5 Challenges We Face as Digital Nomads
The Flip Side of Workationing
Every coin has two sides. We talked about one side of the coin in the first blog post, and in the second one we gave you some insights on our approach. In this post we’ll talk about the flip side — the challenges we face as digital nomads.
Here’s a quick outline of the points covered:
- Internet Connectivity Issues in Germany 🔌
- The Pandemic Element 👩🏼🤝👨🏻
- Location & Accommodation Roulette 🎰
- The Need to Tweak Our Hobbies 🏊♂️ 📚
- The Usual Travel Hiccups ⛺️
Internet Connectivity Issues in Germany 🔌
“Hey, this place is so beautiful, it would be great to work from here. Let’s check the internet speed — oops! There’s no mobile signal here.”
“Hey, this apartment looks awesome on the pics. Let’s keep our fingers crossed that the WiFi will be stable and fast enough.”
Unfortunately, the above two scenarios have taken place multiple times while travelling in Germany.
We’ve workationed in the following countries: Spain, Portugal, and Germany. So far, the only place where we’ve had to worry about the internet connection has been Germany, especially outside the city limits — in rural towns and nature. While driving through Germany, we came across so many beautiful and charming towns and breathtaking spots. We were unfortunately not able to work from most of these spots as the internet signal was almost non-existent.
(If you are curious to know the reason for the poor internet infrastructure in Germany — here’s a video from DW explaining this point).
The Pandemic Element 👩🏼🤝👨🏻
Another strain on our nomadic journey has been the distancing and shutdowns that came with the pandemic. You tend to socialise less with people, especially strangers, and many people also want to keep their distance. Many bars, pubs, clubs, and restaurants are not open or only with restrictions. Thus, most of our time is spent together, which is a blessing and a curse 😉. It can get intense when you spend almost all your time with your partner. Before the pandemic, and before working and travelling together, we would not see each other for half a day, as each of us was off to work. Now, we see one another 24/7. Best advice we can give: Give each other room to be alone occasionally.
Location and Accommodation Roulette 🎰
We normally only have a few clues of how our next location would actually be in terms of locality, transport options, amenities, the internet connection. Therefore, it is always a gamble to pick a location and book the accommodation for stays that span more than few days. Now you might ask, why do we book stays for more than few days, the reason is, long term bookings are cheaper than daily rates. The downside to this is, you might be accommodated in an unalluring apartment with dark, cramped rooms where there is no space to work conveniently for a month.
We also came to realise that pics can be deceiving. Lofty apartments that look awesome in the photos, but turn out to have no doors are a no-no. As the two of us have different time schedules, one would be forced to tiptoe around the place so that the other one can work without being disturbed.
In sub-tropical places, some nights can get fresh during the winter months, and not having heaters lead to uncomfortably cold nights.
The Need to Tweak Our Hobbies 🏊♂️ 📚
Some hobbies that we’ve been pursuing for quite some time had to either be tweaked or given up once we embraced this lifestyle.
We both are avid readers and love reading paper books, but as we prefer to travel light — we’ve tweaked our reading hobby and started reading e-books using the Kindle app.
Some hobbies like swimming, dancing, shooting hoops, and gardening, which were part of our weekly routine in the past, had to either be given up or be pursued occasionally.
The Usual Travel Hiccups ⛺️
When you travel, there might be unforeseeable difficulties arising. While you’d expect to face minor hiccups when it comes to flight changes, traffic jams, or your car conking out in a foreign place, these events might be more stressful when you are on a tight schedule and somebody is waiting for you to attend a meeting. Thus, there is the challenge of planning your travel time wisely when you combine work and travelling.
We hope the above-mentioned points have given you some idea about the challenges of the digital nomadic lifestyle.
In our opinion, the bright side totally outweighs the flip side, therefore we plan to continue this journey even in the future.
If you like our content, please show your support by hitting the ‘👏 ‘ button.
And if you enjoy reading articles on Medium, consider signing up to become a member. It’s 5$ a month, giving you unlimited access to stories on Medium. If you sign up using this link, we’ll receive a small commission.
Thanks! ❤️
