Working poolside in the sun will actually roast your laptop faster than you can say “Phi Phi Island."
“How did you get so lucky?”
“Are you always on holiday?”
“When will you finally settle down?”
These are questions often posed to digital nomads, a rapidly rising group of portable professionals who travel and build their careers on the internet. What was once a fringe movement has now gone mainstream due to the mass shift towards remote work that the pandemic ushered in.
A 2021 study found that more than 15.5 million U.S. workers now classify themselves as digital nomads, a 42% increase from the year before. Similarly, Airbnb’s 2021 Travel and Living report found that 11% of their long-stay bookers live nomadic lifestyles. In the same report, a staggering 74% of over 10,000 respondents worldwide wished to move somewhere other than where their employer was located.
Despite the increasing popularity of this lifestyle, plenty of confusion persists about digital nomads. Having been a location-independent travel journalist for several years, I have had my fair share of scrutiny and probing questions ranging from passive-aggressive and accusatory to puzzled and desirous.
I have been fully remote since 2017, when I sold my belongings in London and hopped on a flight to Panama, which I had fallen madly in love with two years prior. I now mentor aspiring and established nomads looking to design their lives around freedom and flexibility. I have gained greater insight into the misconceptions holding people back from taking their jobs on the road. Here are 12 of the most pervasive myths and untruths about the digital nomad lifestyle debunked by the people living it.
Related: You Can Easily Move to These 15 Countries With a Digital Nomad Visa