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

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.

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.

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

[1] https://jaredandrews.com/whats-in-my-bags.html

[2] For someone who makes > 70K a year and has no dependents or significant financial obligations.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I think that's called "van life" when done domestically.

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.

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

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!

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

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.

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.

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.

Whatever works. Take the road less travelled. Though perhaps staying in country may actually be the other road.

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.