5 months already. I resigned from my current job. And I don’t have another one yet. From relatives side it looks crazy to move somewhere in that situation.

What do you think, guys?

This one is for those of you who have full-time remote jobs. I noticed @wanderingdev mentioned being an FTE for a US company, hoping she may be able to weigh in here.

I have a very nice remote programming job. Great team, and the whole team’s distributed. I’ve been working remotely for years now – but never as a developer. I used to do more writing-related jobs, where you get paid by the word, and hours don’t matter.

As a coder, I’m suddenly paid by the hour. I am not a “consultant” - but I still find it very confusing and troubling, and I’m trying to nail down some norms. I’m supposed to be “full time”, which basically means 40 hours/week or so (43, but who’s counting).

I have a timer I use (nobody asked me to use it, and I don’t share the time report with anyone). I used to stop the timer whenever I went to the kitchen for a moment or to help with the kid. Working like this, an 8-hour day quickly became a 13-hour day. Meaning, it took me 13-14 hours to get 8 hours of work done, and it was pretty terrible.

I decided to do a sanity check with a colleague whom I have good rapport with. He’s a senior dev who’s been with the company for years. He said that in an 8-hour day, he usually manages to get in about 4 hours of “billable time” – meaning, about half his time is spent actually working, and the other half is doing other things, which he says is important to stay creative/fresh and not burn out (I definitely see the sense in this).

He told me that when he used to be a consultant, he used to charge exactly per what he actually worked – but then he doubled his rates to make up for it. (I don’t get a ton of money, I’m not a very experienced coder, and I’m not considered a consultant by any stretch of the imagination)

So… I decided to cast a wider net here, just as a sanity/reality check. As remote programmers, how do you manage your time? What does an “8 hour workday” look like for you, in reality?

Do you have a timer? When you watch a YouTube video, do you stop your timer? Etc. etc.
When working at an office it’s easy to get a fix for the norms - but working from home, you guys are what I have. TIA.

I’ve been putting on events for the past three years and had a lot of succes last year with my event based podcast. I spent a month living in Guatemala in November and fell in love with the travel/work lifestyle. Now, I want to do more to help our community.

I wanted see how many people would be interested in an online conference/summit for digital nomads?

What type of things would you like to learn? For example, setting up home bases, taxes, visa issues, sccessful business models, etc. I welcome any feedback.

Hi fellow Nomads,
I’m Marcus, the founder of DNX GLOBAL, the first conference for Digital Nomads.
Together with my girlfriend @Feli we have worked and lived as Digital Nomads in 20 countries over the span of three years.
At the moment we are working from Taganga, a small fisher village at the caribbean coast of Colombia.

Originally employed at several start-up companies in tech hotspot Berlin, Felicia and me left our jobs behind to embrace self-employment and travel.

Some countries were very challenging: In the fisher village El Nido, Philippines, there was no power supply until 4 p.m. Myanmar and Belize came with very limited Internet access as well.
In Brazil you need a local tax number to buy a local SIM card. However, we found perfect conditions for Digital Nomads in countries like Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore and most of the European countries.

Despite our constant roaming, we have an interest in creating services and products of real value to clients. When going on the road we started with freelancing and offering services like website coding, personal branding, and marketing consulting. We also run a German backpacking and adventure travel blog called “Travelicia,” in which we share our experiences.

To meet the wishes of other nomads and address the concerns of potential-nomads, we launched the first German DNX - Digital Nomad Conference in Berlin in May 2014.

This summer on 1st of August we are doing the first international conference for Digital Nomads - DNX GLOBAL in Berlin. The line-up for the main event includes bestselling Amazon author Natalie Sisson, TED Conference speaker Derek Sivers, long term traveling Digital Nomad Cody McKibben and international travel blogger Sabrina Iovino. The day before the main event we will do workshops to spread awareness of self-employment options for travel enthusiasts.

Ask me about being on the road as a couple. Ask me about work environment and setting in countries in Asia, Central America, South America and Europe. Ask me about the ups and downs in Digital Nomad life. Ask me about handling with common prejudices from people and the press. Ask me about the challenges and learnings being on the road for 3 years.

I am sure Digital Nomads from all over the world start to design their life in a way that creates more value for them and their environment.

Hi Nomads,

I’m Fred Perrotta, the co-founder of Tortuga Backpacks. We make carry on luggage for urban travelers.

In 2009, my co-founder, Jeremy, and I took a two-week trip to Eastern Europe. Despite a ton of pre-trip research, we couldn’t find backpacks that worked well for city travel. My hiking bag was a nightmare to pack and unpack. Having recently read the 4-Hour Workweek (and being naive), we decided that we could solve this problem.

A year later, I left my full-time job at Google to work on Tortuga. At the time, I paid the bills doing freelance work for startups.

I’m a medium-term traveler (a month here, two weeks there), rather than a full-time nomad, but Tortuga Backpacks has enabled others to take on the digital nomad lifestyle.

Ask me about making products for travelers, making physical (gasp!) products, online marketing, sourcing in China, the Canton Fair, trying to build a remote team, why I have $6,473 in Airbnb credits, or anything else.

And because I was asked in the Slack chat, you can use discount code LEVELS for 15% off any of our backpacks through the end of the year. Our flagship bag, the Tortuga, is a maximum-sized carry on. For the light packers of the DN community, the Tortuga Air (ships in January) may be a better fit.