Would you like to become a digital nomad but don't know where to start? I've been there too. After my experience in Australia in 2016 I started hearing this famous term "digital nomad": people who worked online and traveled at the same time. At first I thought it was a scam, until I started talking to people who were doing it and learned from them.
Now I have been working online for more than 3 years which has given me the freedom to live where I want and change country or city as I feel like. In this article I share my experience and everything I have learned along the way so that you too can enjoy this freedom to live and work from where you really want to ;)
Jobs for digital nomads
The first thing you have to do to become a digital nomad is to choose the service you want to offer. Obviously it has to be a service that you can offer online. Next I am going to talk about the most demanded professions as a digital nomad:
Tech jobs
These are the most demanded and usually better paid. The good thing is that you don't need a degree. These professions have advanced a lot and, since the University does not advance so quickly, with specific training or the so-called "boot camps" you can gain the necessary skills to start working quickly.
Among the most in-demand professions are:
- Web developer: within this field are those who work in backend, frontend or full stack developer.
- Programmer: there are different programming languages you can learn such as HTML, Python, React, Swift,....
- Blockchain developer: the programming language they usually use is Solidity. This profession is also becoming more and more in demand.
- Mobile application developer.
Design
Other of the most demanded professions as a digital nomad are those related to web design, user experience, video/photo editing and animations.
If this is something that interests you, you can train in the following fields:
- UX/UI design
- 3D animation
- Web design
- Photoshop
- CSS
- E-Commerce
- Photography for photobanks
Online marketing
Someone has to sell what the programmer develops and the entrepreneur creates. For that nowadays there are different professions in high demand in online marketing such as:
- Copywriter-web copywriter: these are the people who write the text for websites, adds, email marketing, etc
- Digital Trafficker: these are the people in charge of directing the ads to the desired audience.
- SEO Consultant: these are the people who are in charge of making the pages to be positioned in Google.
- Community Manager: basically this is a little bit of everything.
- Social Media Manager: these are the people who manage social networks from Instagram to Discord channels.
- Growth Marketing: these are the people in charge of developing marketing strategies.
Other sectors
The first thing most people think of when they think of generating online income is giving English classes. There are platforms that ask for training and others that are only at a conversational level so no training is needed.
Another profession demanded for digital nomads is to be a translator, proof reader or content editor.
Coaching, whether physical or mental, is one of the best professions nowadays. There are many specialties such as NLP, biohacking, hypnosis, .....
Types of digital nomads
1. Employee
The employee is the one who has an employment contract with a company. You agree on a monthly salary and the number of hours you are going to work and negotiate with the company to work remotely to be a digital nomad.
With this option you have the least freedom and, for me, the least preferable. It has the advantage that you have a fixed salary, but as a disadvantage they can put limitations on where you work from, schedule, make you go to the office, ....
Ideally if you prefer this option because for you it is very important to have a fixed salary, it is better to work for a start up than a traditional company.
2. Freelance
Freelancers are people who sell a specific service to different clients for a previously established price. For example, when I started my journey as a digital nomad, I chose article writing to begin with. It's something I have experience in, knowledge in and, moreover, I like it.
The advantages are that I choose who I work for, where I work from and when I work. The disadvantages are that the salary varies depending on how many clients I have.
If you want to be a true digital nomad I suggest you do it as a freelancer or as the next point we are going to see.
3. Entrepreneur
If you are an ambitious person, this is the type of digital nomad you want to be. In this case you have a scalable business idea in which you will need more people to develop it, either as workers or hiring freelancers.
You can start without investment or create a start up and look for investors. In case you prefer to create a start up you will also need co-founders. Nowadays there are start-up pre-incubators where you can find partners and investors, as well as validate the idea.
3 tips to become a digital nomad
1. Choose a profession and the type of digital nomad you want to be.
If among so many options you are not sure which one to choose, my advice is to first think about what you like to do. In my case, I like to write (hence I have a travel blog), so I chose to train in copywriting and writing. As I had neither experience nor training, the first thing I did was to look for a course. I chose copywriting and I trained with the best copywriter in Spain (if you are Spanish and are interested, I can share the info).
And yes, nowadays there are courses of everything, from people who really have experience in what they teach and not as it happens in the University. We have to say goodbye to those old bureaucratic systems that only serve for a few people to get a salary for doing nothing.
About the type, I was clear that I wanted to be either a freelance or an entrepreneur. I didn't want to have bosses or anyone choosing my schedule for me. My free spirit was ready to break out of the cage of the corporate world.
I started as a writer and my geographical and spiritual travels led me to become interested in how the mind works. So I began my training in Neurolinguistic Programming, Hypnosis and Akashic Records. Currently I combine the two.
2. Surround yourself with other digital nomads
When I decided I wanted to be a digital nomad I was working in the Netherlands for a corporate finance company. Obviously I had no inspiration there and my environment didn't encourage me to lead the digital nomad lifestyle.
So what I did was to quit my job and come to Bali. A destination that I already knew was full of digital nomads.
Here what I did was to go to different coworking, events and talk to anyone who was a digital nomad. Basically most of them. There were a few lost people like me, but most of the people I met in those circles were freelancers or had their own online business. So they gave me the ideas and advice I needed to start my journey.
3. Don't give up
Probably during your journey things will not go as you expect. If you are going to start doing something for the first time you might feel the so called "imposter syndrome". This is a normal thing that we all go through when we do things we haven't done before.
In this case it can be even more challenging because you don't have colleagues or, even if you don't have any friends who are digital nomads, it will be difficult to find someone who understands you. That's why I recommend hiring a coach or therapist to help you navigate these situations.
When it came to looking for clients and offering my services I had a lot of fears and insecurities that prevented me from really taking the plunge. First I went to a traditional psychologist, although I didn't have many results. Then someone told me about Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP). This is a science in which they study successful people and model their behaviors to teach them to other people. I was recommended to a coach specialized in this field. Not only did she helped me face my fears, but I gained the necessary skills such as sales and public speaking, which has allowed me to increase my client portfolio and continue to develop professionally.
I liked it so much and it gave me such good results that I trained myself in this specialty as well. Now I combine writing with coaching using NLP techniques.
Conclusion
I hope that you have found here the inspiration and advice to start your journey as a digital nomad! This lifestyle has given me the freedom to live in different locations. Although I have to be honest, is not always easy!
I wish you a lot of success in whatever you decide ✨
"The best way is just to start".
Eso me habla directo a mí.