Hey, everyone, welcome back.
This is Laura.
And recently, my husband and I have been asked
by a business partner that owns a resort in Bali
whether we wanted to go over there for a period of time
and help him implement a strategy that we worked on together.
This made me think about whether I would actually want to become a digital nomad
because Bali is a very popular area for digital nomads.
I thought maybe today I share with you
the five steps that I would take if I were to become a digital nomad.
The first thing that I would do if I were considering becoming a digital
nomad is deciding on
how am I going to make a living to sustain the lifestyle that I have chosen?
And in my opinion, here you have three options.
Option number one is to become an entrepreneur and start your own
online business.
And that is because usually people who are looking to become a digital
nomads are seeking a sense of freedom and independence
and pretty much work from anywhere.
And here you have many, many options, many ways that you can start an online
business, you can do Dropshipping, including Amazon FBA or Shopify.
You can do print on demand, you can create courses
and sell them online, which by the way, video coming up soon.
You have many options.
Alternative to is if you have a job already,
then maybe check if it's possible to continue doing it remotely.
That might not be a problem in many companies.
And I know, for example, Airbnb are allowing their employees to work
remotely from pretty much anywhere in the world for 3 to 6 months.
Check if your company would allow you to do that.
And for example, in my team,
I actually had two people who at different point in time
asked to work remotely from Singapore, and that was absolutely fine.
It worked perfectly.
Now, option number three is to learn skills
that will allow you to become a freelancer and work remotely.
And what that means is that you would be getting contract based work.
So you would be working either on a one time basis
or on a recurring basis with certain clients.
And you can offer a myriad of different services, pretty much
anything related to social media, anything related to digital marketing,
anything related to technology you can do from almost anywhere.
There are many, many jobs that you can take as a freelancer.
From translation and transcription to teaching online
video and photo and graphic design.
So many, many ideas.
And you have lots of videos on my channel that you can go and check out
as soon as this one is over with tons of suggestions
of what you could do as a freelancer or if you want, online jobs.
The second thing that I would look into if I wanted to become a digital
nomad is the first location where I would want to travel to.
And that is because obviously this is the most important one at first.
While you are there, you can decide on the rest of your itinerary.
In deciding your first location, you really need to consider
a few very important criteria.
Number one is the cost of living, because obviously everybody would
probably want to go and work from Norway or from Japan
or from Australia or maybe come over here and work from Switzerland.
But these are countries that have typically quite high cost of living.
So if you are a digital nomad, then you need to assess
what is your budget and then choose the country based on that.
And usually digital nomads tend to pick countries with a lower cost of living.
The second criteria that I would recommend you look into
is your safety, especially if you are going to be traveling by yourself.
Then you really want to pick locations that are a lot safer than others.
Obviously, criterion number three is visa availability, and that is
because some countries do have specific visa options for digital nomads.
And I know Thailand is one of that.
Cyprus was looking into that, Croatia, some of the Baltics as well.
So there is definitely some preference there.
Now, the fourth criterion that you want to look into is the speed of your Internet,
because if you're going to work remotely, then you really need to have really,
really good Internet.
And I know that some countries
are not necessarily well equipped from an infrastructure perspective.
So look into that.
And then number five, let's call it fun and that is the community
that you would have there.
And whether that's a destination that more digital nomads are referring,
it's related to attractions and things that you can do.
Does it have a beach? Can you go surfing?
So look into what exactly can you do while you're there.
An important element in terms of choosing your location is the time zone
that you want to be working in, because if you will be working
as part of a team, then that time zone might become challenging for you.
And I know, for example, with my team members who were working from Singapore,
they would end up working pretty late in the day
because we were all a lot earlier.
Think about that.
When you choose your location now, the next thing that you want to look into,
if you want to become a digital nomad is consider
where will you be leaving and where will you be working from?
Now I know that we all have seen those beautiful pictures of people
with their laptops working on a beach or working on the side of the pool.
But we also all know that that's not really practical,
because if you need to make a call,
then you really need to be able to go into a quiet area and not really
have everybody else at the beach making noise.
You do want to look into
where will you be spending time and where will you be sleeping?
What's the accommodation situation you want to have it?
Will you be working from?
I think the easiest one would probably be to do a home exchange.
Finding somebody in a country
where you want to go and work from maybe for three months at the beginning,
go and stay at their place and then they come and stay at your place.
I'm pretty sure you can find that there are dedicated websites for you to do this.
I know Hawaii Exchange does this, but there are many, many others.
Alternatively, you can leave your current accommodation
as is, and you can look for a new one in that country
that you can stay at a hostel or you can do Airbnb.
I know many digital nomads actually do Airbnb.
You can obviously stay in a hotel, but then there are also in places
that are very, very popular with digital nomads like Thailand
and Body are dedicated co-living and co-working spaces.
For digital nomads, you have again, a myriad of options.
It's more a matter of your budget and your working requirements.
Think about all of this in choosing the destination
and the place where you will be living for the dedicated period of time.
The next element that you do want to consider is something
I'm going to call tiny but mighty details your bank credit card
travel insurance, your technology, your VPN and your SIM card.
And this is because there will be a lot of charges that you will be incurring
and you want to really be mindful of those when it comes to your bank.
You really want to choose your bank wisely.
Oftentimes, if you use your credit card to withdraw cash from an ATM
in another country, then both your bank is going to charge you
a fee for withdrawing from an ATM that doesn't belong to that bank.
And the the bank that owns the ATM is going to also charge you
because you are using a credit card that doesn't belong to them.
And it's the same with your credit card.
Whenever you make payments
in a different country, oftentimes your bank is going to charge you
because you make payments in a different currency.
You really want to be mindful of those additional fees.
Now, when it comes to your travel health insurance, you really want to make sure
that whatever travel health insurance you choose is going to cover
whatever is most important to you in that country that you've chosen.
Now let's move to technology.
And here you want to look into what kind of devices and equipment
you really need to bring with you,
because obviously it depends a lot on the kind of job that you do.
So in my case, for example, if I were to actually go to body
and stay there for two, three months, then I would need a ton of technology,
not only because of the work that I do,
but then I would also need to bring equipment that I use for YouTube.
You want to understand what is the minimum
requirement that you should have available and bring with you?
And here you also want to look into VPN options because there will be cases
where you do want to access services that are only available in your country.
Let's say Netflix, for example, and you won't have the same type of access
from this new location that you have chosen.
And last but not least, a SIM card when you travel to another country.
Unless you're doing that within the European Union, then
you do want to get a SIM card from the country
where you will be going to live it doing roaming, especially data roaming
that is going to become really, really expensive, really, really quickly.
So look into any SIM card options that are available
in the country and consider switching as soon as you get there.
The other really, really important thing that you do need to do
is choosing what happens with your current belongings.
And oftentimes I see people choosing more of a minimalist
lifestyle, which means downsizing the current living conditions and selling
any property, cars or houses or apartment or any big items that they own.
And then only keeping the items that they are either happy to take with them
or that they would put in storage for later.
Now, obviously, if it's the first attempt that you're making at Digital Nomadism,
maybe you don't want to sell everything from the beginning and maybe go ahead
and try it out for 3 to 6 months and then come back and decide
what you want to do with your belongings.
But I know some people ended up
becoming digital nomads even without planning to beforehand.
And I actually did a video some time ago with a friend of mine who is a digital
nomad and who literally bought a one way ticket to Thailand and stayed there.
It depends a lot on your personal preferences.
Now, bonus tip for you is if you've been considering becoming a digital nomad
and you keep going back and forth and read debating this,
the 10,000 time, just do it, really.
Just go ahead and do it because you will never know
if that is for you or not unless you try it.
So do me a favor and go ahead.
Go in front of your computer or take your phone.
If you're watching me from your phone and start taking step one.
Okay.
I promise you, you will not regret this because
your life might change.
You have your whole life to live
and you deserve more than commuting to a job you hate and sitting in traffic
or sitting in public transport and waiting and working for the weekend.
There's more to life than that, and if you enjoy exploring the world
and traveling and learning
about different cultures and visiting new places, then why not
look for ways where you can work remotely and also enjoy life?
So really consider this you will not regret it.
I truly believe you should try it.
If you've been considering becoming a digital nomad.
All right. That is it for today.
Thank you so, so much for watching. I hope this video helpful.
Give it a thumbs up if it was and share with a friend who has the travel book.
And until next time, I recommend you go ahead and watch this video
where we talk about remote jobs that you can do while traveling.
Thank you again and I'll see you next time by
the.