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Comment by bshimmin | Hacker News Reader

This is a wonderful case of "one man's meat is another man's poison" - he mentions in the closing paragraph how being a "digital nomad" has "improv[ed his] quality of life", and yet throughout his extremely pragmatic and practical guide to that lifestyle, all I can really see are all sorts of compromises.

The thought of sitting in a beach hut somewhere warm and sunny, typing away on a MacBook, does certainly sound very appealing. The rest of it - washing your bland travel clothes in a hotel shower with "hotel shampoo" - would surely grow pretty tiresome after a month or two, if you're in any way used to and appreciative of a comfortable lifestyle.

I write this from my "three monitors and a special chair" (quite literally) and I will, in fact, be writing some "brand-new Python code" later...

(I'm also fascinated by this guy's predilection for doing maintenance work and fixing broken projects - I can hardly imagine anything worse!)

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>all I can really see are all sorts of compromises.

Well, staying in the same house/appartment, seeing the same people over and over, commuting in traffic, going to the same office to have meetings the the same PHB, etc etc also involves "all sorts of compromises". Even if you freelance and you don't have the office thing, there's still the rot in your everyday life.

>* The rest of it - washing your bland travel clothes in a hotel shower with "hotel shampoo" - would surely grow pretty tiresome after a month or two, if you're in any way used to and appreciative of a comfortable lifestyle.*

You'd be surprised. I've lived in both kinds of situations (and on/off) and some people just feel great with that too. After all it's just a "first world problem" of the bigger calibre ("oh, I miss my big fridge and and my huge monitor").

But even those "incoveniences" can be overcome if you don't like it. With something like $800/month you can have a huge house in some parts of SE Asia, with a pool, and with your personal assistant to cook, clean the house, wash clothes etc. Better than what most of us have "back at home" actually.

>With something like $800/month you can have a huge house in some parts of SE Asia, with a pool, and with your personal assistant to cook, clean the house, wash clothes etc. Better than what most of us have "back at home" actually.

Which parts are that? I'm planning to travel this winter and looking for places to settle for a month or two.

Check here for example:

http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/city_result.jsp?country...

A 3 badroom apt in the city center is around $650 dollars. Outside of center, half that.

Chiang Mai is a good choice.

There is significantly less traffic than Bangkok and it's much cheaper whilst you can easily buy any imports you might want to make yourself feel at home.

The reason Thailand always comes up in these kinds of discussions is that it is a much better choice than Myanmar, Laos or Cambodia with the possible exception of Vietnam that I can't vouch for since I haven't been. Hospitals are better here than in major Chinese cities and even big expenses such as cars are noticeably cheaper here than in the west because Japanese car companies have factories here.

A big plus is that the weather here is excellent precisely when it turns uncomfortable in the US and Europe.

Also if you have a hardware startup it's very easy to take the 1.5 hour flight to Hong Kong for 65USD and take the MTR to Shenzhen or drive anywhere in Guangdong within a couple of hours.

Internet here is fine if you get your own DSL or Cable connection. SSH connections to Singapore and Hong Kong are very comfortable latency wise.

There are occasional power outages but those don't last long and are easily solved with a UPS.

The only true caveat I can think of is the air pollution, but it's nowhere near Chinese levels, having stayed there for several years.

I totally get that different people want very different things, and I do understand that commuting and meetings are part of the rut of compromise that most people feel they have to tolerate, but some people feel a burning desire to escape. I'm probably biased against this sort of lifestyle right now because I have a young family which would make being a "digital nomad" impossible; and perhaps there's a twinge of jealousy in there because I do enjoy travelling and periodically get a little sick of rainy England. (On the bright side, I don't have much of a commute right now...)

I'm not sure having a huge house with a pool and a maid could really be considered a nomadic lifestyle. :-)

>* I'm probably biased against this sort of lifestyle right now because I have a young family which would make being a "digital nomad" impossible;*

Yeah. You can always try it later, when the kids grow up and leave (I think the guy in TFA mentions he has already worked for "30 years" in normal offices, which would imply that too). Or can go for a month or so, during they school vacations. You work, and the kids have their holidays in the same remote place. Kids can grow to enjoy travel and its culture -- though I wouldn't take them away from their regular school and friends.

>I'm not sure having a huge house with a pool and a maid could really be considered a nomadic lifestyle. :-)

Well, if you have that house each time in a different city / country, I think it still qualifies!

We use holidays to reverse migrate from Asia to Europe, just rent a place for a couple of weeks and do work.

Beijing has a lot of environmental problems, so it is important to get out often.

What does "reverse migrate" mean?

I live in Asia and am instead a part time nomad in the west.

> because I have a young family which would make being a "digital nomad" impossible;

My wife and I own a camper. We're not nomads, we take it out on weekends mostly. That said we do spend a fair amount of time in RV parks these days. I'm amazed by the number of young families living full time in RV's. The story is almost always the same: Both parents work in technology and they wanted to see the country while their kids were still young.

In the U.S. almost every RV park has good wifi these days (seriously hotels, why can't you figure this out too?). They work a relatively normal work schedule and travel around at night and during the weekends.

From my observation it's difficult, but by no means impossible.

Here's a great blog from a family of 3 that's doing it:

http://www.newschoolnomads.com/

Given the size of the UK, we don't really have a culture of this sort of thing here. (We do have caravans, but typically a family might spend a week in one, not a year.) It all sounds quite extraordinary to me; I wonder, is this good for the children? For their education?

Not having a camper, nor any interest in getting one, I don't have a dog in this fight. However, I do believe that "living differently" is good for people in general, children in particular. I live with wife & 2 kids on a small horse farm. One child can barely remember the suburbs (the city not at all), the other has never known them. I think that we are all better people for living "out there."

Not that there's anything generally better about where we live, but because we realized that we had a choice and chose to live where & how we would be happier. And growing up seeing that there are many different ways to live instead of assuming everyone lives in a suburban housing development is probably the best thing we could do for their education.

And BTW, the rural school district we live in is very good if you care about that kind of thing.

> After all it's just a "first world problem" of the bigger calibre ("oh, I miss my big fridge and and my huge monitor").

I turn into a "digital nomad" every now and then, but I wouldn't consider monitor size a first-world problem. There's just no way to work on a 13" MacBook without ruining your back :( Luckily I have a 24" screen that fits nicely into my suitcase.

>I have a 24" screen that fits nicely into my suitcase.

Details, please -- particularly about the stand, which is usually the part that is very awkward to transport.

Well, you can also just buy a cheap one when you get there.

Either just the stand (e.g a VESA style mount) or even the whole monitor, they go for like $300 these days, which if you're gonna stay for 6 months or so makes sense (and you can always sell before leaving -- or leave to someone as a nice gift).

>There's just no way to work on a 13" MacBook without ruining your back

If it's your back you're concerned about, you can get a stand and a bluetooth keyboard. That doesn't have to do with monitor size, just posture.

I can't agree more - this sort of roaming's not for everyone, and the number of people who thrive on that sort of lifestyle is a lot smaller than the number of people who think they would thrive on that sort of lifestyle.

My own travels taught me that I don't just want a comfortable lifestyle (something you can buy in some version almost anywhere) but a particular variety of comfortable lifestyle - the sort of place within walking distance of a Whole Foods and restaurants that know the right type of glass for each wine varietal.

I might be a total yuppie, but at least I'm a self-aware yuppie, and I appreciate my surroundings a whole lot more than I used to.

Fixing broken projects is a super valuable skill to have and can be rewarding in its own way. I've reached the point where I hardly ever say "whoever wrote this was an idiot" and see why it ended up that way in the first place. More than code debugging it's also social and process debugging. You can probably tell by this point I also don't mind this kind of work (anymore).

I tried to mix in some practical advice for living in hotels with my opinions and experiences.

Actually I have an apartment in Bangkok with maid service. I don't do my own laundry unless I'm staying at a hotel for just a day or two.

> washing your bland travel clothes in a hotel shower with "hotel shampoo" - would surely grow pretty tiresome after a month or two

The probably isn't necessary. Depending on the locale/hotel, there are probably local laundromats or hotel equivalents.

You might even be able to convince hotel staff to run it through with the hotel sheets if you really wanted to.

> (I'm also fascinated by this guy's predilection for doing maintenance work and fixing broken projects - I can hardly imagine anything worse!)

On the other hand, I don't take too much of an issue with maintenance work and fixing broken projects. The issues that I usually have with these things are when restrictions are placed on me and I end up having to implement half-measures rather than taking the time to do a better job.

Agreed: when I was on the road internationally for 3 months, I always used the hotel laundry service if they offered one. Though if I'd known there were places like Freddy Leck (laundromat in Berlin with free wifi & serves coffee & cakes) I would've used that instead. Don't be a smelly traveller.

If you're prepared to take checked luggage, you can take a lot more clothes with you (or have room to buy more on your travels). Jeans were fine for me in Europe & even Vegas in July, though I'm used to 100F heat in summer.

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