The Digital Nomad Life Is Overglorified
The digital nomad lifestyle is, most of the time, over-glorified. My dream was to take a remote job in Europe and live in twelve countries across the twelve months of the year.
But after three months in three countries, it hit me: Bangladesh is better than this.
Problem one: no matter how much you earn, you can’t afford luxury. Most software engineers, for instance, want a premium monitor to work on — but you can’t carry a huge monitor with an always-on-the-go lifestyle.
Whatever fits in your luggage, that’s your life. I had to sell my favorite speaker just to fit a rice cooker into the suitcase.
Problem two: you won’t make any friends. Constantly meeting new people gets tiring. Maybe you’ve just started to click with someone — and the next month you’re in another city in another country. Out of sight, out of mind.
Loneliness is a big deal.
Problem three: you’re forever researching new places, forever hunting for a new apartment. Travel throws up 101 issues, and you have to solve all of them — while also holding down a nine-to-five.
I’ve hardly managed to find the time to sit by a lake and read a storybook.
Problem four: this one’s Germany-specific — in Germany you’re required to keep an address. Government rule. Your mail comes there. Which means you end up paying rent in two places at once. So financially, it’s a bit of a loss.
In the end… it’s not as fun as it seems. To the people of Cox’s Bazar, the sea is nothing special. You can see so many seas, mountains, new coffee shops, new cities — at some point it starts to feel repetitive.
I realized: the value of your old relationships, with the old people in your life, is far greater than a relationship with a new city in a new country.
There’s no end to new cities, new coffee shops.
But the time you get with your family and friends is fixed — finite. And it seems to me there are very few luxuries in this world as worth using up as that one…