Comment by philip1209 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by philip1209 | Hacker News Reader

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My girlfriend and I were looking at real estate in SF. It was unreasonably expensive for places that we did not love. We have since decided to sell all of our things and live full-time in AirBNBs around the world. I now only have a carry-on suitcase and backpack, and getting rid of all of my crap was such an empowering feeling. For less than rent in SF, we are currently in a beautiful apartment in Mexico City that is decorated, has all services provided (including internet), and has weekly maid cleanings.

I don't know how long we will continue this lifestyle, but AirBNB makes it easy. For multi-month rentals, payments go through monthly.

After dealing with so many headaches in personal and commercial rentals in SF, I'm welcoming this lifestyle. I'm tired of setting up internet, enrolling in utility payments, disputing issues with landlords, and moving crap between apartments. The last year has been a nightmare for this stuff, and having to deal with long leases has been a root problem preventing me from walking out of bad personal and business rentals. (Fun fact - even canceling a month-to-month Comcast business internet account requires 2 months notice.)

I was living the nomadic developer lifestyle for a couple years, and it has been the best experience of my life. Living in and working from a dozen or so different countries has given me an incredible perspective on where in the world I actually want to be.

If you and your SO are a developers, then I would highly recommend a work-cation in Prague. I spent a few weeks at a really cool co-working space, PaperHub, which was part of the Institute of Cryptanarchy (lol). They take BTC for everything, the transit system is a dream, and there are tiny little specialist grocery stores everywhere. If I was ever going to return to the same place twice, it would be Prague.

Beware of burnout, though - there is no rest in this lifestyle. The home office wants me online during their business day, and constantly learning new cultures is a huge cognitive load. After two years of this, I needed to settle down for a while; right now I am resting between jobs, thanks to a very supportive mother. Oh, make sure to take good care of your parents, they may end up being the only solid, reliable people in your life.

> I spent a few weeks at a really cool co-working space, PaperHub

I honestly don’t get the attraction of co-working spaces for most digital nomads. The costs often outweigh simply working from a cafe or the balcony of your AirBnB – 3G internet is cheap in most of the world now. In my hometown, co-working spaces attract locals who set up small teams with other local freelancers and could benefit from in-person collaboration. But for a solitary digital nomad all of whose contacts are remote, what's the point?

Good coffee shops are certainly adequate, and many of them, in Europe anyway, have a section that is nicely furnished for a full day's work.

There are some extra perks to a good co-working space, though. It is library-quiet, and you are surrounded by people who are living and working a similar plan. I was actually able to informally recruit a guy who often worked near me, when we needed to bang out a bunch of UI components and their services, for a design that the client and I had already detailed fairly well.

For me, work/life separation has been important. It's nice to have a routine to just walk down the street to a WeWork. It's also great for meeting people and events.

Because there are two of us, we're being conscious of not spending every waking moment together. A coworking space helps with that.

Networking is a big one. Traveling around the world gives you a chance to uniquely expand your professional network.

I see. I guess this must be a developer thing. I’m a digital nomad, but my profession is translation. In a co-working space in a third country, I’d be unlikely to ever meet anyone who needs my particular language pairs, and the only benefit would be working in an unusually quiet place that, in itself, doesn’t seem worth the cost.

So, your mother's supporting you because you can't/won't work to support yourself. I might be old-fashioned, but this reads like a cautionary tale, or an anecdote made pointless by the backdrop of privilege.

She's an elementary school teacher, and I am living very cheap. No new clothes, minimal meat products, no social events. Just resting for a bit. From a global perspective, I am quite privileged, but within my home country, my family has been near or below the poverty line for most of my life.

Thanks for the advice - we'll keep Prague in mind. We're amid investigating visa options in Europe right now.

We're planning on staying places for 3 months at a time. Here in CDMX, that's let us get a coworking space, gym membership, and a semblance of a routine.

We're planning on spending extended time in our hometowns, too (though maybe not 3 months).

I have a few friends doing this, and saving a ton of money since they work remotely anyway. Like you, they're doing multi-months, and they actually save another ~10% by paying the host directly, using Airbnb only to find places.

How long have you lived this lifestyle?

About a week :-) Took about 2 months for us to ramp down life in SF. We're planning on staying in cities for ~3 months at a time each.

When we shut down [1] my last company, my girlfriend said "it's now or never." I had realized that I dreaded going to an office every day, so I'm working on making my new company 100% remote.

[1] https://blog.staffjoy.com/staffjoy-is-shutting-down-39f7b5d6...

I would be interested to hear how this works out for you, do you plan on chronicling the experiences? I'd be worried about mundane things like income taxes and having a proper mailing address. This seems like something only enabled by having a truly 'digital' lifestyle.

For expats of most countries, if you spend no more than about a month per year in your native country and don't have property there, then you can declare non-residency. This way, you don't have to pay income tax to your home country, as you are not using their services. Also, if you are constantly on the move, not actually setting up shop and taking local clients, then local income taxes don't really apply either. Nomads aren't really compatible with most income tax systems, for better or worse.

It is different for Americans, though, they are on the hook for income tax regardless of where in the world they reside.

For us personally - we don't plan on being out of the USA enough for it to matter on income taxes. We plan on spending some time traveling through a couple US cities, too (like NYC, LA, and Chicago).

We'll set up a blog at some point - for now I have my personal [1] and company [2] Instagrams.

We're using Earthclass Mail for a mailing address. Works super well. They even cash checks for us.

[1] http://instagram.com/philipithomas

[2] http://instagram.com/moonlight_work

Not OP, but I have been doing something similar in Airbnbs for three years ( I was interviewed for an article last year: https://qz.com/643181/ ). Sometimes I move between neighborhoods while working on-site in NYC / SF Bay Area, other times I was a traveling consultant, other times I work remotely and choose where I go. Usually I stay 1 month (reaching 2 months at only two places).

It works because I am flexible about renting studio apartments or rooms in Airbnb-dorm-like houses, and I don't have other responsibilities or attachments. Compared to the up-front costs, commitments, and assorted bills connected with an annual lease, I prefer it.

Cool article!

We're planning on staying in places for 3 months at a time. It gives us the flexibility to join a gym, take time to relax, and get a routine.

The question I ask everyone who highly recommends this lifestyle :)

I spent ~2 years as a completely untethered nomad, and love having my feet planted somewhere I love while I still travel+work 3+ weeks at a time regularly so so so much more.

Besides the means (financial) and freedom (remote-friendly employment/relationships) to do this, there are a lot of cultural/social aspects that influence the viability of the long-term nomadism.

1) White privilege: Are you white? Being a nomad is WAY nicer! People are nice and welcoming to you almost everywhere, and go out of their way to involve you in their local stuff, making life more interesting and fun. Also, everyone wants to bang you, if you're into that. Otherwise, get ready to lead a lonely life, struggling to build deeper connections, and having a hard time experiencing the "serendipity of traveling".

2) Your support network's relationship with this lifestyle: This is a romanticized lifestyle for the western world, whereas it's treated as a vagabond-like, evasion of responsibility in Asian culture. This can be draining if your family is mostly disparaging of your lifestyle choice (or others are of your parents for bringing you up wrong etc).

3) You always have a home when you want it: There is a place where you feel safe, you belong, you love and can easily go back to and stay whenever you want for however long you want to recharge in between. If you end up nomading to someplace that doesn't work for you, you can bail on short notice and re-plan. If something happens or if you need to just take a break from the nomadism, you know where to go. If you don't have this (you don't care for your hometown, or was in my case, you have/had legal visa complications preventing you from "calling where you wanted to stay home"), being a nomad can be stressful and uncertain.

As a brown entrepreneur raised in Asia who wanted to settle in the Bay, and chose the nomad life while waiting for my visa to come through, I learned the above the hard way.

I've done long term nomadic with my wife twice so far (once in 2008 for 9 months, once in 2015 for 6 months).

It is very enjoyable, but at the end of each stretch I was ready to go home and reconnect with my family and friends.

Personally I found it difficult to feel connected in a place when I don't speak the language, and move every month or so.

Your personal needs may vary. Either way it should be a great time, at least for a while.

We're actually spending a couple months in each of our home towns (extending trips for weddings). It's a freedom we haven't had in the past, and hopefully it will address those feelings.

If I didn't have a kid, I would try to live this way as well. Sounds really nice.

You can still live minimally with a kid (obviously with school and such travel is harder, but homeschool/unschool is always an option). There are many tiny home documentaries out there with people who have kids. Because I don't have Netflix convenient, here's something I think might be relevant: http://www.theminimalists.com/familylinks/

Might want to consider the kid's wants and needs too.

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