7 Realistic and Affordable Ways to Become a Digital Nomad

How to drop everything & travel post COVID19

Are you sick of seeing Instagram influencers traversing the world without you? Trust me, I get it. Last year, I visited five continents in nine months and still felt a phantom pang of FOMO while scrolling my feed.

In 2019, I visited five continents in a span of nine months. After road tripping the east coast of Australia, I explored three provinces of Costa Rica, visited Barcelona, Gibraltar, Tenerife, Cape Verde, and Puerto de Galinhas, Brazil. Admittedly, I did not photograph enough of my travels but as Susan Sontag says, “Traveling becomes a strategy of accumulating photographs.” I don’t necessarily consider that a good thing. I don’t want to feel like a tourist. I want to be immersed. I don’t want to view my own experience of the world through a lens or a cellphone.

I may not be an influencer, and I’m certainly not going to tell you that it’s easy or even accessible to everyone, but I will say this. If you want to travel long-term and you don’t have dependents at home — or your dependents can be location independent too — it isn’t as impossible as you might think. So next time you see that dude from college post another photo of his laptop propped up on a beachfront bar, instead of getting mad, be curious.

How did he do it?

Knowing when it’s the right time for you to travel.

If you don’t know if it’s the right time, you will by the end of this article.

But first, let me drop the COVID caveat. I think it’s safe to say, it’s not so safe to travel this year, nor is it even 100% possible depending upon where you’re from. It’s been particularly tricky for me, an American citizen dating a Brit, since the world has set different travel restrictions on our countries of origin. But now more than ever, we want to be together, so finding a country that will allow us to do so long-term has been tough, which is why we ended up in Mexico for the majority of lockdown after falling in love with Quintana Roo.

While unnecessary travel is highly discouraged right now, there’s no better time to start planning for when things “return to normal.” Start asking yourself the following questions:

• Do I have enough savings?
• Can I start saving now? Where can I cut costs?
• How long could I travel? How long would I want to travel?
• Where would I go, based on what I can afford?
• Will I spend less money there than I would at home?

Redefine what’s important and cut cost of living.

Now I know what you’re thinking. Travel influencers with millions of followers love flaunting designer brands and exclusive locations, but that’s not realistic so get the image out of your head. Real nomads travel with a single suitcase. They don’t mind wearing the same t-shirt four days in a row. They also understand that, as a foreigner, it’s best to fly under the radar. Flaunting your most expensive jewelry might be asking for a good mugging.

If you decide that experiences are more important than physical possessions, you’ll downsize your life into a single checked, carry-on version of itself.

Aside from your shoes, reevaluate your professional purpose. Is that office job really serving you? Is the two-hour commute to work worth the wasted hours on a train each week? Are you really growing at your company? Or does it feel more like a false promise your HR manager dishes out at evaluation time?

Figure out what’s holding you back. If not your job, it might be a preconceived notion about what you’re supposed to do or want. It might be a person or routine. Redefining what’s important often requires making sacrifices. If you can’t afford those sacrifices, being nomadic might not be in the cards for you.

Understand your worth and negotiate your work.

The only time I ever felt valued at work was when I threatened to leave. Sad but true. Location-independent employment is the key to nomadism. COVID has shown us how successful working from home can be. I have countless friends who have started using this new knowledge to their advantage. One of them has uprooted her life and moved to Mexico, while still working full-time for a school back in Boston. While she still makes her well-deserved US salary, she has dramatically cut her cost of living in half (or more.)

I was so stingy and cynical about money when I lived in the United States. Living in Mexico not only made me more generous (especially when tipping), it made me more willing and interested in socializing.

If you’ve been lucky enough to work from home during the COVID crisis, and there has been no word from your employer about when you’ll return to the office, it might be an appropriate time to ask about the possibility of making your position permanently remote. Even if it can’t be forever, there’s the possibility of taking a six-month hiatus from your hometown. Now, the challenge is finding a new place to hunker down for a while. If you live in the USA, another state might be your best option, or else Mexico, which has been accepting inbound travel since the getgo. (I highly recommend Playa del Carmen in this case.)

Even if it can’t be forever, at the very least, this conversation with your boss will give you a better sense of what to expect in 2021. The not-knowing might be the thing making you most anxious.

If working from a new location is out of the question but you still want to travel, you should start applying to 100% remote positions. While you can use the filter “remote” on job search engines like Indeed and Glassdoor, the following sites are great resources specifically for location-independent work.

• Upwork: freelancing platform where enterprises and individuals connect
• Dynamite Jobs: Lists Hundreds of Remote Jobs Each Week
• Working Nomads: Remote jobs for digital working nomads
• We Work Remotely: the fastest way to find quality remote employees
• Power to Fly: recruiting platform that connects companies to women in tech, sales, marketing, and digital

I’ve personally had the most success freelancing on Upwork, where I established a three-year writing relationship with an online dating advice platform called Wingman Magazine, and Dynamite Jobs.

Begin by visiting people you know.

I’ve always been extremely fortunate to stay, rent-free, with friends overseas. Last year, I spent two months living with a girlfriend in Sydney, before I moved into a van with a total stranger. But that’s a whole different story.

Staying with people you know, even for one week, is a comforting way to ease into a new country. Plus, the more you travel, the more you meet fellow travelers from all over the world who will likely welcome you into their own homes with open arms. Accommodation is often the most expensive aspect of traveling. If you can cut costs with Airbnbs, you’ll be able to extend your time overseas even longer.

While I have yet to explore this avenue, House-sitting is also an option. Websites like Nomador, TrustedHousesitters, and Mind My House offer house-sitting and pet-sitting opportunities. While some sites charge a fee to sign up, the risk is often worth the reward.

Travel during the off-season.

Traveling long-term, or becoming a digital nomad, isn’t a vacation. Avoid tourism by visiting countries during their non-peak months. This will help you score discounted airfare and accommodation. If you can’t visit during the off-season, research how much you should expect to spend at your destination.

Cook your own meals.

Eating out is expensive, except in Mexico where you can get three street tacos for $1.50. Buying groceries and cooking meals at home is a great way to cut spending, which is even more reason why Airbnb and house-sitting is more affordable than hotels. If you don’t know how to cook, learn!

Don’t be fooled by exchange rates.

My most important piece of advice in regards to cheap travel would be learning the exchange rate and knowing it by heart. Got it? Good. Now start paying in that currency and that currency only because foreign transaction fees are a waste of money.

Ordering a Revolut credit card is an absolute must for anyone who travels often, or at all. With over 12 million customers worldwide, Revolut has become the UK’s fastest-growing financial super app, and it recently expanded to the United States. I signed up for a card in mid-2019 and was put on a waiting list over a thousand other eager US customers. After about six months, I received an email stating I could finally order my physical card. It was delivered within one week, and totally worth the wait. (The app also gives you the option of a virtual card via Apple Pay.)

Either way, the Revolut credit card allows you to easily transfer your money into 28 different currencies including US dollars, pounds, Aussie dollars, euros, pesos, francs, korunas, krones, etc without enduring unruly fees. You can also easily withdraw money from over 55,000 surcharge-free ATMs nationwide. This is when it’s most handy to have a good grasp of how much of your own currency you’re spending.

Not only are you less likely to be shortchanged, but you also won’t look like another naive tourist. Gaining respect from the locals will make your time in that country much easier and more enjoyable. Another surefire way to be taken seriously is learning the language.

Now what?

These tips should give you some of the knowledge and skills you’ll need to transition from a traditional lifestyle into a nomadic one. But I can see it in your eyes, you’re still not convinced. Am I right? This next article is for you: