De-mystifying the Digital Nomad - How we’re Living and Working Abroad

About 50 days from the time of writing this, my fiancé and I will be hopping on a one way plane ride from our home in Florida to Lisbon, Portugal to begin our *digital nomad era.* We’ll be living and working abroad for at least 3 months - and then will decide if we want to keep traveling, or return home. 

Nowadays, its starting to feel like everyone is traveling and digital nomad-ing. I wanted to de-mystify how we are making it happen. 

So here’s a breakdown of how, where and why. 

How?! 

Werk:

 Both me and my fiancé have remote jobs. Besides teaching movement and somatics, my other job is online writing tutoring! This provides me with a lot of flexibility for scheduling and location. Anthony works full time as a software engineer. Our apartment lease ended in June. We’re staying with our families (saving up, spending time with them before we leave, and dodging peak tourist season) until late August when we depart. We will continue to work and likely adjust our schedules to local time (9-5 becomes 3PM-11PM) - giving us mornings to explore, and knowing that we both have wiggle room and some degree of flexibility with our specific jobs. 

In addition to tutoring, I will of course continue to create online classes for my membership and YouTube while we’re traveling! I’ll also be creating some workshop / self paced course content (stay tuned!) and working with a limited amount of private clients. 

Affordability: 

BNB Babes: We are exclusively staying in AirBnbs. I started booking these in March for the first part of our trip in August. Being ahead of the game here has been really helpful in securing good deals. AirBnb seems to be a better deal in Europe than in the US - I didn’t come across any crazy cleaning fees, cancellation policies are often really generous, and the price per night is generally super reasonable - often less than our rent in Florida! 

I always book an apartment with an equipped kitchen because the ability to cook saves costs on eating out. And I always really meticulously read reviews. Less than 20 reviews typically isn’t enough for me — I want Superhosts and Guest Favorites only baby (benefit of booking early is I get to be that picky and still get a good deal). 

For the Long Haul: We are staying in less places for more time. This allows us to integrate into the area more, and saves money - less plane tickets, cheaper accommodations (often there are discounts for longer stays). 

Gotta Get the Gear: We’re taking advantage of cheap flights by packing light and are making sure we won’t need to check bags. I’m bringing a 28 L Aer backpack (carry on) and a 18 L Camelback (personal item). Our plan is to bring about two weeks worth of clothes and do laundry. We’ve been really carefully picking our gear and clothing layers for a while now to optimize our minimalist setup. Our destinations don’t get too cold, and we’re making our way south in colder months, so that helps.

Visas? You can stay in countries within the Schengen Zone (includes many of the popular/well know destinations in Western Europe) for up to 90 consecutive days with a US passport without a visa. (Hence our starting timeline). 

Bills?? We don’t own a home and didn’t renew our lease, so we don’t have rent or any home related bills (or kids... or pets).

Where?

We’re starting in Lisbon, spending some time on Madeira Island (off the coast of Portugal), heading to Seville, Spain then spending the rest of our time in Italy - Sardinia, Florence, Rome, Sicily. We’re staying slightly away from city centers - because it’s cheaper, and frankly, more interesting to me; I don’t like crowds. From Sicily we’re undecided - considering making our way to Thailand, but those plans are a little hazy right now. We don’t really have a time we know we want to be back. We’re in a position where we can play that by ear, so that’s the plan. 

Why?? 

This decision has required a lot of sacrifice. We are obviously going to miss our friends and families back home. I have one foot in the door in my local communities, not being able to fully immerse in new friendships or opportunities right now - holding in the back of my mind that a lot of those things will be there when I return. I’ve been slowly transitioning my work life online - which can be a bit unromantic and requires a lot of self-accountability, but offers a degree of freedom that I have come to really appreciate. Quitting my fire dancing business (more on that in the previous post) makes this possible too. 

Life is always presenting us choices, and I’ve learned that I just can’t focus on everything all at once. My capacity is about four things. I can comfortably juggle four main things before balls start falling. Those things need to be important to me.

My four things are nurturing my close relationships, traveling, honing my craft and paying the bills. Working helps me hone my craft by paying for dance classes. Nurturing my relationships helps me feel secure and supported while traveling, because I know we’re never alone.

So why travel? Anthony and I want to see more of the world to have shared experiences that we can draw from for inspiration as we co-create our life together. I want to learn from new perspectives, places, and ways of being. We’re both Italian (Sicilian) and have never been to Italy. I really want to be more fluent in Italian and experience dance and yoga classrooms in different countries. I know my creativity is sparked in new environments. Plus, the food. Nuff said. 

The more I get to know myself and turn towards my honest desires, the more my “things” seem to form a healthy ecosystem where they all support each other. Otherwise, I’ve got one ball I’m trying to juggle that’s actually really heavy and keeps causing other balls to fall to the ground. Trading out that thing that is throwing off the ecosystem (a sour relationship, a boring exercise routine, a creatively draining side hustle…) allows something more aligned to take its place. 

So choosing traveling - choosing the sacrifices and the “please holds” that come with it - is maybe the biggest part of making this possible. Where intention goes, energy flows.

Thanks for reading!

Sami M.