How is Central Asia for digital nomads?

Does anyone ever travel to any Islands like Bermuda, Barbados, Barbuda and St. Kitts & Nevis?

I'm in need of a tax advisor who understands "our" typical situation. I'm all good on being legal on taxes at this point, but as I'm doing more investing and there's more compliance and KYC and such, it's getting more complicated to deal with this topic. Not living in my country of citizenship, company in another country, resident in yet another country, banking in a different country ... you know how it is, a pile of red flags.

Would be great to find a good tax advisor to sort things in a way that makes my situation as "explainable" and easily dealt with as possible. Any leads?

Hi, I've got a question to anyone who had experience with the digital nomad lifestyle. I'm 24, I'm in my last year of university doing computer science, got 3 years of experience mostly doing web development.

I never liked the idea of staying in one place, getting a job and growing roots - hence the will to take the opportunity and travel the world. My main question is – how do I go about it? Are there any useful resources I could look into?

How do I go about insurance and such once I decide to move. I currently live in Switzerland and do freelance work for one company. It's not a lot, since my studies don't allow me to pick up a full time job, but it allows me to cover simple expenses.

I'd be happy to get some insight into how things work and also happy to network with anyone interested.

Hi guys ! hope you are doing well.

I would love to get your feedback regarding the best insurance for digital nomads. i'm traveling around Asia since 1 year and for next 4 or 5 years. Would love to buy an insurance to cover especially :

- health

- laptop, phone ...

- Flights

We're looking for a country in South East Asia that can function as our base, mainly for tax purposes. Meaning it will have to be a place where we can stay for the 183 days required without too much hassle.

We've been looking at Thailand, but have heard that it's very hard to do visa runs etc., so what other can you recommend? Indonesia looked like a good option, but the income rate is a flat 20% and very high for the region.

Hey everyone,

Looking for blogs by individuals who document their progress/business in South East Asia - ideally Vietnam, Cambodia or Laos - but also Thailand/Myanmar too.

Thank you,

Haiducci

Anyone know of any groups or resources for Ph.D. students working on dissertation while living as a digital nomad? I know there are several virtual writing groups around, but wondered if there were any specifically for digital nomads, particularly those who are dissertating.

Thanks!

Hello digital nomad!

I dream of being an independent digital nomad. But it feels very elusive & unattainable with my success rate. In full disclosure, whilst I have dreamed about making money online since high school; I have not earned a single cent making money online. $0, nada, zilch!! On the contrary, I have spent a lot of time & money on books, podcasts. Even though I have spent a lot of time reading/listening to others, I do not have anything to show for it!

I have made attempts in the past to start an online business, but these fizzle out quite quickly when I do not see traction especially when the goal I have set myself is too high.

Instead of reaching for the ultimate nomadic lifestyle goal, I want to start much smaller. Really small! I am simply looking to make $50 profit per month from a new online business. That’s it.

I need some advice from you please!

• Is $50 profit too low? How long did it take you to earn $50 profit per month?

• What is a good way of achieving this goal?

Thanks
Mark
aka the $0 online business entrepreneur

Hello everyone! I’m new here and probably this is a very newbie question, but it doesn’t leave my head.

How do you, nomads, pay your taxes? I mean, if you’re constantly traveling, how are you going to pay taxes for a certain country if you are going to stay there a short period of time?
Or do you return to your “original country” and then pay them?

By the way, this forum has very nice cool formatting features!

Currently in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico and heading to Santa Teressa, Costa Rica next week.
Then Aruba in the Caribbean Sea for Christmas and New Year.

However I feel I want to head back to Central America to bring living costs down, rather than staying in the Caribbean Sea among the expensive Islands.

This means I have around 2 - 2,5 month of unplanned travelling.
Any digital nomads who have ideas about where to head in that timeframe?

Hi!

I am planning to move to Latin America for 3-4 months (Oct-January). I’ve narrowed down 6 different places that I want to visit before committing to settling down, but I’d love to get some community input.

Here are the cities I’m considering:

• Quito, Ecuador
• Cuenca, Ecuador
• Medellin, Columbia
• Cartagena, Columbia
• Antigua, Guatemala
• San Marcos La Laguna, Guatemala

The most important things I’m looking for:

• Fast/easily accessible internet
• Easy to meet other nomads/make friends in general
• Safe for women
• Some sort of spiritual community (I’m also a yoga teacher)
• Easily walkable city

Anyone have any experience with these places and can give some insight? I’m also completely open to other recommendations.

Thanks!
Rose

Hi all, I was looking for a cool spot in Southern Europe for winter and I’m considering Sicily… Have you ever been there? If yes, how was your experience? If not, why?
thanks!

Greetings!
Does anyone have experience in Bari, Italy please? We are thinking of going from Dubrovnik, Croatia to Bari by boat in mid-March. Has anyone taken a boat across? Is it nice or can it be choppy? (We are trying to avoid planes, to reduce our carbon footprint, so adding more surface travel.) Also, any info you might be able to offer about Bari and the surrounds? Next step will likely be trains up Italy as the Spring progresses.

Hello all,

I’m planning on spending a couple of month in Mauritius Island and even when I’ve been there for a week, never rented or worked there.

Does anyone here has tips or experience to share about Mauritius?

Cheers!

Hey all:

Does anyone here have any experience attending a full time fitness bootcamp or a fitness resort while working? I know there is one in Cambodia for digital nomads (Fitness Retreat Resort Kep Gym), unfortunately the time difference vs my work schedule would make my life suck if I tried to go there. I’m looking for a place between US and Europe timezones that lets you live with them, kicks your butt with fitness, but would also have good WiFi/accommodate working eight hours a day. I’m also open to other tangential ideas for something close-ish to get that same experience.

Thanks for any help!

What’s the best place?
For residency I’m looking at Portugal and they have the NHR (non habitual resident) program which would exempt dividends from foreign income.
So all I’m really looking for is the best place to actually start the company.
Biggest factors are of course low taxes and ease of setting up the company plus a business bank account that enables me to receive payments through Stripe.

What I found so far:
Hong Kong
Corporate tax rate of 16.5% (8.25% for the first HK$2 million)
⊕/⊖ offshore income from outside HK is exempt from taxation but it’s not clear whether this can be done in the first year and prorated or if it’s only through filing the offshore exemption claim. This might take two years and requires not income from HK at all. More info on that would be great
⊖ seems very difficult to get a business bank account
⊖ necessary services and fees are roughly around €2000 / year
⊖ accounting requirements seem to be very strict
⊕ Doesn’t require local partner
⊕ Agencies available that seem to handle most of the work

Singapore
Corporate tax rate of 17% (0% on the first S$100k, 8.5% up to S$300k)
⊖ requires a local director. What are the implications of this?

Malta
Corporate tax rate of 35%
There is the “full imputation system” but I don’t really understand it.
"In most cases, the tax refund to the shareholder is 6/7 of the tax paid by the company on profits distributed as dividends. The tax refund rate may be different in the following cases: " This would result in an effective corporate tax of around 5%.
⊖ European customers would have to pay VAT and I’d have to deal with that

Cyprus
Corporate tax rate of 12.5% and there seem to be ways to lower this
⊖ European customers would have to pay VAT and I’d have to deal with that
⊖ requires staying in Cyprus for 2 months / year

I find it surprising how much research this requires and how much “it depends” information is out there when I’d assume that there are probably thousands of digital nomads who probably have very similar requirements.

When you meet new people or reconnect with old friends, do you “out” yourself as a digital nomad? The simple question “where do you live?” makes us uncertain now. We wonder if some places may be less welcoming to digital nomads, or if “digital nomad” has a negative connotation in some places. If you are forthcoming from the start, does your status as a digital nomad make it hard to form friendships?

We would love to hear how other people navigate this… how to balance being authentic in relationships vs. withholding the context (and allowing people to assume you’re on vacation, for example).

Thanks!

Hi guys!

We’re leaving on Dec 1st for a 5-month DN experience with our kids, but we have second thoughts on our journey. We were supposed to do a trip in South-East Asia (Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia). We’re from Canada, and our clients are all in Canada right now (we’re digital marketing consultants).

After comparing destinations, we’re starting the think Latin America may be a better choice to make sure we keep most of our clients during these 5 months (same timezone). Also, it seems Latin America fits our needs too :

• cheap (actually often cheaper than Chiang Mai according to Numbeo)
• great weather (sunny while less hot than Asia)
• business continuity : good wifi connection, limited time difference
• learning opportunity : one single language = great opportunity to improve our Spanish
• relaxed pace of life
• kid-friendly
• relatively safe (see countries below)

So here are our 2 options ; which one would you recommend for our criteria?

A: SEA : Thailand (Chiang Mai and a couple islands in the South), Indonesia (Bali and Lombok), Malaysia (Penang)
B: Latin America : Mexico (Playa Del Carmen/Tulum), Colombia (Medellin), Peru (Lima and other TBD towns), Chile (Santiago and other TBD towns), Argentina (Buenos Aires and other TBD towns).

Thanks!