How Do I Become A Digital Nomad?
What exactly is a digital nomad?
As mentioned on my home page, digital nomads are people who work remotely online, either for a company or by starting up a business. Because their work is remote, they are able to move around from country to country, or live in paradise whilst working. The jobs that allow people to work remotely are marketing, technology, bookkeeping, coaching, virtual assisting, or something like these career choices.
How do I get a remote job?
“Ok, I want to be a digital nomad, but where can I find remote work?”
There are plenty of job sites that are especially tailored to remote work. The ones that stick out are:
2. Workew
3. FlexJobs
4. Remote.co
5. JustRemote
7. Pangian
8. Remotive
10. Remote OK
11. Working Nomads
12. Jobspresso
13. Jobscribe
14. Creativepool
15. Outsourcely
16. PowerToFly
17. Landing Jobs
18. Dribbble
19. AngelList
20. Stack Overflow
21. GitHub
For more job sites, check out this article.
Not sure if you have a skill to sell or a skill to work with? Try doing a course with these companies:
Once you have set yourself up with a skill, you may think about joining the gig economy. Here are a selection of websites to sign up for:
Once you have got yourself a marketable skill, you may not want to sell your skill through a gigging website… or maybe you’ve already been apart of the gigging culture and you’re looking for the next step.
This is when I always think it’s great to work with a coach and start marketing yourself as a business owner.
This is the time to start thinking about making your own website and meeting clients personally through social media and other marketing means.
If you’re interested in speaking to a coach about this, contact me directly and apply to work with me on my success business coaching programme on a one-to-one basis.
Teaching English (as a second language) online
If you still aren’t convinced that these options suit you, then you could always teach english online with these companies. The pay isn’t the highest earning on the list, but it can be quite rewarding as you have a good connection with the children. Companies include:
Ok, so you’re ready to start thinking about travel plans...
Once you find a remote job, you’re almost ready to go and live your nomadic life. There are a few things you need to do before setting off. Firstly, you must get rid of your location dependent ties. That means leaving your flat/house/room share (whether that’s selling, renting or subletting your space) and reducing all your valuables to the size of a suitcase. This can be tricky, but quite cleansing as a process. You learn to be more minimalist in nature and you learn to really value the stuff you keep. The best thing to do with the stuff that you’ve decided to part with is give it to charity or stick it in a box for when you get back.
You will also need to learn how to budget. Although living on the road means getting rid of many of your expenses so you may have more money, you still need to be careful of money. Excursions when you travel can cost money, and money on food and drinks can easily escalate. My advice would be to set yourself a budget every month to stick to and try going a few days without drinking and socialising. If you are a business owner, you’ll be thinking about budgeting expenses anyway, so why not create yourself a spreadsheet documenting your expenses to sit next to the one with professional expenses.
Join a Digital Nomad Community
One great thing about being a digital nomad is the networking. You don’t want to be lonely and want to meet people on the same wavelength. Why not make friends with people on the same career/life journey as you... The more people you talk to, the more you’ll figure out how you want to live, and you’ll have people to share it with.
Online Facebook groups include:
… to name a few.
And companies that arrange work and travel as a combo include:
…. There are also many conferences to attend throughout the year which provide great networking opportunities. Some of these conferences include:
Nomad Escape
Click here to read more about starting out as a digital nomad and different events here.
If you fancy a chat with someone about setting off on your first nomadic adventure, why not book in a chat with me, Dina, the Digital Nomad Coach, to discuss. We would only need a few sessions to get you ready for your journey.