Hacker News Reader

Comment by schrijver | Hacker News Reader

I don’t live in the country where I was born, and neither do most of my friends…still our apartments are full of stuff… trinkets, art, rescued furniture… to me it’s part of what makes me feel at home and what makes it fun to stay with others!

There’s this chastising of owning things (‘the things own you’) that comes up every now and again, but I think that could be reserved for when these objects stop being something you cherish and start to be something you consume: fast fashion, consumer electronics upgrade cycles, etc.

In this article not owning things seems to be a prerequisite for a certain lifestyle of hopping around the world with a laptop, but if that’s your thing, why not simply rent out your apartment? It seems unlikely to be something you’d want to do for years on end. Although I’d be curious to see some data on that, digital nomad churn rate.

View on HN

Apparently most digital nomads don't travel a lot, according to the guy running the biggest digital nomad network [0]

And more nomad stats here: https://nomadlist.com/digital-nomad-statistics

[0] https://twitter.com/levelsio/status/1143515689635864576

Thanks, interesting stats. The average length of staying in one place 71 days, still pretty short compared to the norm, living somewhere for a few years to forever. The stats don’t really mention how long people keep up this lifestyle though—only that there were no respondents older than 44!

For me it’s hard to imagine living this way because I like to feel connected to where I live, and that takes more time and investment. And I feel it’s better for where I live, because I can get involved in local initiatives, learn the language etc. But I think that’s a common sentiment, that’s why I wonder about how long people tend to do the nomad thing.

I do know plenty of people who have one place as a kind of base station and often end up working in other places for short periods, that might be a nice hybrid model.

I am a "nomad", but I usually stay in one country for an entire year. The reason why most people stay 3-6 months is because of visa restrictions, which forces people to do country hopping. I don't have visa restrictions between Argentina and EU, as I'm a resident of both, and so like to stay in one place for a minimum of a year usually, which is long enough to be comfortable, but short enough not to get bored.

I definitely don't imagine doing this forever though. It's stressful, and disorienting (because social circle changes so often, how things work changes often). I'm 29, and already feel like I could really use a permanent home.

If you read artist’s bios, it’ll often say they’re “based in” a certain place. I’ve always found that a bit pretentious, as if artists don’t simply live somewhere, they need a fancier word. But I’m starting to understand it better, I think they mean having a place that you keep gravitating back to, even if your work and live might take you all over the place. And where you can keep your stuff :)

Good luck with finding your model! These last years must have been an enriching experience whichever way.

This resonates with me. Like GP I find going full nomad too lonely, so I just started experimenting with spending maybe 60% of the year in my “base”, and taking 2-4 week trips here and there. So far so good!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com