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Ask HN: Digital nomad without leaving the US, why does it feel overlooked?

30 points by djellybeans 4y ago

I am curious about digital nomading in the future and almost always they're traveling internationally, but I am more interested in hearing of digital nomad experiences that involve traveling within the US. There's still plenty of room to stretch your legs in a country of this size. Lots of beautiful locations that I'd like to visit and sight-see without me needing a passport. Digital nomads somehow became more synonymous with air travel across the globe but for some reason I don't hear much about the ones who are backpacking and road traveling without leaving the US. Is it mostly because of the appeal to live more cheaply in many other countries?

nine_zeros 4y ago
Mostly to reduce cost of living. Digital nomads look for places with year round nice weather, ability to get around without a car and ability to stumble upon interesting people from different walks of life. Nowhere in America fits the bill.
3np 4y ago
I'd guess it's two major factors: A lot of the DN talk and stories online you read are not from people originating in the US in the first place. I'd also wager that doing this domestically has never really been uncommon at all? Just that many of these people don't think of it as "nomading" (cf "expat"/"immigrant" difference iukwim) and so are 1) less attracted to the idea because of cultural preconceptions 2) the ones who do are less likely to try pushing their lifestyle onto you. That is, it's actually not less common at all, you just hear about it less.
lostgame 4y ago
I would like to do this, but within Canada. I’m considering buying and renovating an older RV as my first ‘home’. Any advice on this? Other than avoiding driving through the prairies? :P
- 3np 4y ago
  My main advice would be: Try to drop any notion of how it "should" be. For some this comes natural, for others it's a deep struggle. When it comes to planning and decision-making your travels and schedule, try to listen to your body and other needs over any self-imposed pressure. It's fine staying in one spot for a year. It's fine going back home for a while and recoup. Be it over a weekend or half a year. It's fine leaving a place after two weeks when you made preparations to have it as a more long-term base if you realize something's off. It's fine to go out and meet people all the time. It's fine not to (though most of us do benefit from regular socializing in-person, self-identified introverts included). Balance this with trying to make decisions deliberately, rather than on impulse. Two major pieces of advice I'd give younger self that come to mind: - Nurture the friendships you value. Be proactive in staying in touch with people you want to keep. - Take care of your body and figure out an ergonomically sustainable way to work. Day-long sessions at coffee shops or the backseat of an RV will make a number on your back sooner than you think.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    I'd add - treat people with respect, the RV world is smaller than you think, and the people you saw yesterday on one side of the country likely will be seen later on the other side.
tbrockman 4y ago
Former digital nomad who mainly explored the US/Canada (company who took working abroad without a work visa a little more seriously) here! I had a great time exploring and there’s tons of beautiful places to check out, but its definitely a bit disappointing to miss out on experiencing vastly different cultures. There’s unquestionably some variety, but for the most part it’s all distinctly North American-flavored. I think for people deciding to embark on a once in a lifetime adventure outside their comfort zones it’s probably a bit more rewarding to branch out more, with very little cost.
meltyness 4y ago
Vagrancy laws, climate, cultural and economic tumult, and limited infrastructure (pc bangs, etc) are all great reasons not to. Construction sites and Walmart parking lots make it work though. Also no one would call it that, it's too braggadocious.
soueuls 4y ago
I am not American but I have been a digital nomad for the past three years. I am currently living in a nice duplex in a condo in Thailand. We have a big coworking with soundproof rooms for meetings, a 80m infinity pool on the rooftop, a good gym, surrounded by nice and cheap restaurants. Beaches almost everywhere and nice small islands to do diving. I am paying 600$/month for the apartment. 250$ for the food. I haven't cooked anything for the past 6 months. I am currently making roughly 50 times the local monthly salary. Mostly working with my clients, doing some small charity works on the weekend and using all the facilities to get back in shape. And more importantly, I am living with peace of mine. Nobody is annoying me with insane politics. I don't care about BLM, don't care about feminism, don't care about MGTOW, don't care about gender theory, don't care about white privilege, don't care about whether men can get pregnant or not. I just try to be useful for the society around me, I feel a little bit bad about not paying taxes here, so I do my best to do some charity and helped a few local businesses with tech. But overall, I am doing it 30% for economic reasons and 70% for political reasons. It feels good to meet with normal hardworking people. Oh, and Thai people are really the nicest people as long as you respect them and try to make the effort of understanding their way of life.
- wszfahwbwbaha 4y ago
- Kaze404 4y ago
  Must be nice to be able to not care about those things.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - soueuls 4y ago
    It's not too nice to have to leave your country just to get peace of mind. But yeah, overall it's pretty nice not to care about those things. You quickly realize, caring or not caring make very little difference (if any). And you also realize you can be a lot more useful by not embracing divisive rhetorics.
__derek__ 4y ago
I think that's called "van life" when done domestically.
mycall 4y ago
I've been doing it in California for last few months. The secret is to be able to replace anything, stay incognito and keep finding new things to see aka keep interested. Hiking is a great activity when not coding in the backseat chill zone.
- 8n4vidtmkvmk 4y ago
  what do you mean by stay incognito?
  - mycall 4y ago
    Avoiding being noticed is key to sustainability. Less break-ins, less dogwalkers noticing you. Incognito brings some freedoms.
    - 8n4vidtmkvmk 4y ago
      Ah. Yeah, that makes sense. Would be devastating to be broken into if your whole life is packed into one van
tempsy 4y ago
I mean I think digital nomad is a bit of a misnomer to begin with. Trying to do any meaningful or serious work while literally backpacking or in a van all the time sounds terrible and exhausting. I think the more successful ones are just renting a monthly Airbnb or short term apartment but not necessarily traveling all the time and staying in hostels. IIRC from Airbnb earnings reports an increasing high number of bookings are monthly rentals. I’m sure that is true of the US as much as elsewhere and would suit someone who wants to live a few months in one location and move to another within the US.
darkwizard42 4y ago
I think I qualified (for a little while). I did this for 1.5 years from August 2020 to April 2022. I (and my partner) packed up 2.5 suitcases of clothes, 1 medium box of spices, 2 containers of miscellaneous things (including our extensive 6 set collection of Dominion -- card game) shoved it all into a Honda CR-V and hit the road. We stayed in Airbnbs or short-term furnished rentals for 4-6 weeks negotiating a rate with the lister most of the time (but sometimes the base host-set Airbnb monthly discount was pretty good) and usually went for 2-BR with good parking situation so we had a good work from home setup and peace of mind with our car (which we unpacked completely when we got to a new place). Our focus was to live in decent neighborhoods and get a place with a decent kitchen (we cooked a lot at home to keep costs down) with the apartment being more modern as a bonus as long as it didn't increase the cost. We also checked with each listing/landlord to ensure the internet was at least 50 mbps or better since both of us would be on video calls during the day. Key highlights: - ~14,000 miles driven, few tire changes, 3 oil changes, 1 small accident but no other driving incidents - 11 national parks - Yellowstone, Great Sand Dune, and Petrified Forest were my favorites - Fave city: Denver (great outdoors, vibrant young city, growing, lots of sunshine, main con was lacking in world-class food which we were used to from SF) - Surprise hit: Boise (great outdoors, cool Greenbelt river area, very relaxed feel) - Sleepier than expected: Santa Fe (very much a retiree community, lots to see, but gets to be the same -- you can only see so much art before it blends together, and food is a bit of the same after a while -- red/green chile rocks, just can't get over how 50% of the restaurants in the town seemed to serve it) Overall: - Really fun experience and I would highly recommend it to anyone who has the flexibility and can stand their partner OR be solo for a while - If cost is the focus then you can go for cheaper accommodations at the cost of convenience, modern amenities, and "vibe" of being in the nicer neighborhoods/closer to the action - Gets a little tiring exploring every city from scratch, not knowing a ton of people to build community around, what good places to go to/having a local spot etc.
tracerbulletx 4y ago
I have a pretty high number of colleagues that are doing just that, I just don't think there are articles written about it because it's much more common than the international jet set variety.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
jaredandrews 4y ago
The very term "digital nomad" was coined by a specific subset of "digital nomads" who are uniquely focused on glorifying/marketing the concept of the "digital nomad" lifecycle. Thus focusing on exotic and foreign locations. It needs to be exciting, glamorous, etc because it is a marketing asset to sell some product or service. That being said, as a former "digital nomad" who did it america[0][1] I definitely recommend it. Our country is as vast and beautiful as it is mundane and ugly. > Is it mostly because of the appeal to live more cheaply in many other countries? It helps to have friends and stay with them but if you are remote working for an average tech company that shouldn't be a factor. The digital nomad lifestyle blogger is selling to an audience beyond that, thus the emphasis on cheapness. Sure, you can't stay at an airbnb in NYC for months at a time, but Richmond, VA you can. Lots of cheap[2], weird towns in America with things to do. [0] https://jaredandrews.com/pages/travel-log.html https://jaredandrews.com/pages/travel-log.html [1] https://jaredandrews.com/whats-in-my-bags.html https://jaredandrews.com/whats-in-my-bags.html [2] For someone who makes > 70K a year and has no dependents or significant financial obligations.
darepublic 4y ago
Whatever works. Take the road less travelled. Though perhaps staying in country may actually be the other road.
keiferski 4y ago
For me personally, it initially was not about costs. I went to the places I wanted to live in and lived on a budget to survive there. Paris, Tokyo, Berlin, to name a few. Not super expensive but certainly not cheap. Eventually though, I became more comfortable with living in “less developed” cities. (Although I think this designation for countries is rapidly becoming obsolete. Eastern Europe is in many ways more developed than Western Europe these days, for example.) At this point, the quality of life in a city like Bangkok, Budapest, Istanbul, or Mexico City on $3,000/month is equivalent to about $10,000 or more in NYC or LA. The only affordable places in the US are small towns or camping, so if you want the urban lifestyle, it’s a major downgrade in terms of QoL to move back. The other comment mentioned the ability to avoid American sociopolitical issues, which is also an underrated benefit. The American media-complex really is a kind of Matrix and once you’re outside it, it becomes easier to see how artificial most of the “pressing issues” are. Certainly political issues exist everywhere, but I have found the inhabitants of most “cheaper” countries to be more concerned with everyday life and work, rather than the latest news headlines.
- walrus01 4y ago
  You can certainly avoid a lot of the American media complex even if you live in USA, by getting video news from Deutsch Welle, France24, Canadian sources like the Globe and Mail, etc and not the US domestic sources.
  - keiferski 4y ago
    A little bit, maybe. But the entire culture is so permeated in the media Matrix that you’ll need to avoid local newspapers, many conversations with coworkers and friends, TV ads, billboards and graffiti, and a whole host of other things that are not in other countries. It’s a bit like saying, “I want to live in Tokyo but not eat any Japanese food.” Sure, that is technically possible and there is plenty of Western cuisine available. But it will require expending energy on an issue that simply doesn’t exist elsewhere.
    - ido 4y ago
charlie0 4y ago
I looked into traveling within the US as a DN, but decided against it because of the costs. Unless I wanted to be in rural America, it was frequently 2K to 3K a month to rent a standard run of the mill 1-2 bed AirBnB. As someone who has traveled internationally before, these costs are easily 2x-4x than renting the same place in another country. This doesn't even account for things like gas and dining out, which again, will be multiples of what would be spent in another part of the world. If I do decide to travel in the US, it will be van life style. Temporary housing has just gotten way more expensive and that's no surprises; houses cost more and those costs are reflected in the bill.
ngokevin 4y ago
I did this for half a year in the United States (one month, one state) in ID, UT, AZ, NM, TX, LA, CO and half a year in South America. The United States is great because you can live next to pristine wilderness or great natural areas, and have plenty of time to explore these quiet untouched places versus rushing everything in a weekend vacation. For example, people go on Utah vacations and rush Arches, Bryce, Zion, but there are so much beautiful places in between that you couldn't budget in a small trip with friends (e.g., some random slot canyon that barely is on the radar) Or if people go to Colorado for a Rockies trip, you can have the whole western slope to yourself for a month
nicbou 4y ago
I think it's because digital nomad suffered the same treatment as van life. Only its glamourous aspects get attention. The mundane or unpleasant bits don't make it to TikTok.
psyklic 4y ago
I did this for a year. Services like Classpass and Deskpass complement this well and give broad access to coworking and fitness in most medium-to-large cities. Especially if you travel in off-months, it's possible to find reasonably-priced short-term housing. Finding quiet places mid-day where you can take phone calls and meetings can be a hassle in cities. The best/worst part is the pressure to explore instead of work!

immigrantheart 4y ago

I live in the USA now and filter out most politics from social media. Being an immigrant from a 3rd world country, I lean more conservative so I also don’t care about stuffs you mentioned above Like, when I browse Reddit popular I automatically don’t read whitepeopletwitter, antiwork, murderedbyaoc, and the like. I still stay here for the money though. I foresee one day exiting US and letting go of my GC if it becomes too much of a hassle to maintain and go back and build my home country. Currently am worried about the state of public education in the US. Too much wokeness for my taste. Ah maybe I have to go back sooner if I want to raise a child. Private school in my home country does much more better job than public US education.

Kaze404 4y ago
Out of curiosity, why does being an immigrant make you lean towards conservatism? You realize one of the biggest conservative talking points in the past 4 years is how immigrants are “stealing” their jobs?
- tmn 4y ago
  Not the comment author you replied to, but I didn't read it as 'I immigrated, therefore it infers I'm conservative". Rather I read it as they were stating two independent facts about themselves. On the topic of the 'Talking Point' you're referring to. I don't know anyone who has voiced concern with legal immigration (I live in predominately conservative area). I will agree illegal immigration is a talking point.
- immigrantheart 4y ago
  Conservatives aren't a monolithic voting bloc, unlike what the media tells you. There are conservatives who are okay with legal and high skilled/high paid immigration (which I am one). No one is stealing highly paid, trading, fintech, programming jobs, with above $200k/year salary here. I can confidently say that ALL (100%) of conservatives, are not in favor of illegal immigration, and not in favor of low skilled immigration. Some other points that conservatives are (some of these are libertarian, but conservatives and libertarian often have similar interests), which are aligned with me: - Economy matters, bring back local jobs, bring back local manufacturing - Small government, less government spending, less taxes for useless government spending, less wars, less meddling with other countries problem - Personal freedom and responsibilities - Self sufficiency - No to unrestricted abortion - No to stimulus checks - No to constant lockdown - No to UBI - No to student loan forgiveness - We can define what is a woman and what is a man - No to defund the police - All Lives Matter, including Asian and White lives A lot of immigrants actually have the same interests aligned with conservatives, based on the points above. I think immigrants know firsthand how it feels like to: - Have incompetent government, corrupt government, corrupt media - Have freeloaders everywhere taking advantage of the system, we are here to work, to make money, not to support those who don't - Have violence on the street as a result of police have no teeth - Asian immigrants, experience bias in not being hired/accepted into school, due to Affirmative Action and Diversity Inclusion practice. Asian immigrants on average, economically, actually less better than Blacks So we don't want the countries where we immigrate to, to avoid the problems in the first place, to have the problems we want to avoid. Immigrants also, prefer traditional gender/sex in society. Doesn't mean that woman can't be a plumber, sure they can. We just don't prefer gender fluidity/spectrum to be taught in schools to our children. The reason being, it introduces weakness to the population. Man should be strong, independent (not talking about toxic masculinity), and woman also have very important roles in society. Gender fluidity/spectrum contributes to confusion and undermines the future of the population. That's not to say we don't have trans in our society. We do, and we are okay with that, but they have to play by the rules of the majority. They can't go into man's bahtroom if they are born woman, and vice versa. They can't join woman's sports if they are born man. We are also not okay to make it normalized in school and getting shoved on it by the media.
  - Kaze404 4y ago
    There is way too much to unpack in this comment, so I'll just laser focus on how incredible it is that you somehow managed to rationalize "we are ok with trans people existing" and "they should live by the rules of the majority, not how they want to live" as two non-conflicting statements, when they are so very obviously contradictory. If there is a condition attached to a group of people existing, then you're not really ok with their existance.
    - immigrantheart 4y ago
      How about this. Fences make good neighbors. You stay in your lane, I stay in my lane. We are as humans are different. Our values, our philosophies are different. Attempt to do multiculturalism and diversity will have push back. In Asia, we don't want LGBTQ ideology to influence our children. The majority decides the rules. That's how in most societies are. I know USA and EU prefers the minority rules (as Taleb said, tyranny of minority), but most in Asia prefers majority rules. We don't prevent LGBTQ people from being employed, we don't kill them. Our understanding of what "oppression" and "offensive" means stricter than western understanding, where everything is offensive and oppressive. Asia is mostly ethnic nation (like Japan, South Korea, China), not a civic nation. Even in a civic nation such as Indonesia, still prefer the rules of the majority. Harmony of the majority takes precedence compared to individual preference. Now back to the US. US is mostly a free country, anyone can do anything here (for the most part). Hence personal freedom and individual responsibility: - We don't want LGBTQ ideology in our children. We consider that our freedom, to teach our kids our ways. We don't want foreign ideology to be taught to our children who still can't think for themselves - We value human beings who still cannot decide for themselves whether they want to live or die, to be killed by abortion. This is not strictly a religious issue. After someone is born, then it is up to their families, themselves, to be a good functioning member of the society. If they become criminal, or if they become poor and stupid due to their own life choices, then it is not up to the society to help them with more social support. Personal responsibilities and individual freedom. I'm saying for the most part because, there is no truly free society in this world. Every society has its boundaries, limits, and that's mostly decided by power struggle. Hence why we have conservativsm, left ideology, right ideology. It is all power struggle. We don't pretend that you respect me I respect you we live in harmony and sing kumbaya. Because that doesn't exist. We are all different, and at some point the rules decided by "the others" will influence how we live our lives. So yes we are not okay with some rules. The world is filled with contradiction. It is the way it is. You can use your religion, or lack of one, or humanitarianism, or any other ideology, to push your own agenda in your own little corners. We all do that. Let's stop pretending.
soueuls 4y ago
Yes I agree, I try to filter out as much as possible as well. Stick to the modern notion of "stoicism" -> focus on what you can change/control and avoid worrying about things you have very little control over. But in my home country, it was becoming too much. It's now in school, work, TV, movies, anti white rhetoric all the time. To the point I would not be comfortable schooling my future children there. So I decided to move on, and find a new place better aligned on my values. It does not need to be perfect, I can work with flaws and learn to embrace it. But I need a minimum of common ground, so far I found it in Asia (I lived long term in China and almost one year in Thailand). I can see myself settling down here and try to be a useful contributing member of society.
- immigrantheart 4y ago
  I hope you find happiness and what you are looking for! Asia and SEA has its flaws, but the people are amazing and nature are amazing. I hope you can do good for the community in Thailand! One day I will make the same decision myself.