Globetrotting Digital Nomads: The Future of Work or Too Good to Be True?

Considering it's Forbes --- this is a surprisingly in-depth, non-clickbait article by a Harvard researcher who spent time understanding the current (& surprising) demographics of digital nomads living in Ubud, Bali.

TL;DR turns out it is an unsustainable lifestyle for almost everyone who isn't an "elite software engineer" or internet entrepreneur. However, most Hacker News readers probably qualify for one of those categories anyway, so for us this isn't much of a deterrent.

This describes my reasons for going remote:

wants to work remotely “in the comfort of their home or coffee shops, schedule work around peak creative times (e.g., the middle of the night), or raise kids without disappearing to an office for most of the day.”

I had dreams of moving to a tropical island and working from a laptop (my wife is from the Philippines and we have an oceanfront condo there), but with a 3 year old, the biggest benefit of remote work is the flexibile schedule and freedom to be at non-office locations during business hours.