Having a family while also leading the life of a digital nomad may seem like an unlikely combination. We don’t believe it is a outlandish concept! Living as a digital nomad family can be incredibly fulfilling. It is important to note that having a digital nomad family is not without its difficulties; indeed, there are many. Particularly, when contrasted with living a life as a solo digital nomad, you just have to stress about yourself. The upsides of a life that encourages liberty and is full of fun can far outweigh the difficulties. When you are working and traveling by yourself, you can only count on yourself. When you are on a trip with someone else, you can also depend on them. And, of course, having the support of your family can assist in fighting against isolation – likely the greatest worry of the digital nomad.
Best Parts Of Being A Nomad Family
Let’s examine the benefits of digital nomad family life before we focus on the difficulties it presents.
Once In A Lifetime Experiences As A Family
Once you have escaped the conventional lifestyle and its limiting obligations, travelling has never been simpler for a digital nomad family. When you go on a trip with your family, you can have some truly unforgettable experiences together. You will have the opportunity to have more than one unforgettable experience. Exploring a variety of areas is more accessible if you are constantly moving and taking in the different opportunities the new place provides. Instead of splurging on pricey trips with return flights and costly lodging in hotels, you can experience more for less money. By staying in a rental property or Airbnb for a brief period, you can economize on your lodging costs and use it as a launching-point to explore all that the surrounding area has to offer.
Becoming Closer As A Family
Traveling as a nomad can bring the family closer together, and the interesting activities they encounter on their journey are one of the factors which help them bond. Other means of a family becoming more connected is that there will be more time spent together as a unit, since workplace, school and residence are all at the same location. Perhaps something that may not be fun at the time, but can help to create strong relationships, are the challenges that you go through together. Few things can bring people closer together than adversity. Being in the middle of trying circumstances such as having a car breakdown while in an unfamiliar place or missing a flight can be hard. Despite the difficulties, there is plenty of potential to become even closer after weathering these difficulties.
Freedom & Flexibility
The day-to-day life no longer has to be mundane. One is able to attire oneself in whatever fashion they desire, as long as it is socially accepted in that particular culture. You can work where you want to. Get rid of the old office cubicle and sit at a table beside the pool instead! As well as being free from the restrictions of conventional work and study, you and your family can choose where you wish to travel to and how you want to live your life.
Better Health – For The Mind And Body
A traditional lifestyle can be a real risk factor for becoming too inactive. The regular 9 to 5 workday, coupled with the pressure that it can bring, creates a situation where it can be tempting to simply stick to a way of life that is comfortable but not necessarily beneficial for your wellbeing. Which is understandable. When your agenda is packed, it can be hard to find the energy to come up with and prepare nutritious meals. And going to the gym? Forget about it with today’s packed schedules.
Being a nomad family can provide increased opportunities to prepare nutritious meals and exercise thanks to the greater freedom of the lifestyle. This flexibility can bring gains in both physical and mental health through the enhancement of a well-rounded diet. Getting rid of the anxieties that accompany a working day job can have beneficial effects on your psychological wellbeing.
Be sure to get travel and health insurance that covers you and your family when you’re a digital nomad, wherever you’re going. SafetyWing is a company that offers insurance tailored specifically to the needs of digital nomads.
Challenges Of Being A Nomad Family
Despite the incredible benefits of having a digital nomad family lifestyle, there are some negatives as well. It may be that some troubles are more serious than others. Or perhaps, not even problems at all. Here are some potential obstacles that you and your family might encounter as digital nomads.
Being Separated From Friends And Family Back Home
Whenever you go away from your house, whether it’s to move to a new job or to live the traveling life, it can be challenging to be apart from those near and dear to you who live at home. It is probable that you and your relatives will be unable to attend significant occasions and your offspring will without doubt be without their peers. It’s nice to encounter people you already know who don’t belong to your family.
Education
Supplying schooling for your children can be a major challenge. Especially if both you and your partner are working. The age of your children can also be a factor. While building up a repertoire of knowledge related to various languages and cultures is valuable for someone with a nomadic lifestyle, reading, writing, and math must still be mastered. The great thing is there are lots of online learning options and chances for people to get a full education without attending a real classroom.
Living Out Of A Suitcase
One of the greatest struggles for a family who lead a digital nomad lifestyle is managing with just a few personal items. You need to consider what you’ll be taking with you as you won’t be able to bring a great deal due to having to carry it all. You have very few options when it comes to the possessions you can have or bring with you. It may be hard that although you are able to still retain your house and hold on to other properties, they may be inaccessible. Only a limited number of outfits and personal items can be worn. Nevertheless, there is a positive element to this, which is that you will almost certainly come to understand how many things are not actually necessary.
Living a life as a digital nomad family can be difficult. The intensity can be severe and requires a big sacrifice. While departure from the conventional 9-5 job might come with some difficulties, the rewards of becoming a nomad can bring unparalleled freedom and opportunities for amazing adventures with your family.
8 hacks to succeed as a digital nomad
Going from having a job you attend every weekday to becoming a freelancer who lives out of a suitcase can be difficult. Listed below are 8 tricks to ease the transformation.
- Buy insurance as a digital nomad
No matter if you frequently go from one country to the next or remain in one place for several months, it is important to obtain insurance coverage as a digital nomad to ensure financial security. You don’t wish to find yourself in an unexpected and difficult situation while in a foreign land.
Health and travel insurance will provide a buffer and protect you from any potential issues in your lifestyle of being a digital nomad. Many insurance companies customize policies for digital nomads.
- Book affordable flights and lodging
Living the digital nomad life may seem enticing and straightforward, but it can become costly if you don’t manage your money wisely.
It is important to keep costs down when you are traveling a lot, so try to spend as little as you can on your airline tickets. But, how can you find the cheapest flights? Should you book your tickets early? Or should you wait until the last minute? One can never be sure. You can access Skyscanner to uncover the top flight offers.
You don’t want to dish out too much money for lodging either. Rather than reserving rooms on a regular basis, procuring permanent housing is more economical and achievable. All over, there are locations customized to satisfaction remote workers and digital nomads.
- Install a VPN
Digital nomads are dependent on technology and WiFi. Finding a speedy and complimentary WiFi connection while traveling can be really fantastic. However, not all public WiFi offers security and privacy. You are open to many potential issues when you utilize public WiFi, such as MitM attacks, packet sniffing, and being exposed to malware.
Putting a VPN service in place will reduce the potential risks involved and enable you to browse in a secure manner through an unprotected network. It is convenient to set up numerous VPN services, which will ensure you can securely access public WiFi networks no matter where you are.
- Collaborate with other digital nomads
Worried about the unstableness of the digital nomad lifestyle? Struggling to find freelance projects? Worried about finding accommodation? Confused about where to base yourself next? Making contact with fellow digital nomads will provide responses to all these inquiries.
Whether you’ve just begun living the nomad lifestyle or been at it for a while, it’s always helpful to team up with other digital nomads. You can contact them through Facebook or other online networking platforms. Joining an online gathering of remote workers gives you the opportunity to get advice and gain insight by hearing about other people’s experiences.
- Find international clients as a digital nomad
As a digital nomad, there are no restrictions on your geographical location. Use this to your advantage and expand your clientele. Try to find customers everywhere around the globe instead of limiting yourself to your own nation.
Engaging with international customers will help construct a robust job experience and therefore improve your wages. Additionally, if you source customers based in wealthier nations, then you should be able to both cover your journey and accommodation expenses, and potentially even put away some cash.
- Acquire digital residency
What is the best place to register a freelancing business for someone who wants to become a digital nomad? Which form of money do you utilize, and where do you establish a bank account? What steps should you take to establish a legal structure for your company? What about your taxes? All these questions have one solution: digital residency.
Estonia provides e-Residency that enables anyone to run and fund their business in the country despite their current place of residence or place of work. You can apply for e-residency of Estonia to make the process of running a digital nomad business, paying taxes and dealing with finanial matters more straightforward.
- Back up your data
Being a digital nomad relies fully on the usage of technology and the world wide web for earning an income, managing money, and all of their other needs. Data management is crucial. Creating a powerful plan to secure your information is needed instead of just using a few tricks such as installing a VPN to remain safe.
Backing your data up on the cloud and an external hard drive can help to guard against hardware crashes, viruses, robberies, and other digital security issues. Backups can help retrieve data if these failures occur.
- Organize your paperwork
When it comes to organizing your paperwork for a journey, one usually considers their passport, visa, ID cards, and other necessary papers.
If you are aiming to become a permanent digital nomad, it is essential that you set up and store your original documentation correctly. This encompasses all documents from your birth record to commercial permits to coverage.
It could be a good idea to bring some papers on your journey, and to leave some others with somebody you trust such as a family member or friend. It is beneficial to have photocopies and digital versions of these documents to avoid the risk of damage or loss of the originals.
Best destinations to live and work as a digital nomad with your family
When selecting a location to reside and carry out your career as a digital nomad, some points must be taken into account. Ask yourself these questions:
- Does the place have good internet access?
- Do other fellow digital nomads have good experiences with the place?
- Is it safe? Is it a friendly place for expats?
- What kind of visa can you apply as a digital nomad and what are the visa requirements?
- While you’ll find digital nomads in every corner of the world with stable internet access, some destinations are more popular with digital nomads than others. Here are the top 10 countries to live and work in as a digital nomad.
| Countries | Broadband Speed | Mobile Speed | Monthly Rent | Happiness Index | Remote Job Searches | Digital Nomad Score |
1 | Canada | 149.35 | 85.54 | €950 | 7.23 | 83900 | 74.35 |
2 | U.K. | 76.49 | 41.72 | €927 | 7.17 | 68400 | 63.43 |
3 | Romania | 188.55 | 41.48 | €325 | 6.12 | 10980 | 62.28 |
4 | Sweden | 158.73 | 56.64 | €885 | 7.35 | 3490 | 61.54 |
5 | Denmark | 179.81 | 66.68 | €1059 | 7.65 | 1080 | 61.49 |
6 | France | 177.93 | 50.45 | €758 | 6.66 | 5360 | 60.8 |
7 | Netherlands | 125.82 | 88.13 | €1213 | 7.45 | 3440 | 60.27 |
8 | Australia | 58.52 | 88.35 | €1148 | 7.22 | 17600 | 60.16 |
9 | Switzerland | 186.4 | 73.85 | €1545 | 7.56 | 3840 | 60.15 |
10 | Germany | 120.13 | 49.67 | €824 | 7.08 | 12720 | 60 |
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