Why I chucked my stuff in storage and became a digital nomad during a pandemic
After six months on the road, Ben West shares his findings of swapping the nine to five for four countries in four days
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It’s a strange thing to put everything in storage and make yourself voluntarily homeless during a pandemic; to go from paying a mortgage and having roots to being of no fixed abode. But, when work I took on in early December 2021 dictated that I would be travelling nonstop, often switching accommodation after just 24 hours, I decided to bite the bullet and embrace the digital nomad lifestyle. I’ve now spent almost six months on the road.
It’s an undeniably strange existence – opening my laptop wherever I am in the world, whether that be an airport, cafe or hotel balcony, and settling in for my new, offbeat version of the 9-5. You’d think that catching endless trains, planes and automobiles and staying in a new hotel almost every night would make you exhausted and too distracted to work. Unexpectedly, I’ve found the opposite to be true; the adrenaline rush of continually travelling, embracing a new location with staggering frequency, has meant I’ve worked better than ever.
LA, New York, Dubai, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Madrid, Tenerife, Marbella, Mallorca, Iceland, Lithuania, Santorini, Kos and Bodrum: 2022’s been quite the year. Yet one of the biggest surprises has been price: in between review stays at hotels, I’ve booked apartments, B&Bs and holiday rentals while on my travels, all costing a fraction of daily life (and rent) in the UK.
How, you ask? Timing is everything. By staying outside of peak season in each destination, I’ve managed to bag bargain prices. For example, in June I had a prime choice of delightful hotels on the Greek island (and influencer favourite) of Santorini for around £25 a night; in August, the same places start at £100. And, not being during the school holidays, it was pleasantly quiet.
Swapping bougie hotels for campervans and campsites can reduce costs even more, and in recent years many hostels have upped their game, quality-wise, while retaining low room rates.
I’m not the only one out there with itchy feet – there’s been a huge uptick in continuous travelling and digital nomadism in recent years. Figures released by US-based MBO Partners and Emergent Research suggest that the number of Americans describing themselves as digital nomads increased from 7.3 million to 10.9 million between 2019 and 2020, an increase of 49 per cent.
The adrenaline rush of continually travelling, embracing a new location with staggering frequency, has meant I’ve worked better than ever
And the travel industry has taken note – many hotels have capitalised on the remote working trend, adding co-working spaces and packages to appeal to those who need their accommodation to double up as an office for the day. Anecdotally, I’ve become accustomed to seeing a row of people buried in their laptops every time I check into new digs for the night.
If moving from hotel to hotel and destination to destination sounds exhausting, that’s because it is. But, for me, the feeling is far outweighed by the exhilaration of being in a new city every few days.
If I could change anything, I might swap being constantly on the move for visiting each location for a while, perhaps one to three months at a time – especially with the huge climate-concerns of travel right now. But this line of work hasn’t allowed for that. My passport stamps have quickly mounted up, to the point that more than one passport official has raised an eyebrow when flicking through pages and pages to find a space. (Did they suspect me of being a drug mule? Quite possibly.)
The never-ending nomadism does feel too much sometimes – peaking when I found myself in four countries in four days. On a few occasions I’d wake up, my hotel room pitch black, and momentarily not know which continent I was in, let alone which country.
Other downsides? People often assume that I’ve been permanently on holiday for the last six months – especially when I’ve been staying by a gorgeous Spanish beach or bucket-list city. But don’t let the sexy backdrop fool you – research shows that remote workers are likely to work harder than their office-based counterparts. A recent study by Stanford University found that digital nomads are 13 per cent more productive than in-office workers and take fewer sick days.
The reality for me has been spending most of my time in my hotel room, working from my laptop. Yes, there may have been a wonderful spa or buzzing bar on the premises, and an exciting neighbourhood on the doorstep – but to make it work financially, these elements are usually experienced briefly, if at all.
Don’t let the sexy backdrop fool you – research shows that remote workers are likely to work harder than their office-based counterparts
And anyhow, the beach is a terrible place to work: sand getting into your computer? The blaring sun preventing you from seeing the laptop screen? The possibility that a child and/or dog will gallop out of the sea and douse your precious electronic goods with water? No thanks.
Having only been in each destination for a week or two and having regularly returned to the UK, I’ve experienced no tax or visa issues that could cause complications. There have been numerous cases of tax-related red tape around working abroad; however, the HRMC’s stance is that if an individual remains a UK resident while living and working abroad, it will continue to tax any income that they earn for the duration. The rules are complex, but typically you will only be classed as non-resident if you spend fewer than 16 days in the UK during a tax year or work full-time overseas.
At first, I worried I’d miss my possessions, but this part of nomadic life has been surprisingly straightforward. Although I’ve got a little bored of wearing the same clothes day after day, it’s a tiny price to pay for the opportunity to discover more of the world. I’ve learnt to travel more and more lightly, too. When I started, kicking off with two weeks in Amsterdam, I took a large case, reckoning that I deserved a good choice of clothes and a few luxuries to compensate for having no home. But after a couple of days lugging it along canal-side cobbled streets, I vowed never again. Now my luggage is just a small under-seat rucksack; I don’t miss the extra stuff at all.
In fact, what I’ve ended up missing the most is things like cooking and seeing family or friends – but as this is a temporary chapter, rather than a permanent feature, in my life, I figure I can always make up for lost time later.
I think if this lifestyle was a long-term thing, loneliness and a lack of real community or base would begin to creep in. Sure, if you stay at a destination for a while you’re likely to make acquaintances and even friends, but there’s just no substitute for being around people who’ve known you for a lifetime. Occasionally I’ve met up with people I know during my travels, but much of the time my only interaction has been with the guy on reception, the waitress at breakfast, the person at the supermarket check out.
There may be highs, there may be lows, but one thing’s for sure: this lifestyle is only set to grow and grow. The pandemic provided the perfect catalyst, resulting in a reimagining of office life and the introduction of compelling tax incentives and extended visas by numerous governments across the globe. There are currently thought to be around 35 million digital nomads worldwide, and it’s believed that by 2035 around one billion – or one third of the global workforce – will be living and working this way.
As for me, I plan to continue this lifestyle for the foreseeable future, despite its challenges. With UK rentals and mortgages soaring, an impending cost of living crisis blighting the horizon and the country’s public services on their knees, I’m in no hurry to settle back in Blighty anytime soon...
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