In his famous book The 4-Hour Work Week, Tim Ferriss called digital nomads the nouveau riche. Online work and location independence can let nomads spend on experiences rather than collect material possessions.
I have lived this lifestyle since 2014, when I tried living in Barcelona for a month. It became one of the best experiences of my life. Since then I have travelled to Lisbon, Prague, Brussels, Ghent, Berlin, Budapest, Vienna, Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Bali, Valencia, Rome, Lecce and Athens with only a backpack.
Now I am back in 's-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands and ready to reflect on digital nomadism.
There are three types of digital nomads:
- The "Slowmad": Someone who stays in one place for three to six months to get to know its culture.
- The "Gomad": Someone who feels a constant urge to keep moving.
- The "Homad": Someone with a home base who takes shorter trips from there.
I tried all three and kept returning to Barcelona. Constant travel can look like an endless vacation but it does not feel that way to me. It's much more complicated than that.
You have to start your life over every time you move to a new location. Making new friends, finding your way around, getting used to your house and your bed. After a while, I began to feel adrift and lonely.
Being a location independent entrepreneur is an experience like no other, but there is a quieter side that people discuss less often.
New friendships can remain superficial when both people are always moving. All the moving around makes it impossible to develop close ties with people. Fortunately, I have made a point of staying in contact with my friends back home.
https://twitter.com/lifemathmoney/status/1193324898229325829?s=21
I learned that I need a home base to return to. I don't mean to own a house, as I'm still not sure if that's a good financial strategy or just banking propaganda, but a place where I can return to where everything is familiar and where my friends live. Flexible housing, including living in Airbnbs, still suits me for now.
Because of everything that happened in the past five years, I now consider two places my home base:
- Barcelona because of friends, weather, dating, beach and the overall feeling it gives me.
- 's-Hertogenbosch because of family, friends, business and my roots there.
My goal for now is to buy an apartment in both cities, as an investment next to FIRE and Bitcoin. That would let me alternate between my two favorite places about every six months and rent out the apartment the other six, decreasing my cost of living. I could still take shorter trips from time to time.