How Do We Manage a Digital Nomadic Lifestyle
Our approach (and tips) from a year of being digital nomads
Metaphorically speaking: If digital nomadism was a journey, combining work and travel, then digitalization and minimalism would be its fuel.
In the last post, we talked about why we became digital nomads, if you haven’t checked it out yet, here’s the link to it:
In this post, we’ll be answering one of the most frequently asked questions: How do we manage this lifestyle?
Here’s the outline of the aspects covered:
- Work 🗂
- Mode of Travel 🚙 ✈️
- ‘Go Minimal’ Attitude 🥢
- Bed and Breakfasts in the Air 🏡
- Caretakers Back Home 🦸
- Mindset 🎯
To avoid an overly lengthy post, we are just scratching the surface here. If you would like to get more insights on any of the aspects above, feel free to DM us or use the comments section.
Work 🗂
In our opinion, remote work is basically a digitalized version of the traditional office work and digital nomadism adds the travel aspect to it.
One of us works as a freelance German language teacher and the other one as a director of a Software Engineering team at diconium.
From a freelancer’s perspective, the key is to clearly communicate and find customers who prefer taking lessons remotely.
From a full-time employee’s perspective, the key is to have an open-minded and progressive thinking employer like diconium, who offers flexibility through a hybrid workplace model.
Of course, there are certain regulations on where you can work from because of tax/social-security/law. For now, our destinations are within the EU. Since the EU has a wide array of locations with diverse landscapes, climate zones, and cultures, we are happy with this setup.
Mode of Travel 🚙 ✈️
We prefer two modes of travelling: by camper van or by plane.
We travel with our camper van during summer. Having a vehicle allows us to spontaneously choose our route and destination. To find scenic spots, we use the parkfornight app. To receive internet everywhere, we bought a portable WiFi hotspot. We rarely stay in the car for more than a few nights, then we start looking for an Airbnb, as we like having more space especially if the weather is not on our side.
During winter, we fly to places with a warmer climate and sunshine. Also, we often rent a vehicle at the new destination which gives us more flexibility to choose outlying homes/locations. Having a vehicle also makes it easy to explore the region and do grocery shopping.
‘Go Minimal’ Attitude 🥢
As nomads, we are constantly changing locations. One of the most important things is not being weighed down by excessive and unnecessary baggage.
Our focus has always been to cut down our luggage (both with regards to work equipment and clothing) as much as possible and travel with the bare minimum.
Therefore, our work equipment consists of only a laptop, a phone and a pair of airPods (we’ve accustomed ourselves to not rely on extra monitors, keyboards and mouse).
When we are flying, we’ve made it a habit to travel only with hand luggage. Owning multifunctional clothes that serve various purposes is a big bonus. Our wardrobe gives us the freedom to easily pack and unpack as well as change locations in a hassle-free way. It doesn’t matter if we travel for one week or three months — what matters is that we pick a house with a washing machine.
In the end our luggage comes down to one week of clothing each, a laptop each, smartphones (camera, navigation system, essential documents, audiobooks, music player, etc.), an iPad mini (Kindle, Netflix, YouTube), and some essential toiletries.
Bed and Breakfast in the Air 🏡
We are proponents of the ‘sharing economy’ and Airbnb is a perfect fit for us when it comes to accommodation.
While we travel, we rent out our own apartment in Stuttgart on Airbnb. The two main reasons are: sustainability (sharing economy) and extra income.
If you are interested in how to go about renting out your own place, feel free to check out our post on how to start your side hustle:
We also stay at Airbnbs as they offer the option of renting apartments on a monthly basis, which works out to be much cheaper than the daily rates.
A good accommodation is a key factor for long-term nomadic lifestyle, both location and amenity wise. We always look for spacious apartments with a stable and speedy internet connection and a washing machine. We also make sure there is some infrastructure in that place — at least a supermarket. For longer stays, we pick places that either have the ocean or a river/lake, or some mountains, or woods nearby.
Caretakers back home 🦸
For us, it is still vital to have a good network of people at home. Whilst on the road, they help us taking care of snail mails, the car, the garden, and the apartment.
Before embarking on a new adventure, we make sure, we only receive very few (to none) snail mail letters. Almost all letters can be received as e-mails these days. All advertising is cancelled. The few letters that still find their way to our letter box are opened by our near and dear neighbour who is willing to help us whilst we are gone.
Friends and family members help us in case something unforeseen comes up with the rented apartment.
We also have two gardens. One garden we decided to lease, as there was no way of tending to it all the year round when we are travelling. The other one is a garden shared with our neighbours, and we all divide the costs for a gardener.
Also, we make sure to park the car on private ground if we are gone by plane, so no hiccups occur with our car parked on a public street.
Mindset 🎯
Reflecting on our journey till now, what really matters is the mindset and attitude to take the plunge and try out this lifestyle (adapting things along the way) — as we mentioned in our first post, we love to travel and once remote work became the de facto standard, we just took the plunge and hit the road.
The journey so far has made us learn a lot about flexibility, spontaneity, creativity, and open mindedness.
It has also brought some challenges with it:
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