Comment by Aurornis | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Aurornis | Hacker News Reader

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> (from their perspective) extremely wealthy blow-ins

I’ve had some friends do the digital nomad lifestyle. One thing that stood out to me was how many of them were not really doing that well financially. The stereotype is someone with a $100K per year job living like a king in a place where the median wages are 1/10th of that

Most of the people in their digital nomad groups were actually not full-time employed. They were trying to do contract work and then stretching out their earnings between jobs so they could travel. Living in these cheap locations was almost required to allow them to work the way they wanted.

There were people who were lucky enough to have the six figure remote jobs at companies that were okay with them not being available during normal business hours. Those jobs were at high risk of getting cut at the next economic down cycle.

It reminded me of how much the indie hacker scene all fantasizes about being like the levels.io guy making crazy money selling simple services to his giant follower list, but most of them can barely get a couple dozen sales for their SaaS if they’re lucky. Everyone thinks of levels.io, but few people think of the long tail of people making less than they’d get at any full time job.

I was just the sort you’re talking about.

I did contract work so I could stay traveling and lived on money I made in previous full time jobs. It was a very nice way to live compared to the 9 to 5 even though I made less money.

Having enough money to live the way you want is all you need. Hostels are fun.

But in the free time I had, I did end up making a SaaS that set me up very comfortably for the rest of my life.

Cynicism will keep you in your 9 to 5.

> Having enough money to live the way you want is all you need. Hostels are fun.

Hostels are not fun, unless you are in your early 20s.

In my late 30s now, I don’t even do hotels with a shared toilet anymore. I need my own private room and my own private en-suite bathroom at minimum.

My rule is maximum 2 people per first toilet, or else it isn’t a vacation.

Hostels are fun if you have that disposition.

If you don't, even 5 star hotels can be miserable.

Up to a point. Hostels are very irritating now in that there is always someone on their phone at all hours lighting up the entire room. Also some noise issues.

I find quieter hostels much better. When I was over in Ireland, the ones in Belfast and Dublin were awful, and in county Galway. I found wonderful ones in Co. Donegal, Armagh and Limerick.

Depends on the hostel and the guests. It's a few months since I had a roommate on their phone at night.

I've had noise issues in hotels and I've had quiet hostels. Totally orthogonal.

Meh, although I'm conscious of the possibility I might be seen as a creepy old guy in his mid-thirties, I still find that hostels can be fun. I don't necessarily want to go out partying with 20 year olds, but an occasional few drinks with strangers and the ability to re-allocate funds to something more interesting than a hotel is very valuable. Travelling is already expensive as hell, I'm going to do it the way I want, and there's usually outgoing people within the same approx age range that want to do similarly.

That said, much like hotels, some hostels do suck; bedbugs are not chill, location is important, cost is important, vibe is important. I found that hostels that were more suited to families trying to save money were the least appealing as someone with just a spouse and a type B personality.

I hate paying for hotels so much that I visit my hometown less than I would otherwise if the city had a decent hostel.

I'm 58 and still choose hostels over hotels but I avoid party hostels. Sometimes I hang out with someone older than me, sometimes with someone younger than me. Usually I hang out on my own and don't mind it. I've had bedbugs in a "business hotel".

58 here. Hostels are fun. But I do avoid party hostels full of only people in their 20s.

> But in the free time I had, I did end up making a SaaS that set me up very comfortably for the rest of my life.

There were examples like this of people in the groups hitting on something and making enough money to retire (if they managed their money right)

It was the rare case. The end result for most of them was moving back home and taking a normal job when hopping between hostels and digital nomad group homes stopped being fun and none of their business ideas got traction.

I’m on an extended vacation right now.

Realistically I’ll take 4 to 8 weeks off while looking for work back in the US.

I had a revelation a few years back.

Taking real vacations is absolutely necessary.

If I can work 12 months at 70 to 80$ an hour I generally can afford 8 to 12 weeks off as long as I as I’m not in the US or Europe.

When I think out of the box, I do imagine working on my own ideas during my travels. Met a brilliant 23 year old last year who speaks 3 languages, and programs in Python and Java

I could probably hire him at 10$ an hour.

Vs some 23 year old American who will demand 45$ an hour and tell me Python sucks.

But then I wake up, back to looking for my next contract.

> One thing that stood out to me was how many of them were not really doing that well financially. The stereotype is someone with a $100K per year job living like a king in a place where the median wages are 1/10th of that

The thing is, having a Western passport and earning $10k-20k a year (untaxed) in countries where the median household incomes (ie. 2 working adults) are at best comparable to that is living like a king comparatively speaking.

There's a reason western expats are looked down on derisively by locals across ASEAN and the only ASEAN state with a semi-functional democracy (Malaysia) is also one of the least budget tourist friendly - the middle class and above look at tay ba lo with disgust as losers, and the lower class only look up to them for the opportunity to get a more powerful visa. The high rate of "passport bros" also doesn't help.

It's like that scene from Futurama when they all accidently age backwards: "Oh, so this is the famous Fry. What is he, like, the biggest loser on the surface, so he has to hang out in the sewer?

Fry: They're on to me!"

The reality is, most kinds of tourism only lead to the development of extractive economic institutions at the expense of human capital development and higher value economic sectors that would benefit from that.

And in the case of this specific village and town in Andalusia, this will only exacerbate anti-tourism politics which has helped both Vox and Podemos because rural Andalusia is absolutely not equipped to support a sudden influx of transitory high income outsiders.

Sounds like you have a low estimation of European people friend

>>The reality is, most kinds of tourism only lead to the development of extractive economic institutions at the expense of human capital development and higher value economic sectors that would benefit from that.

Those are dying towns. Tourism/digital nomads are their lifeline. There is no "human capital development" to speak of. Young people there do everything they can do migrate to bigger cities. Have you ever been to the region? Many of those towns look like ghost towns.

The main industry they have is greenhouse farming which actually drains the scarce resource the population need (water) while causing a lot of plastic pollution and mainly employing migrants paying them peanuts.

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