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Why does remote work need to be conflated with "digital nomadism"? I have worked remotely almost my entire work life (I loathed working in an office each time I went back), but I've never done the digital nomad thing. It's never appealed to me, nor is it very cost effective unless you want to throw all of your stuff into storage while you travel.

I am still perplexed at how companies push offices as some kind of hyper-collaborative space and yet every time I visit those offices, most people have noise-cancelling headphones on because the ambient noise is insanely distracting.

Many of the negatives pointed out in this article are present in jobs where you go into a physical office. Just like how you can know two married people that exist in the same physical space and are terribly lonely and barely know each other anymore. Or what about jobs where you go into an office with terrible coworkers that you cannot escape, because you are required to be at the office? Funny enough, I had to leave a co-working space for the exact same reason -- a single person that was beyond annoying and would not be quiet.

Every time I get into my car during rush hour, I remember why I work from home. I just talked to a recruiter recently and they were OK with remote, but they required that I go to stand-ups, every Monday, which would be a round-trip two hour commute, mostly sitting in stop-and-go traffic. And that would be time I would not be getting paid for.

"Digital Nomadism" is a pretty vague term, most people stop the "nomadic" part of it within a year or two. The need for stability is a realization that everyone must discover themselves. Then the label turns from "Digital Nomad" to "Location Independent".

It's great to be able to choose where you live, what your routine will be, and who you surround yourself with. As a remote worker, you are in charge of all these things which would normally be decided by your company. You'd live near the office, your routine would be determined by your work hours, and you'd be surrounded by your colleagues at the office. All pre-determined.

However, sometimes when we have so much choice, and we must make these choices ourselves, we can get a bit lost. Without concrete requirements, it's easy to get yourself into the wrong routines and forget to properly plan out what you want to do each day, where you want to go, and who you want to see. It's easy to spend a few days in a row without even leaving your house or apartment. You can end up ordering all your food from delivery apps and doing your shopping online.

So it takes a conscious effort to remain happy. It's really a day to day endeavor. You cannot just put in a bunch of effort for a few days in a row and then just veg out for the rest of the week. The brain needs to be constantly stimulated by changing environments and real face to face social engagement.

> The brain needs to be constantly stimulated by changing environments and real face to face social engagement.

This is so true. I have just discovered it recently. Traditional office and commute routines simply do some of this work for you, although inefficiently and incompletely. You can be in charge of it, as today's technologies allow more and more people to do it, but you cannot altogether dismiss this very real human need.

> The need for stability is a realization that everyone must discover themselves.

Way to generalize there!

And simply not true. No, not everyone. Some do, some don't.

People glorify traveling way, way too much.

It's even trickled down into actual work. New grads from college somehow think management consulting's traveling every week is a fancy perk. What?

Consulting companies here sell traveling as a perk. And the new grads lap it up.

Personally, flying and airports are just miserable. Traveling is nice but too much of a hassle to do more than once a year.

Different people enjoy different things. For some people, traveling is fulfilling and exhilarating. For other people being in unfamiliar settings with unfamiliar culture and language is much less fun.

And even within that, some people can enjoy travel up to a certain point. Might be fun to travel for work once a month, but not for 3 out of 4 weeks. I traveling for my first job where I was gone 60-80% of the time and it was fun, but after a year it got old.

Yes, different people enjoy different things. I'm not claiming that nobody enjoys weekly work travel. I'm claiming that it's overly glorified - something like 80% of people will say "oh you're so lucky you get to do that!" when in reality only a fraction of them would enjoy it and most of them would hate it.

As someone who plays an instrument, and would like to spend a decent amount of time practicing.

This is possibly a thing that is not very possible, and very cumbersome with long term travel. Especially if you would like to practice multiple instruments.

I used to love travel but too much work travel killed my passion for it in all forms. Now I dread flying anywhere and staying even in suites(with points) in hotels is just meh. I'd rather be home with my dog and wife and familiar stuff.

As a recent grad I spend two grand of my company’s money every week traveling to new and interesting places all around the country to solve interesting problems. I don’t pay rent and everything I need is free Monday to Friday. On the weekends I fly for free to all sorts of fun places around the country where my friends live.

Having only a suitcase of possessions is very freeing, and I’m saving tremendous amounts of money.

For me, it is a fancy perk.

Fancy perk for now, soon it will get old and tiresome to you. Enjoy it while you can :)

Yup. This was my life at 19 believe it or not. Grew old after 4-6 months, though it was a blast for a time. Hotels start to feel hollow and flying that much sucks, even in first class.

I've just about used up my huge cache of frequent-flyer miles. I still have a credit card that generates points I can transfer into a few airlines or hotels if I want, but I'm glad to be done with the amount of time I spent at airports, on planes and in hotels.

I loved traveling for work for about 2 years (traveling 4 times a year overseas for a week). After that it was just horrible. Once you start having pets and spouses and kids, it becomes a complete nightmare. Especially if you don't live near a lot of family who can help while you're gone. Eating food on the bed jetlagged in the hotel after another way-too-long day gets old.

Traveling is like going to meetings. If you don't have a lot of work to do - great. If it gets in the way of accomplishing something good it becomes a pain point.

But there's also where you have to travel.

Middle of fucking nowhere? Oh joy.

Hot? Cold? Dangerous? Yeah, nah. Not so much.

I like to think you can find the good in almost any area. When I travel I make it a point to eat at local restaurants. No chains. I’ve had some really good food and met great people.

I haven’t been anywhere exceptionally dangerous since I was younger.

I work in a place where we have to travel occasionally (depending on the project - I rarely travel but some colleagues are always abroad) and new hires usually think that's exciting until they do it once or twice.

It really was, before flying became awful. I'd roll in to the airport 15 minutes before takeoff and not have a problem. Thanks Osama!

I'm almost in my 40s and I was overjoyed when my company offered me the chance to travel for work.

Not everyone can afford traveling (I agree that's not as much true in the U.S.). And staying in fancy hotels is cool.

Once you have a family that changes quickly (I don't have children), but for 20 somethings it must be a real perk.

Edit: sibling comments says it wears out after 4-6 months.

You can enjoy home, family and friends, AND work remotely. My "nomadism" allowed me, for example, to take my kids to school in the morning, or likewise meet them @home when they're back.

Nomad != remote.

> I work with some folks that do this, and when we talk about it, they can't understand why I would want to just stay in my medium-sized city and travel a few times a year.

I think the biggest problem is that if you DON'T want that, then society really isn't set up to allow you do that at all. Society is entirely set up for you to stay in one place, and begrudgingly gives you a few weeks vacation to see somewhere else. Even in tech, if you want to have a good chance of making industry median money you either need to be very specialized or live in one area. At the same time, even when the butts are in seats, half of meetings involve 2 or 3 different locations anyway.

Of course, what you value and want to get out of life may be very different than the average nomad.

I've worked for a fully remote startup, and you've nailed all the points. Remote can't replace local community (being a digital nomad sucks once the novelty has worn off, and is impossible to do with a family unless you own your own business) and in-person interactions at work (coffee and lunch with coworkers). I prefer to be at a job that had an office, but still allows me to work remote most of the month. I don't anticipate going back to a full remote org unless it was just myself doing consulting (because fully remote does not always equal schedule flexibility).

I've been remote for almost 8 years now. I love it and dread ever having to go back into an office. Faking productivity for show when the workload is low was the worst feeling, as if I was wasting my time and life. Plus I have social anxiety and the pressure to 'fit in' was overwhelming.

Now I work from home where my wife and toddler are. Being home to educate her is worth more than just about anything. I don't have to drive 2 hours every day just to be an ass in a seat. Two hours where all I do is sit in a car and wish to be home.

My productivity has remained high. I take on additional duties happily. I can chat with friends online if lonely. For me there are no cons to working remote. If I did go into an office I would be the only person from my division there, my next closest team mate is a state away, which would make socializing even more awkward for me.

My goal is to never have to go into an office ever again.

To each their own. I found that working remotely pigeonholes you into your role; its much harder to network in a remote org, to find other opportunities within the org when you're ready to explore a new role. My current org has offices around the world; I can work from any of them, or from home. I can apply for other internal roles, and keep my benefits and salary while changing up the work I'm working on.

Working from home exclusively does not appeal to me. I also don't want to have superficial conversations with coworkers in other parts of the world on a video chat client; that has no value for anyone. I would love to grab a pint with you though and chat about who you are as a person outside of work. Otherwise, you're just a resource I need to interact with to get my job done.

Luckily, the job market is large enough that everyone can have the sort of job they desire (fully remote, mostly remote, full time in office).

I agree with vinbreau. I've been 100% remote for about 10 years now and echo his comments.

> I also don't want to have superficial conversations with coworkers

I would argue this is a problem with the relationship between you and your coworkers and/or the size of your company and nothing to do with the means by which you communicate. Some of these people also may just not be your "kind" of person you like.

In addition to my remote work mates I have also found remote gaming buddies. Both workers and gamers alike I have found deep relationships with. I know all about their kids, pets, activities, deaths, illnesses, etc. Comparing these faceless friends to friends I regularly see in my area are the same. In some cases the faceless people are deeper because you can chat whenever. IRL friends you have to deal with families and work schedules and a month may go by before we can meetup to grab a drink or movie together, especially when they start having kids.

I would bet if you can't find much to talk about remotely you wouldn't find anything more to talk about in person besides the weather and how the coffee tastes today. Just because a person is next to me doesn't mean I like him or will have a deep relationship with him/her. I've sat in an office before, 5 years with a team. Some people just aren't compatible. When I left, I no longer communicated with them, the ones I did develop a relationship with I still talk to to this day.

> Just because a person is next to me doesn't mean I like him or will have a deep relationship with him/her.

This is absolutely true, of course.

What I would like to point out is that interaction in the physical space is higher resolution than what you tend to get in virtual environments. In my experience, when you make a remote friend, you have even better interactions when you're together physically.

It's sort of like sports - you may like watching a certain sport or you may not like it. But, regardless of how much you like it, you'll like it more if you're actually at the game. There's just something about being there in person that makes it more fun.

I get the idea you're trying to convey but for me personally it's the opposite. I don't care for sports, but I dislike bring at any game in person even more because the cult-like feeling of the audience is deeply terrifying to me. It's a fear of what this many people could do en masse if unhappy.

I don't find the last part to be true. When I worked fully remote, we would meet up a couple of times a year and go for dinner and beers and lunch together and had a blast. Video calls were mostly all-business though since it's just not a pleasant experience.

I agree, if you are working in a company that is not 100% remote and then remote seems to be more like "flex time."

I've risen from an L1 help desk support member to running the entire support team and reporting to the CEO, all remotely.

I've been remote for almost 8 years now. I love it and dread ever having to go back into an office.

I did it for ten years, and then returned to the office. It's a difficult transition. It took almost a year to really get back into the routine.

But the routine was actually better for me. Though I hate commuting, having a regular sleep/work schedule, responsibilities, and stability seems to have made me a better human being. My health has improved markedly, and even though my cow-orkers can be annoying, getting out of my bubble each day exposes me to new things.

YMMV.

> But the routine was actually better for me. Though I hate commuting, having a regular sleep/work schedule, responsibilities, and stability seems to have made me a better human being.

I work remotely and have a regular sleep/work schedule and regular work responsibilities. If your prioritize these things, and choose the company you work with carefully, you can have a work/life balance while working from home.

Balance is the key. I worked in the office, then at home, back to the office and now I'm 100% from home. The first time I worked at home I worked WAY too much. Going back to the office was so nice. I hated the commute, but I loved leaving work at work. After going back and forth, this 2nd round of working from home is great. No commute and I rarely get sucked back into working hours that I normally wouldn't. It takes some discipline to keep a balance.

I work remote and have a set schedule every day, always have. I work Monday through Friday, 8am-4pm.

I do agree with separating spaces. I used to live in a studio and that was a bad idea. Now I have a second bedroom as an office and when I'm done, the door is closed.

Now I work from home where my wife and toddler are. Being home to educate her is worth more than just about anything. I don't have to drive 2 hours every day just to be an ass in a seat. Two hours where all I do is sit in a car and wish to be home.

To be fair, an hour by car each way is on the long side of a commute, at least compared to the US average. (For some cities, it's probably pretty good.)

It takes me an hour to get to work and an hour and half back. But, I live in California and only 11 miles from work. Moving out here from the southern US was mind-boggling when it came to the traffic.

I live in a damn nightmare now and am looking forward to the day I move out of this state in less than a year.

As someone who also recently moved to the Bay Area from the south, I actually feel like Atlanta traffic is much worse. Granted, maybe I'm not seeing the worst of the Bay Area since my commute is just along one section of 101, but going from Atlanta suburbs to downtown (or back) was an utter nightmare, even on the weekends.

It's possible to cycle 11 miles in about 35 minutes. Make the most of the good weather. You will be fitter, healthier, less stressed, less polluting, and after the initial outlay for a new bike and all the gear, save money on vehicle, insurance, and fuel.

Likely the only connection to work is on the side of a 10-lane highway though. Not exactly a pleasant bike ride.

I'm 5 days late, but thanks for the recommendation. While where I work is a really bike friendly area, where I live is not and there's only three viable routes, two of which are freeways while the third is a non-bike friendly expressway.

Any other route would add a ton of time. I don't plan on working (or living) there much longer though, so it's only a temporary annoyance.

An hour each way isn't on the long side anymore, especially in and around Bay Area/SF unless you pay the price for it in higher rent/mortgage.

What I don't like is the way people are conflating work and travel. Sometimes people tell me they go down the beach or a nice park to code etc, I just couldn't think of anything worse.

One thing I love about traveling is when I set aside time to "focus on traveling", do I really want to be traveling through some beautiful place while staring at my devices and responding to email? Nope.

I have worked full-time remote, from a well setup home office. That was fine.

Coding on the beach or in a park? This can't be for a very serious programming task. I've tried it a few times and the glare + lack of ergonomics makes me go to a cafe and then ultimately back to the hotel to bang out actual work lol

What type of work do your nomad friends do? Freelance design? Copywriting? Programming?

Mostly marketing/copywriting types and designers. Some programmers, although that seems to be rarer - could have something to do with what personalities are drawn to these professions.

> marketing

Ah, yes, that would indeed explain. And it certainly agrees with the accounts I've heard about my employer's Marketing department's abject stupidity.

Are you saying the stupidity comes from using remote workers? What are some anecdotes you've heard recently?

Aside from the usual "we promised the customer we can do X; whaddaya mean you need 8 months to make it happen!?" ... here's one of the anecdotes:

* * *

The company makes numerous products. Some people in one of our other locations made a new product, and it was being demonstrated at some kind of trade show. So Marketing has T-shirts made for the show, with designs that look like a Beetles album cover, and words to the effect of "Meet the Developers of new product".

Except, of the four or five faces on the shirt's design, only two belong to people who actually worked on that product. Another one or two are developers from a different team; and another one is one of the QAs on my team. This particular QA, I might add, has a ... let's say it's an unprofessional-looking face and leave it at that.

* * *

Conclusion: our Marketing department is stupid, therefore I'm not surprised that other Marketing people are stupid enough to buy into the glamour of digital nomadry.

Any more anecdotes? "In Search of Stupidity" by Rick Chapman covers stupidity before digital nomads (https://www.amazon.com/Search-Stupidity-Twenty-Marketing-Dis...).

But, it sounds like digital nomadry is a tool being misused like other tools in this Dilbert-esque environment you work in. How do I get a job in this marketing dept.? I have NO experience in marketing, but my common sense is good half the time. I'm sure I can make fewer blunders than the current team.

You can be part of a community anywhere in the world. I have lots of equally remotely working kick-abouts here.

Maybe you can, but not everyone can.

Yea, work buddies can't be replaced by networking.. unless you are sort of born for that (networking)

This is not about living in your birth country vs living in a more "exotic" country, but about nomad vs sedentary.

It's a lot harder to be part of a community when you move countries/cities every 3 weeks.

That's the problem, isn't it? With office colleagues, you don't have to go out of your way to find people. They're right there, they're obligated to be nice to you, and you're stuck with them for hours every day. That's just the basic recipe for building relationships

With nomad work, the entire impetus falls on you to find a community and build connections. Easy for extroverts perhaps but not so easy for the rest of us

Depending on the people it's also the recipe for losing your mind slowly over time.

this post makes me think you might never have had a chance to visit City, Country. Maybe because you were working towards building where you are.

When I was growing up I moved every year of my life because my single mother was always changing jobs, boyfriends, husbands, etc.. It sort of rubbed off on me and now I get depressed if I stay in the same place more than 6 months. I didn't become a remote worker to visit City, Country. I was forced to become a remote worker because of my lifestyle that I can't seem to escape. I know there has to be a lot of others like this

Same, single mother child. My mom moved a lot when we were young because she had to start from nothing and build a career on fast-forward when she end up with my brother and I. So she took every opportunity she could and we end up moving every 6 to 12 months.

Now as an adult, I grew up so accustomed to change that I feel lazy when I stay in a spot for too long. I think it's a a blessing and a curse at the same time. A blessing because "thriving in change" is a great quality to have. Seeking change also makes my life a bit difficult to reconcile with most other people.

As an adult, I took the whole "change" thing pretty far. Went full on digital nomad, moving somewhere new every 2 weeks... or more like every few days. Bought a sailboat and I'm now prepping it to be a work platform. Sailboat is supposed to help me deal with "a need a change of scenery" while providing me with a place that I can feel home and comfy. It's tiring to live in your luggages and having to pack all the time.

I had a similar disposition but my desires recently changed. My family moved to the US when I was ten and growing up I lacked a sense of permanence/place and carried the idea that freedom (not being tied down to a location, or a set of traditions) was paramount. I moved often, spent years working at a company aspiring to "belong anywhere" which culminated in me having the freedom to maintain the lifestyle more or less indefinitely. My plan was to continue traveling overland (with an expedition vehicle) for the foreseeable future.

Then a year ago, I got this desire to experience a place through all its seasons, really get to know a community, and be concerned with a longer time horizon. I bought a house (which I always viewed as an assault on my freedom) and some land in a 2000 person town. I'm volunteering for political campaigns and planning to become a volunteer fire fighter.

It's a simple lesson but desires change. It's great to have the ability/privilege to embrace those changes.

> they can't understand why I would want to just stay in my medium-sized city and travel a few times a year.

I would except I want to travel while keeping my carbon footprint minimal.