- Quick facts
- Total days on the road: 586
- Currently in: USA
- Miles Driven: 36821
- Countries Visited: 17
- Days Camping: 389
- Days Indoors: 202
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The Lifestyle
Want to know what being a digital nomad is really like? In this section we delve into the nitty-gritty details of day-to-day life. Learn how both your work and travel habits will change. As well as logistical details like how to schedule work, maintain a work/life balance and what challenges to expect.
How Working Changes our Travel Style
{jcomments lock}Here at Team Life Remotely we travel a bit differently. Not because we are trying to be better than others, but because we are attempting to maintain our jobs on the road. Our short 15-hour work week may seem insubstantial (and ideal) but it makes a big impact on how we travel.
Here are a few things we’ve had to change to keep the pay checks coming in:
Planning, Researching, and More Planning
Travelers debate this all the time. Is it better to throw caution to the wind and just go where the road takes you, or to struggle with a bulletproof itinerary? Generally, we’re the type of people to read a lot, ask a lot of questions, but commit to pretty much nothing. Personally, we hate itineraries, but they've become a necessary evil.
Daily Struggles of a Digital Nomad
{jcomments lock}We’ve been traveling full-time for eight months now. It has been nothing short of incredible, but not without hardships. Our travel-related struggles are usually self-inflicted and end up making for a good story a few weeks later. However, because we are attempting to offset all of our travel costs by working online, we have an entirely new set of problems that come up time and time again. For those of you looking into the digital nomad lifestyle, here’s a look at what you’re in for:
Internet
This struggle has so many facets, it’s not even funny. I thought finding internet would be the only issue. Turns out, finding it is easy. Making sure it’s reliable is the hard part.
No Signal
You know how every conceivable type of accommodation advertises free wifi these days? Yeah, it’s pretty awesome. The only problem is, it rarely every reaches where you want to work, especially in big hotels and campgrounds. A good strong signal is hard to find.
Scheduling Work While Traveling
{jcomments lock}One of the hardest parts of freelancing is scheduling projects. Most freelancers learn the meaning of the phrase “feast or famine” the hard way. When there are clients knocking on your door, saying no can plummet you into a month of famine. On the other hand, saying yes too quickly can lead to back-to-back 80 hour work weeks.
Scheduling clients while traveling presents a totally different set of challenges. Not only do you have to keep clients coming your way, you have to do it from the other side of the world. And you may have the additional challenge of reduced work hours.
Here are a few tricks we've learned about scheduling work to keep our clients happy and ourselves sane...
Travel Work Days: How do they Work?
{jcomments lock}We have designated work days during our trip down the Pan-American. Every Tuesday, no matter where we are, how hot it is, or how hung-over we are, there is a work day.
I use this time to work on client projects, Kobus works on his online classes and Jared usually updates this website.
Here are a few frequently asked questions about our working schedules.
What’s a work day?
A work day means we don’t go anywhere. We find a good campground or hostel with internet and we stay put. We arrive the day before and stay the night after.