5 Ways To Become a Digital Nomad

Sneak Peek:

Kristin:    00:00:00    The ironic thing is that you don't have to work your entire life and save money or become a millionaire overnight to be able to experience the type of freedom that this lifestyle has to offer. 

Introduction: Welcome to Badass Digital Nomads, where we're pushing the boundaries of remote work and travel, all while staying grounded with a little bit of old school philosophy, self-development, and business advice from our guests.  

Kristin Wilson, Host:    00:00:34    Hey there, Kristin Wilson from Traveling with Kristin here, and welcome to episode 213 of Badass Digital Nomads. The name of this podcast is Badass Digital Nomads, and I have a very digital nomad episode for you today with the top five ways to become a digital nomad. It's been about two years since I've done a How to Become a Digital Nomad podcast, and this is an angle that I haven't taken before, but I really like it because it keeps things simple. You can identify which of the categories is best for you and get started, and there's a lot of resources that I mention within this podcast. So we're gonna have a pretty detailed show notes for you today with lots of other videos, podcasts, playlists, workbooks, and all sorts of things that you can do to get started on your digital nomad journey. And of course, the book Digital Nomads for Dummies, which can give you all of the steps and things to think about when transitioning to a location independent lifestyle.  

Kristin:    00:01:46    My goal with this podcast is to help you not overthink it, but just give you some ideas for what you can do to be able to work remotely and the types of income that you can earn in the different categories. I'd also like to thank Hostinger for sponsoring today's podcast. Hostinger is a great option if you're looking to build your own website or if you want to transfer a website from one hosting provider to another. It's great for just a personal website, for an online business, for an online store, for a blog. And the cool thing about Hostinger is that you can get a free domain and free email and lots of other freebies with one of their hosting plans. And for people like me who are not very tech savvy, and I'm definitely not a graphic designer, that's great news because no coding skills are needed. They have really intuitive drag and drop templates, and they even have an AI website builder that I really like. So check them out using the link in the show notes and make sure to put in the code: TRAVELINGWITHKRISTIN to get an extra 10% off of your package. That's at Hostinger -  H O S T I N G E R.com/travelingwithkristin.  

Kristin:    00:03:11    If you've ever seen these photos of people working from their laptops in super exotic places, then you might have thought that it was just for show on Instagram or that it's too good to be true. But the reality is that being a digital nomad, someone who can live and work from anywhere while making money online is easier than ever before, and you can do it too.  

Kristin:    00:03:40    If this is the first time that we're meeting, I'm Kristin. I'm the author of Digital Nomads for Dummies, and in this video I'm gonna give you five ways that you can become a digital nomad. It means you can live where you want travel, when you want, work for who you want, work for yourself. No longer do you have to answer to anyone, not to a boss, not to society, not to the status quo. That is huge and it's the ultimate form of personal freedom. And even though this term digital nomad has become somewhat of a cheesy buzzword, it's actually an astounding concept when you think about it, and it's never been possible in the history of humanity, even after having lived this lifestyle for nearly half of my life, the ability to do this never ceases to amaze me, and it's getting easier and easier with each and every day.  

Kristin:    00:04:34    The ironic thing is that you don't have to work your entire life and save money or become a millionaire overnight to be able to experience the type of freedom that this lifestyle has to offer. You just have to make enough money to be able to cover your bills, and chances are you're already doing that right now. Now, before the pandemic, the most common way to achieving a location independent lifestyle was by becoming a freelancer. Because this type of career has the lowest barriers to entry, anyone can do it. You can start today and you can realistically start making money at it within a few days or a few weeks. Now, this was the most common way because all you have to do to get started is have a skill that has value, and I'm sure that you have plenty of those. If you've ever had a job, you have skills.  

Kristin:    00:05:27    And so if you can provide these skills in a package of services or a single service that someone else needs, then boom, you have your business model right there. You can set up an account on a freelancing site like Fiverr or Upwork and post your services in the same day, or you can start reaching out to your personal network and letting people know that you are offering this skill. This is something that I've done as well, and especially when the pandemic hit and I could no longer operate my travel and relocation company because the whole world was closed, I shifted into offering services as a freelancer. So I just looked at what skills I had, which were the ones that I liked and I enjoyed providing and doing for other people. And then I just went on Facebook and social media and I told people that I was offering services as a video editor, and so I started making videos for corporate presentations, for accounting firms, for social media ads, and I was able to replace my income as a relocation consultant by being a freelance video editor.  

Kristin:    00:06:36    I actually have a course that teaches you how to become a freelancer by offering professional services and set up your freelancing business in just 30 days. So you can check that out in the description below, but it's also important to know that there are some downsides to the freelancing lifestyle. The biggest one is that you're working for yourself, so you're not getting a dependable monthly salary and you're not getting any benefits. You're also exchanging your time for money. So if you have to take a sick day or take some time off, you might not have any income coming in during that time. So it's very similar to having a regular job where you're working eight hours a day, but in freelancing, you might be charging by the hour, but that doesn't necessarily cover all of the work that you're doing on the backend work and marketing work and outreach, administrative stuff, accounting.  

Kristin:    00:07:31    So there are some things to take into consideration, but for a lot of people who have transitioned into a freelancing lifestyle, they really enjoy having control over their time. And even if they start making less at first, that's more valuable to them than having to work for someone else. So even though they might have a little bit of uncertainty with their monthly income, then they still would prefer that to the alternatives. You won't get rich overnight as a freelancer, but you can very realistically start making one, two, $5,000 a month pretty quickly. And the best way to do it is to start with a skill that you already have before learning something new. Chances are that you don't need to learn an entirely new skill to be able to start making money online. And not all paths to becoming location independent have to be working online.  

Kristin:    00:08:29    You can also offer services in person, like dog sitting or dog walking. I have a friend who had a remote job as a virtual assistant, and then she also made an extra a hundred dollars a day just dog-sitting for people who worked in offices around town. The important thing is to just pick one thing, test it and see if it works, start making a small income, and then build from there. Now, since the pandemic, I've noticed that many more digital nomads as a percent of the nomadic population have been remote workers. So that means having a full-time remote salary job. And if you have a normal job where you drive to work or you commute to work each day and you're looking to transition into a remote role, then just like with freelancing, the best advice that I have for you is to just start where you are.  

Kristin:    00:09:23    Start looking for jobs within your skillset. Don't worry about learning something completely new. Don't worry about learning how to code or switching careers or anything like that. There are plenty of remote jobs out there, and you have the best chance of landing one if you stay within your area of expertise. So you want to start by looking for jobs that you're already qualified for, update your CV or resume comb through all of those skills that you have. And there's a lot of different ways to find remote jobs these days. There are massive sites dedicated specifically to helping you find remote jobs, and I'll link to some of those in the description below. One of my favorite sites is Flex Jobs, but there are many, many more. There's WeWork Remotely, there's RemoteOK, there's Remote.co, and you can also find remote job opportunities on sites like LinkedIn or on sites that are typically for gig work, like freelancing sites that could also have some full-time positions there.  

Kristin:    00:10:30    There are also job sites specifically for different niches and career paths. There's gun.io for developers, there's Dribble for designers, there's ProWriters for writers, and so there's usually a job site or multiple job sites for each type of job. So there could be remote marketing jobs, remote accounting jobs, remote developer jobs, remote medical jobs. And so if you look for websites that specialize in remote jobs for jobs in your career path, that can be a good way to find a wider range of jobs in a deeper niche. But it's really important to remember in your remote job search, and this was the same way before there were remote jobs. I remember back when I was graduating from college and I was submitting my website on sites like monster.com, and when you're on, uh, big job sites like Indeed applying for jobs, there might be hundreds or sometimes even thousands of other applicants.  

Kristin:    00:11:32    And so a way to get around that is to reach out to companies directly, reach out to their HR departments, be proactive about finding a remote job, and really focus on the companies that you want to work for or reach out in your personal network and on social media and ask people if they know of any remote job openings. A lot of jobs are filled without there ever being a public-facing job description. And so if you wanna be one of the ones that can snag a job before anyone else knows about it, that's the best way to do it. But the fastest way to find a remote job might be to just ask your boss or supervisor if you can work remotely. And then you don't have to worry about changing companies. Although there's been a lot of companies, especially tech companies that have been making announcements like Airbnb, like Google, like Toptal, like Salesforce that have said that, Hey, everyone can work from anywhere now, I think we're gonna see a lot more companies following that.  

Kristin:    00:12:34    Or you can make a really good case to your boss about why they should let you work remotely. And I actually have a very old video from 2018 about it right here that is tips to convince your boss to let you work remotely. And it's also a chapter in my book. So as I mentioned, start where you are. Start with the job that you have, start with the skills that you have, and it's probably not much of a stretch because even if you have a geographically dependent job where you're required to be in the office, chances are a lot of the things that you do at work you can do from your laptop and you can do from anywhere. Now if you want to become a digital nomad, then chances are you need a website, whether that's to showcase your portfolio or your personal brand, or if you want to start an online business, set up an online shop.  

Kristin:    00:13:26    And for non-techie people like me, I have just the solution for you. And that is with Hostinger. Hostinger has everything that you need to start a website in one place and you can do it in just an hour or so. No coding skills are necessary, and they have a lot of cool different ways that you can create your website. They have drag and drop templates, they have WordPress integrations, and they have a really cool AI website builder where you can just put in the type of website you want, a little bit of info about yourself, and it will create a template for you. And then you can tweak it to your needs. You can add photos, you can change the colors, the background. You can add an online store where you can sell products as well as services, and it's actually really fun to do.  

Kristin:    00:14:18    The website builder comes free with all hosting packages, and you also get a free domain included. Go to Hostinger.com, choose the type of hosting plan that you want, and then make sure to put in the coupon code: TRAVELINGWITHKRISTIN to get another 10% off of your package. Boom. Thanks again to Hostinger for sponsoring this video. Use the link below this video to set up your new website today and make sure to use the code: TRAVELINGWITHKRISTIN for an extra 10% off. A third way to become a digital nomad is to start your own online business. Now, this can be something that happens organically once you are working independently as a freelancer, as you start to grow and scale your business and begin outsourcing things, maybe start an agency, begin hiring some staff, or it could be something that you just get into right off the bat.  

Kristin:    00:15:14    You can start by joining an online marketplace like Etsy where you can sell your own items. You can go a drop-shipping model or Amazon FBA model or even an arbitrage model where you are buying and selling products online for a profit or your dropshipping products. You can start your own store using a platform like Shopify, and you can sell anything from actual goods and furniture to digital products like presets and website templates like WordPress templates. I mean, the sky is the limit. You can create digital products, apps, websites. I know a guy who made a lot of money online just creating QR codes for restaurant menus during the pandemic. So there's lots of ways to start your own online business that is a specific dedicated video for another day, but that is the third most popular way of becoming a digital nomad.  

Kristin:    00:16:14    A fourth way to become a digital nomad, which I think is a really fun way to do it, and it's something that I've done myself, is to actually monetize yourself by creating content or creating a personal brand or both. And in this way, you can use any of the content creation platforms out there, whether you're doing writing, audio, video, or some combination of different forms of content. And by consistently showing up and creating valuable content and putting yourself out there, you can create revenue in a lot of different ways. And so you can kind of combine together different income streams to who make a living from anywhere. So in my case, I've made money writing on medium through affiliate income that comes from blog articles and also my podcast and eventually through sponsorships on my podcast and YouTube channel, through YouTube AdSense collaborations, uh, brand sponsorships and all types of different things.  

Kristin:    00:17:17    Creating content on the internet can actually even help you land a remote job because it positions you as an expert in your field. So whether you're deciding to create content to help viewers and people with a specific skill like cooking or in my case travel and living abroad, or if you want to create content that key stakeholders and decision makers at companies will be reading about marketing and financial trends or real estate trends, or maybe you're creating content that helps people in human resource departments or in tech departments, maybe you're writing about your journey with coding and ideas for creativity and problem solving, whatever it is that you know about that you think is really easy other people are struggling with. And if I told you that there was a way to share your ideas with the entire world for free, wouldn't you do it?  

Kristin:    00:18:16    I mean, that's what we have with the internet today. And even though it seems really normal because we're so used to it, the idea of being able to create and publish content and distribute it almost for free about any topic is really amazing. And so I think you should take advantage of that. And even if you start small and start slow, imagine what can happen if you just publish one piece of content per week or even per month for the next 10 years. You can build a brand, you can build income streams, and you can also generate attention from the people that you want to help. The downside to this strategy is that it can take time. It could take a year, it could take three years. It could take five years before you start to generate the amount of income that you need to support yourself.  

Kristin:    00:19:09    And here's where many new digital nomads like to go, places that have a very low cost of living so that they can bootstrap their online businesses or the creation of their personal brands while living on the cheap. So I have also a video about how you can save money while traveling as a digital nomad and actually save more than you would living at home, and you can invest that money into building your business. So you can check that out in the description below. But the good thing about this model is that once you put in the work, your income grows exponentially. So when I first started out on YouTube, I think it was years before I ever made my first cent, and then all of a sudden my income jumped from zero to $100 to $1,000 to $10,000 per month. And it can happen for anyone.  

Kristin:    00:20:02    And I know that there's no ceiling when it comes to, uh, how much you can make from YouTube AdSense. And as this is the business of monetizing yourself, you will always be you. And so this is something that can grow and evolve with you throughout your entire life. There's also the four hour work week method of becoming a digital nomad where you invest time and sometimes money in creating passive income streams that can then support you as you traipse around the globe. Passive income entrepreneurs, investors, and retirees all fall into this category. And also you fire people. So anyone who's going for financial independence retiring early, those would all be passive income nomads. The upside of this is that you really don't have to work, especially if your income is greatly exceeding your living expenses and you're keeping those expenses low. But the downside is that it can take some time to do that.  

Kristin:    00:21:04    It could take years before you have enough passive income to be able to live off of. So whether you have passive income from a business, like if you own a drop shipping store or you're an investor and you're investing in income producing real estate properties, so you're living off long-term rentals or short-term rentals on Airbnb, or if you are retired and you're living off of a pension or other types of investment income, then this would classify you as a passive income nomad. Of course, investing is the ultimate form of passive income, whether you're getting that through dividends or any other types of monthly, quarterly, or annual returns. I actually have a video on passive income ideas that you can check out here, but I would say that this is the least common route to becoming a digital nomad, but it's definitely one that a lot of people aspire to.  

Kristin:    00:22:00    So you might kind of move through the ranks of having different types of digital nomad jobs where at first you start out as a remote employee and then you start a side hustle and so on, or you start as a freelancer and then start your own online business, or even in my case, I've done all of these at one point or another. And if you wanna dive deeper in any of these five methods, then I'll link some playlists below that have ideas for passive income streams, remote jobs, how I make money online, all of my different revenue streams. And I also have a lot of videos interviewing other people about how they make money online. Some of them are hour long plus interviews where we go into detail about how they do that. And then some of them are shorter interviews where I talk to people for just a minute or so asking them questions about how they make a living online. If you like this video and you want more about how you can make a living online while traveling the world, then make sure to subscribe to my channel, pick up a copy of my book, Digital Nomads for Dummies, and I hope to see you back here very soon.  

Kristin:    00:23:18    I hope that today's podcast gave you some good ideas for how you can either create an additional revenue stream of online income or completely shift your career into a remote job or another type of location independent business. And I also recommend checking out the video version of this podcast over on youtube.com/travelingwithKristin with over a hundred comments with lots of other great ideas from people. Linda says, when the restaurant industry shut down during the pandemic, she leveraged her culinary experience to develop and adapt recipes. She also created dietary plans for people, researched new ingredients, and started teaching cooking skills online. She said that as she's traveling now, she supplements her income by being a private chef, catering, events, and leading food market tours. She also wrote a food blog and has contributed to e-cookbooks. She says what's really helped her is to brainstorm and make a long list of ways to apply her skills both online and in person.  

Kristin:    00:24:27    She says, you need to get comfortable with marketing yourself. I know from experience that it can feel awkward at first putting yourself out there, but I can assure you that if you do and if you pursue your skills in the online atmosphere, then you can reach and help a lot more people. And then Kat says that she's currently an independent contractor working for a company out of Boston while in Portugal. She says she loves what she does, but she's currently fighting other independent contractors for jobs. She says that she's staying logged into their website for 12 to 14 hours a day just to reach her income goals and that she's been doing that for about six years now. And she says that her job has allowed her to travel throughout the US hashtag Van Life and ultimately move to Portugal, but she's been burning herself out having to compete for jobs as a freelancer.  

Kristin:    00:25:25    She says part of the reason she moved to Portugal is because of the low cost of living, so she can bootstrap, as I mentioned in the podcast, and still support herself while trying her hand at something else. She says, your videos always have such great ideas, and they leave me feeling confident I can find something where I'm not tied to my laptop every waking minute. Thanks for the info. Kristin. Katt, I feel like your situation is so common, and I think that anyone who's working in modern day society can feel burnt out and feel like we are attached to our screens and laptops all day. So completely relatable and uh, some advice I have for you if you feel like you're trying to compete in that freelancer market is to reach out more within your personal network so that you're getting jobs from people that know you rather than just strangers on the internet.  

Kristin:    00:26:22    These freelancing sites are great places to find new opportunities, but there is higher competition. So don't be afraid to reach out in your personal or professional network to get those jobs. That direct one-to-one outreach is really effective. But if you are looking to become a freelancer and stand out among the crowd and also get your very first paying online clients that I do have a program that I created during the pandemic called Freelance to Freedom, which will teach you the steps of getting started as a freelancer in just 30 days. So you can check out the link for that in the show notes. And also, as a listener of Badass Digital Nomads, you get an extra $100 off. And Decker also asked for the link to the 2018 video that I mentioned on convincing your boss to let you work remotely. And so I do have that linked for you in the show notes as well.  

Kristin:    00:27:22    If you want some tips on being able to ask your boss to let you go location independent. And then also, I have a whole chapter on that in my book in Digital Nomads for Dummies as well. And Muer also ask if I have any videos or podcasts about nomads in their forties and fifties. And I do. I have a great interview with Palle Bo, who's the Radio Vagabond, and so I will link to that podcast in the show notes as well. I hope these tips and stories were helpful for you. Head over to the show notes for all of those details and resources and see you again next week.