Can You Work as a Digital Nomad? Ask Yourself These 3 Questions First

Being able to travel full-time and work remotely is a dream for a lot of people—and we write a lot about that exact subject.

It’s a very freeing lifestyle, but it can be tough to break into, and to maintain for the longer-term. It’s not for everybody—loneliness and boredom set in earlier and easier than you think—but if you plan properly, you can make digital nomadism work wonderfully for you.

Let’s look at a few questions that trip travelers up when they’re starting out as digital nomads.

Are You Working with the Right People?

If you want to work while traveling, your employer needs to prioritize flexibility amongst their workforce. If you want to spend most of the time out of the office, and even in a completely different timezone, you’ll need to start the conversation early. Read these guides to help you get started:

• How to Ask Your Boss to Work Remotely: Productivity & Tips
• Use Creative Problem Solving to Build a Lifestyle of Freedom

Remote companies like Sigtrack are good for this, but more traditional employment roles can allow this too. If you’re currently looking for a remote job, it’s worth asking about in your interview—remember, your interview is a two-way street, and it’s your first opportunity to know whether the company is a good fit for you, too.

• Download our list of remote job boards and resources

Will You Have a Reliable Wifi Signal?

Photo by David L. Espina Rincon on Unsplash

Most digital nomads work remotely, rather than finding local jobs wherever they travel to. Finding a remote job opportunity can be a bit more reliable and predictable when country-hopping than scrambling to find gig work within each destination—plus pretty much all digital nomad visas require that you work remotely for a foreign entity to qualify.

So you’ll need to find a strong, reliable wifi signal wherever you go. This won’t always be possible when you’re in a hotel, hostel or an AirBnB, but if you take a portable router with you it’ll become a lot easier. It can also be far safer to use a portable router than connecting to a public wifi network, and it’s much cheaper than using your phone’s hotspot if you need to hop online quickly.

How Will You Balance Work and Travel?

The whole point of being a digital nomad (to a lot of us, anyway!) is to travel to new places and to see and do amazing things. If your job is time-consuming or requires you to be on-call at odd hours, it can be frustrating—if you’re not deliberate with your time management, you’ll find yourself holed up working on projects or answering questions indoors without actually exploring your destination.

We’ve written a few articles that touch on balancing work with travel:

• 15 Best Tools for Remote Work: Collaboration & Communication
• Want to Be More Productive? Wake up at 5am
• 4 Important Motivation Techniques for Remote Workers

Over to You!

Have you successfully navigated the jump from local 9-to-5 to digital nomad? Share your stories and advice with the Frayed Passport community!

About the Author

Mike is a freelance writer who researches and shares actionable advice around travel, finance, and personal growth. Read his other articles on Frayed Passport here.

Featured image by Kristin Wilson on Unsplash