Editor’s Note: When we started being digital nomads, we wanted to live one month per location. We wanted to immerse ourselves in the culture and live like locals for a minute, then bounce and do it again.
Below is an edited excerpt from my diary.
August 1, 2022 Zagreb Croatia
It’s time I recap some of what we’ve learned as digital nomads. Not the existential stuff. The basics.
We nailed it in Scotland. Everything was perfect. I cannot emphasize that every single thing went properly. We felt safe. The Airbnb was lovely. The internet worked reliably and was very fast. The city was walkable. We were a 5-7 minute walk to two grocery stores. We had great places to run and great parks to sit in. The city had interesting architecture and even more interesting history. The people were nice. The city was well-run, and we tapped our credit cards for everything. We did a month in Edinburgh, and we wanted to spend more time there.
After 3 days in London, we got to Italy, and the wheels started to fall off. In Sorrento, we weren’t walking distance to a proper((Yes, I say “proper” now.)) grocery store. It was 1.1 miles away. The area wasn’t walkable. The cars drove fast and out of control, and you always felt like you were on the edge of death.
It was the most beautiful Airbnb I’ve ever stayed at, and it had the most amazing view of the Bay of Napoli. Awe-inspiring. It was the kind of view where you never stop saying “Wow.”
But we risked our lives to get to the grocery store.((Also, most of the house got COVID.))
In Bologna, not only were we not walking distance to a grocery store (10 min drive), but we weren’t walking distance to anything. The internet didn’t work at all. Beyond that, new members of my family came and wanted to fast travel (being a tourist on vacation, needing to maximize your time in an area). That was super hard, because Miranda and I needed to work, but we also wanted to spend time with them. When they played, we rested. When they rested, we worked. We were never resting.
In Italy, we had two core learnings:
The first is that being a digital nomad involves a holy trinity. You can be missing any one of the three, but if you’re missing more than one, it’s time to find new accommodations.
- Reliable, fast internet
- In a walkable area
- Easy access to grocery stores
If you don’t have fast internet but you’re in a walkable area with easy access to grocery stores, then you can find a coworking space or coffee shop. If you’re not in a walkable area but you’ve got great internet and access to grocery stores, you can lay low for the period of time and just relax. If it’s walkable and you have fast internet, you can eat at restaurants and go to markets.
Missing any two, and it’s game over.
The second is that it is almost impossible to do fast travel and work at the same time. It’s too exhausting. It’s simply easier to just pick one.
Italy was difficult, especially coming from Scotland where everything was perfect. We left and we really needed a break.
Then we got to Marrakesh.
In our first Airbnb in Marrakesh, the holy trinity got thrown out the window. Not only did we not have any of the three, but we were also missing other components that we didn’t realize were crucial.
- Credit cards weren’t accepted and the nearest ATM was 1.5 mi away.
- We didn’t feel safe((We had a stray dog follow us for half a mile one night, we got scammed twice, and we were clearly the other.))
- Many locals weren’t friendly to foreigners((Some of the locals were unbelievably friendly, and I still look back on them with gratitude.))
After three days, we left to move to the other side of town. In our second Airbnb, the internet still didn’t work. It was 20mpbs down and 15 mbps up in the mornings, but when it got hot in the late afternoon, slowed to <1mbps for both. It was unusable.
We solved the safety, credit card, walkability, and grocery store issues, but we couldn’t work. Nowhere in Gueliz, the part of town that we were in our second Airbnb, had reliable internet in the afternoon.
In Marrakesh, we also had some of the most memorable experiences and some of the best food. Our tour in Imlil was a highlight of our trip so far. The tagines were spectacular. I bought two great pairs of linen pants.
In Marrakesh, we created a new, third idea. That was that there are four kinds of cities:
- Places you live and places you visit
- Places you live but not visit
- Places you visit but don’t live
- Places you don’t visit or live
Marrakesh was a place that you visit but don’t live. Had we taken a week vacation there, our experience would’ve been 100% different than it was. Instead, we refer to leaving Marrakesh as “escaping.”
Next up: Portugal.
In Porto, for the first week, we had a lovely week. Everything worked. We worked. The people were friendly. The beaches were beautiful. Everything was walkable. All was right with the world.
In Lisbon and Apuilia, more friends and family joined us. All of them were doing fast travel. We had lots of fun. I’m grateful they came, and I had a good time with them. Simultaneously, we learned two more very valuable lessons:
First, if we are being unintentional about our free time, we can move our schedules around for a week with reliability. Unless it is expected and planned for, more than a week is challenging.
Second, never share a home with visitors for more than a week. It’s too easy to step on toes, for things to be unnecessarily difficult, and to have tensions rise. For everyone, not just us. We actually learned this lesson with my family, but between everything else we forgot it until we got to Portugal.
When a few of my family members joined us in Edinburgh, they had their own hotel. We met up with them when we wanted, but we weren’t forced to be together.
We had a lovely time in part because we could be independent.
We all opted-in to being together. When you live with people for an extended period, you need to opt-out of spending time with people. When you live separately, you can opt-in to spending time.
After Porto, we went to Birmingham. Exciting is an overstatement. The most exciting part of the city of Birmingham were the canals and running trails.
Boy was it livable. It was nice to have good internet, everyone speaking English, everything working properly, and just relax and catch up on work. In Birmingham, we did the epitome of slow travel. We worked 80% of our time, and we played 20%. By the time we left, we were ready to leave, but we felt both rejuvenated and on top of our work. It was the perfect amount of time.
By “everything working properly” I mean things that don’t sound too unreasonable to anyone living in a major country but are not guaranteed in many places.
- Packages arrive on time
- Google Maps listings are updated. In many places where the infrastructure isn’t as good, we’ve walked to restaurants that… don’t exist.
- Cellular service is reliable in all parts of the city
- The Wi-Fi doesn’t cut out randomly((If we are going to be digital nomads, we’ve gotta be digital))
- Public transit runs on time (In some places, it’s anyone’s guess if the bus/train is coming)
In Barcelona, we pretty much nailed it, just like Edinburgh. The only thing I would change is the heat, but it’s been the hottest July on record in Spain. Another friend joined us, but we implemented all the learnings we could, and it was very easy. We had a great time with her.
Now, we are in Zagreb. We got to the Airbnb and it was very dirty. The grocery store that we thought we could use was less usable than we expected. The city is delightfully charming in parts, but there isn’t a lot going on. It’s more like Birmingham than like Edinburgh. Had we only planned 2 weeks here, I think we would leave and say “We spent the perfect amount of time here.” We will be here 4 weeks, but that’s okay.((Consequently, my blog candence is increasing))
I say all that to say this.
Being a digital nomad and traveling the world has been transformatively positive. This entry seems negative, but the reality is that our world tour has been full of amazing experiences that I wish everyone could have.
We’re also some of the first people we know of to do what we are doing, the way we are doing it. Naturally, there’s a lot of learning to do. We want the world tour to be a mindset, not a time period, so we need to implement our learnings in real-time.
The one final important learning is that it doesn’t matter how positive our positive experiences are. If we have enough compounding negative experiences, it casts a shadow on the entire leg of the tour. Sorrento was the most beautiful view I’ve ever had out of my bedroom window, but simultaneously not being able to safely go on a walk was challenging. Marrakesh provided us some of the most eye opening, memorable experiences of our lives so far. It also is the only place we’ve “escaped” from.
If I had to summarize:
- Two dealbreakers:
- Unsafe area
- If we cannot use a credit card and there is not an ATM within reasonable walking distance
- Holy Trinity
- Reliable, fast internet
- Walkable city
- Grocery store within walking distance
- Guests
- Guests staying for a week or less can live with us. After a week, everyone gets their own place.
- When guests are doing fast travel, just do it with them and catch up on work later. We can move things around for a week, but two weeks is too much.
- Live vs Visit (or Work vs Tourist)
- Cities where you live and visit
- Edinburgh, London, Barcelona, Porto
- Cities where you live but don’t visit
- Birmingham, Zagreb, Bologna?
- Cities where you visit but don’t live
- Marrakesh, Lisbon, Sorrento
- Cities where you don’t visit or live
- Cities where you live and visit
Herein lies our biggest scheduling / planning challenge. Because we’ve wanted to live about a month per location, essentially, we’ve done 33% in each of the first three options, but we’re trying to both live and work in each location. How do you plan for that? Especially as we have fewer people coming to meet us out, how do you agree to sign yourself up for a month in a location when you don’t know what it’ll be?
How do you decide between a month in Sofia, Bulgaria or Bucharest, Romania or Belgrade, Serbia when you haven’t been to any? A month of your life is absolutely brutal if you expect to be in either of the top 2 categories and you end up in the bottom 2.
How do we pick cities in South America when only Miranda has been there and she says Lima is not a place to spend a month? How do we sign ourselves up for a month in Argentina, Peru, Brazil, or Chile, for example, when we don’t know the cities to live in, the customs, where to go, where not to go, or if we can even work from there? What if we end up in a Marrakesh-like situation?
I’m sure we can live anywhere. I’m not sure we want to live anywhere.
How do we pick cities in Asia to live in for a month at a time? Do we want to live in Seoul for a month? Do we want to live in Chang Mai for a month? What about Tokyo? Singapore? Malaysia? Indonesia?
What if there was a way for us to try out a city before we commit to it?
We’re changing the way we are digital nomads.
We’re adopting a hub-and-spoke model. It’ll allow us to do semi-fast travel and slow travel.
Instead of doing 1 month per location, we are going to divide up locations into “hubs” and “spokes.” Hubs are cities or countries we’ve been to and trust. These are places where we are truly doing slow travel. These are places you live. We’ll catch up on work, rest and rejuvenate, and slow our lives down. Examples include the UK, the USA, Canada, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Australia.
Spokes are places we’re visiting. Right now, we’re in Zagreb. Split (Croatia), Sofia, Istanbul, Bucharest, Bern (Switzerland), Lyon or Belgrade may be spokes in the next few months.
At minimum, we will spend 28 days in our hub cities. At maximum, we will spend 30 days in a row in “spoke” cities, with a minimum of 10 days per city.
For example, next year, we will be going to Asia. Instead of trying to live for a month at a time, we’re going to do 3, 10-day sprints. Maybe Japan, Singapore, Thailand, South Korea. Who knows? Then, we will spend 4-6 weeks, minimum, in Australia. We will rest, catch up on work, and recover. Then, we will do another 2-3 sprints.
We’ll also be going to South America. We don’t know where or how to start with South America, so we will hub in the United States, then do spokes in Colombia, Peru, Brazil (maybe), Argentina, Chile (maybe), and Mexico (maybe). After we get a better lay of the land, when we return to South America, at least one of those places will become a hub for 1-2 months at a time.
Our hope is that spokes become hubs. More hub cities are better.
When people come meet us, they can meet us in our sprints. Then, we can fast-travel together guilt-free.
Our hope is that, by doing this model, we see more of the world while assuming less risk of a bad/difficult month. We can be tourists more while also feeling calmer about our workloads. We can make our world tour as a mindset even more sustainable than before.
Evan Ryan 