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a serious question, what "work" did you do? I am curious to know what kind of profession has the option to be a digital nomad. They only one I figured is being

a serious question, what "work" did you do? I am curious to know what kind of profession has the option to be a digital nomad. They only one I figured is being a journalist or a writer. What types of business do you do being a nomad?

austhrow743 6y ago
Software development is huge with remote work.
steveklabnik 6y ago
I don't know if I ever identified with "digital nomad," but I have traveled a lot. Roles that are what is now called "developer relations" or similar effectively force you into an adjacent lifestyle. Freelance development can often support this kind of thing. Basically, any sort of remote job.
- ghaff 6y ago
  Similarly, I've never thought of myself as a "digital nomad" and actually do own a house. But prior to travel shutting down, it would absolutely have been practical for me to put my stuff in storage, ask a friend or family member to let me use their address as my home address, and live at least around the Americas or Europe as I saw fit. Given that I was traveling 1/3 of the time anyway, what's another 2/3rds?
  - steveklabnik 6y ago
    Yep, exactly. What's kind of amusing/terrible is that while doing this I was almost always living in very high COL areas, while a digital nomad would be off somewhere extremely inexpensive. Oh well, money isn't everything.
    - ghaff 6y ago
      I actually did this for someone who was basically living on the road for an aerospace company for a number of years. They shifted most bills etc. online and I kept my eye out for anything critical such as drivers license renewals and forwarded that kind of thing to her company's mail forwarding PO Box.
      - steveklabnik 6y ago
        Yeah. Some of it I was only able to make work because a partner was willing to work with me on the money side. In the long term it wasn’t fair, though.
        ghaff 6y ago
        It's almost certainly easier than it used to be because you can do so much online, everyone has a mobile number, etc. There are even basically "address as a service" services for mail forwarding and the like. Still, there's probably more peace of mind (and it's probably somewhat more legit) to be officially living somewhere with someone reliable even if you just happen to almost never be there. When I was doing it for my friend, it was never that big a deal. But stuff did come up every now and then that needed to be handled.
JamesSwift 6y ago
It was pretty popular for online poker players when that was big
ghaff 6y ago
In principle, any job that you can do fully remotely. Having said that, you'll need a home base where you "officially" live and can legally work from--and, if you're an employee of a company (i.e. not an independent consultant), you probably need to be up-front about what you're doing and many companies may have issues with the legal ramifications. That said, in practice, before the pandemic I traveled about a third of the time so having some sort of nominal home base in the US and otherwise being on the road really wouldn't have been that much of a stretch compared to my usual. I do marketing-related stuff for a computer software company.

austhrow743 6y ago

Software development is huge with remote work.

steveklabnik 6y ago

I don't know if I ever identified with "digital nomad," but I have traveled a lot. Roles that are what is now called "developer relations" or similar effectively force you into an adjacent lifestyle. Freelance development can often support this kind of thing. Basically, any sort of remote job.

ghaff 6y ago
Similarly, I've never thought of myself as a "digital nomad" and actually do own a house. But prior to travel shutting down, it would absolutely have been practical for me to put my stuff in storage, ask a friend or family member to let me use their address as my home address, and live at least around the Americas or Europe as I saw fit. Given that I was traveling 1/3 of the time anyway, what's another 2/3rds?
- steveklabnik 6y ago
  Yep, exactly. What's kind of amusing/terrible is that while doing this I was almost always living in very high COL areas, while a digital nomad would be off somewhere extremely inexpensive. Oh well, money isn't everything.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    I actually did this for someone who was basically living on the road for an aerospace company for a number of years. They shifted most bills etc. online and I kept my eye out for anything critical such as drivers license renewals and forwarded that kind of thing to her company's mail forwarding PO Box.
    - steveklabnik 6y ago
      Yeah. Some of it I was only able to make work because a partner was willing to work with me on the money side. In the long term it wasn’t fair, though.
      - ghaff 6y ago
        It's almost certainly easier than it used to be because you can do so much online, everyone has a mobile number, etc. There are even basically "address as a service" services for mail forwarding and the like. Still, there's probably more peace of mind (and it's probably somewhat more legit) to be officially living somewhere with someone reliable even if you just happen to almost never be there. When I was doing it for my friend, it was never that big a deal. But stuff did come up every now and then that needed to be handled.

JamesSwift 6y ago

It was pretty popular for online poker players when that was big

ghaff 6y ago

In principle, any job that you can do fully remotely. Having said that, you'll need a home base where you "officially" live and can legally work from--and, if you're an employee of a company (i.e. not an independent consultant), you probably need to be up-front about what you're doing and many companies may have issues with the legal ramifications. That said, in practice, before the pandemic I traveled about a third of the time so having some sort of nominal home base in the US and otherwise being on the road really wouldn't have been that much of a stretch compared to my usual. I do marketing-related stuff for a computer software company.