that being said when i first moved to australia i only had a thousand dollars in my bank account
so and everything turned out okay so i'm probably not the right person but it comes from learning
like when i first traveled i had about 500 in my pocket yeah it was very stressful it is stressful
hi guys welcome back to another video i'm mandy and that's lloyd and we're digital nomads that
are currently living in bali indonesia so today we're just going to be talking a little bit about
what it's like being a digital nomad in 2022 during the pandemic there's definitely some
downsides but some upsides as well we've been doing this now for nearly three months before
that we're working online at home in australia so we've been in bali for about two and a half months
we're actually looking at our next destinations around about new year's we wrote a list of places
we wanted to go and we're going to be elaborating on that a little bit as well so lloyd and i
started pursuing working online about three years ago and now we're fully functioning working online
and just we make money while we sleep and just have to open our laptops in order to make money
we have a few different ventures revenue streams that we make money predominantly e-commerce we
also sell digital products as well as our online course teaching other people how to do the same
but it's been really great it's just given us the freedom to be able to live and work from
anywhere which is the ultimate dream so originally our plan was just to move to bali an extended
period of time so we started in bali but after being here for a couple of months it's made us
sort of want to travel a little bit more especially around southeast asia and other places
like we've made a list of countries we want to go to and the main reason for that is we're kind of
looking for somewhere to set up a home base and bali originally was where we thought we wanted
to do that but there's a few reasons why we want to look at some other places as well the reason
we started in bali is because number one it's close to australia also it's pretty affordable
cost of living there's a lot to do and see in bali there's a big digital nomad community here as well
yeah and we've just followed other people who have moved here and seemed to be doing really well
so it seemed like a logical place to start but some of the downsides i suppose the biggest one
is our dog bear who's at home he's being looked after by my sister which she loves she loves him
but i miss it we miss him we want him back yeah so eventually we want to be able to set up a base
somewhere where we can bring him over and um that's not really a possibility in bali at the
moment so that's probably one of the big reasons and we just don't really want to rule other places
out without seeing them first yeah yeah so we have a plan to visit every digital nomad
location that we can this year and share the pros and cons of them all with you guys so make sure
you guys are subscribed to our channel and you can follow around if you are wanting to start living
this digital nomad lifestyle we're going to be reviewing the pros and cons of every place yeah
so just a couple of places on our list to give you an idea we are going to be going to thailand next
where we'll be visiting chiang mai it's a huge digital nomad community there i think it's a good
place to get set up and we'll probably have a look around the rest of thailand i've been there once
myself mandy's never been no so that's one spot um sri lanka is another spot we want to head to
this year yeah vietnam philippines mexico it has a few we're doing lots so having said that it brings
me to my next point which is what countries can you actually visit right now this isn't easy to
answer because it pretty much changes day by day week by week it's very fluid my advice on that
is just keep looking at the government websites for those countries so at the moment thailand
you can enter on a tourist visa without quarantine but having said that as of february 1st yeah but
having said that you do need to show a negative pcr test when you fly to thailand and then
again after you land so no quarantine could easily turn into 10 days quarantine yeah and
i think that's a pretty much across the board sort of thing anywhere you go you're gonna have to show
a negative pcr test yeah and if you test positive you're gonna have to isolate but
at the moment thailand you can visit vietnam was closed all through the pandemic they opened up
around new year's and pretty much closed straight away due to omicron so as of this recording
that's not possible we know sri lanka you do have to quarantine at a hotel for seven days
i believe but you can enter so that's just an example and as i said like it's changing
almost daily so you kind of can't plan too far ahead no no we pretty much know what we're doing
like week by week at this stage you have to be very flexible if you're planning on traveling
during the pandemic if you have a spot you want to go to i would suggest just keeping
an eye on it for a few weeks before going and even leaving it to like the last minute to book
so we sort of choose countries at the moment just because we've just started this digital
nomad experience we have been working online for a while but the fact that we can't just
go get a job if you know works a bit tight or anything like that we just want to make sure that
we're not too tight on funds and are still living a comfortable lifestyle so we sort of choose
countries that are a bit more affordable to visit that's why we sort of started
in southeast asia and are wanting to travel around here to begin with money goes a
little bit further as well as we want to help stimulate the economy here a lot more as well
more affordable countries for us western westerners to visit would be mexico and central
america which are also on our lists for this year you also have portugal and other parts of europe
that are affordable for nomads as well yeah and there are a lot of places that are affordable
good digital nomad spots so just check them out do a quick google search and you'll be able to find
something there so a question that we do get asked a little bit and we see some comments as well
is about taxes and paying taxes in countries so this can vary from country to country and it also
depends on what visa you have my advice is do your research on that country before going and before
deciding what sort of visa you would want to get but as a general rule if you're only staying in a
country for a couple of months you don't have to pay taxes in that country maybe if you're staying
for six months or more you will have to file a tax return it doesn't necessarily mean that you have
to pay taxes but you may need to file a return so my advice and i'm not a tax accountant is do your
research on each country's tax rules so our top five tips for becoming a digital nomad in 2022
number one would be to find a skill and something that you love and hone in on it when lloyd and
i started i loved all things creative i loved you know videoing editing photography modeling
drawing everything you can think of that was artistic and somehow i've managed to
make a income on everything that i enjoy doing and i've progressively just learned
how to get better at it through youtube videos and doing small short courses online for lloyd he
really loved the digital marketing and analytical side so he really honed in on that so if you're
wanting to become a nomad you honestly can learn these things for free if you wanted anything that
you're interested in and find a way to make money on it online we've noticed since being here that
a lot of typical digital nomads are actually people that have a certain skill set and they
work for a company they just work for that company online we're a bit different in that sense that we
don't have jobs we're entrepreneurs so we create businesses and we create income streams around our
skill sets so there's that choice as well if you want to learn a skill and then get an online job
that's definitely not a hard thing to do in 2022 no or you can go the other route which
is the route we took which is creating our own businesses and income streams because that gives
us the freedom to travel around and sort of not have to answer to anybody not have to be on like
a time frame or anything like that number two would be make sure you have savings in the bank
just to fall back on i mean even a credit card yeah um because you never know it's more about
what could go wrong so you might be able to calculate how much money you need to live in
say bali thailand or somewhere else but you might run into a medical issue where you have to pay
for that up front you could get into some trouble there with maybe losing some items or getting
things stolen that you have to replace so it's always good to have savings to fall back on and
that's what we've done yeah traveling's continual problem solving and some things you just can't
account for that being said when i first moved to australia i only had a thousand dollars in my bank
account so and everything turned out okay so i'm probably not the right person but it comes from
learning like when i first traveled i had about 500 in my pocket yeah it was very stressful it is
stressful but it does teach you a lot of lessons but yeah we're not condoning that but also we did
it we often stay in co-working places because we really struggle with the work-life balance
often if we for example we stayed in uluwatu and we were on the beach we found we weren't getting
any work done because we met the mentality and the chill atmosphere of what was going on there
but then when we came back to ubud and we were in an environment where everyone was working around
us i know there were co-working areas in uluwatu but we just work a lot better if there's other
people grinding and working around us it can get quite tempting to just go off and do all the fun
things and then you have no money to continue so i do recommend as far as work-life balance
schedule your work time then you can go and enjoy wherever you are as much as you like
and you'll enjoy it even more knowing that your work is done so usually how lloyd and i do it we
will work for a few days at a time and then when we feel like we're just not being as productive
anymore then we'll take a couple days off and then by the end of our couple of fun days we're
ready to smash work again so our next tip would be to research the locations before heading there
sometimes you might be surprised at how much the pandemic has actually affected areas that you
still think might be busy we were really surprised when we got to bali that a lot of the places that
we thought would be more happening and busy ended up being the most dead parts
of bali so a lot has changed in the pandemic and that's why we're sort of sharing this information
and our vlog with everyone because things are have changed a lot in the couple years so
definitely do your research watch as many vlogs as you can and make your own vlog and help someone
else figure it out for themselves and our last piece of advice if you are interested in becoming
a digital nomad is we do have our online course that's available we teach all the ins and outs of
building an online e-commerce brand so we've left that down the link in the description if you'd
like to learn more we teach everything how to run an e-commerce business from anywhere in the world
and make money while you sleep so hit the link below and if you guys enjoyed this video
please hit the like button and subscribe to our channel and we'll see you in the next one bye
you