I gave up my $2,100 apartment in Los Angeles and have been living as a digital nomad for 4 months. There are 4 major lessons I've learned along the way.
- Daniel Ferrer traded in the life of a desk worker for life on the road as a digital nomad.
- He traveled across 11 countries in four months, but the experience came with its own downsides.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Daniel Ferrer, a 37-year-old Los Angeles native turned digital nomad. It has been edited for length and clarity.
I didn't start out intending to be a digital nomad. What began as a two-week holiday in Bangkok turned into the realization that with good time management, I could do my job from anywhere.
Over the course of four months, I wound up traveling through 11 countries in Southeast Asia and Europe. Next up, I'm working my way towards Central and South America.
Throughout my travels, I'm been working full-time as a customer success manager at a software company based in Los Angeles. Since my team has been fully remote since the pandemic began, it was as simple as giving my supervisor a heads up that I'd start working from outside the US.
When my apartment lease in Los Angeles ended in March, I opted to let it go rather than renew it, as my rent cost $2,100 a month. Now, my total expenses range from $1,500 to $2,500 a month.
Here are four life lessons I've learned from my time as a digital nomad.
You're going to need to get active on Instagram
And I was there all because of a German guy I happened to meet in Kuala Lumpur. We ended up hanging out every night in the Jacuzzi in our hostel.
When he saw, via Instagram, that I was in Europe two months later, he told me: "Hey, I'm going to be in Pamplona for the Bull Run. Come meet up if you want to."
So I did.
Social media, and Instagram in particular, has been a critical part of my travels. Often, I have found — just by actively posting photos and videos — that I'm in the same city as another traveler I met two countries ago, so why not go ahead and grab drinks and dinner together?
You have to get used to constantly saying goodbye
Over the past four months of traveling, I've made more friends than I did in four years of living in Los Angeles.
I hit it off with one guy in Bangkok. Every night, we made a point of saying: "Hey, we're having dinner together, and we're gonna go catch up on our day." We became best friends in that month. When this guy invited me to come up to Norway for Oslo Pride, I said sure. And we wound up having a great time again.
In this lifestyle, there's a good chance you'll see everyone again. You just have to get used to constantly saying hello and goodbye.
Airports take up a big chunk of a digital nomad's time
Get used to spending a lot of your time in airports, and don't party hard the night before you fly — I've missed two flights that way already.
Go in on a local SIM card instead of your international one, especially if you're planning on staying in a country for longer than a month — you'll be grateful you have a fast and reliable connection when you're facing unstable WiFi.
And lastly, be nice to your flight attendants. I've found that two boxes of Ferrero Rocher at the duty free for $44 can go a long way in showing your appreciation to a cabin crew.
Being a nomad will make you rethink your place in the corporate ladder
Work has enabled me to fund my lifestyle over the past four months, but the lifestyle has showed me it's not the only thing I should be focusing on.
Being a digital nomad made me realize that I'm better off experiencing life than wearing myself down making as much money as I can. I'm more focused now on checking off items on my bucket list, like the tattoo I got from Whang-od in Buscalan, Philippines. Like, how many times are you going to get a tattoo from a 106-year-old lady who's been on the cover of Vogue magazine?