The Digital Nomad Curve
Before embarking on a nomadic lifestyle, people envision it in many different ways.
Callow people draw their vision from the vain side of social media: laptops by the pool, smoothie bowls, backflips by waterfalls, and Instagram likes flooding every post.
They imagine trendy co‑working spaces filled with young professionals sitting side by side, endless evenings on a beach, scooter retreats, and jungle parties.
That emblematic picture‑perfect scene - a living, breathing painting framed by a window, with a laptop positioned just so in the middle.
The more perspicacious ones, and those who have already started their journey, know that this is a carefully crafted image that matches reality only in a sliver.
They are hit with an inevitable realization that this newly acquired lifestyle poses many more challenges than anticipated.
This is when “the low” arrives - the point where many wither and abandon what was supposed to be “the greatest way of living out there.”
They were meant to “live their best life,” make countless friends, and have amazing adventures.
Instead, they find themselves sitting by a window with their laptop all day and, yes, seeing the beauty of nature - but only through the glass.
That is, if they’re lucky enough to have an apartment with such a view.
What is digital nomadism even about?
What you must understand is that digital nomadism, while at first it might seem like a goal to attain, is in the long term a stepping‑stone to something far more fulfilling and to a broader perspective on life.
With insight, carefully taken steps, and resilience, it becomes a vehicle.
It’s a vantage point from which you have much broader perspectives and opportunities for architecting life.
Just like the burning bush in the story of Moses, the closer you get - the deeper you peer in - the more everything in your view branches out. You start to see the complexity, the connections, and finally the opportunities.
Be like Moses: leave your shoes (a sign of humility) and stick your head into the burning bush.
You might burn yourself if you’re too hasty, and you’re certainly going to sweat, but you’ll entangle yourself with a completely new world.
The Curve
When I observe the typical timeline of a beginner digital nomad, I see what I like to call “The Digital Nomad Curve.”
At first you experience “the high.”
“Yes, I’m finally doing it! I’m finally leaving behind the endless hours wasted on commute, the dull coworkers that I have nothing in common with, the depressing weather, and atrociously expensive rent!”
“My life is going to be like a holiday, just with the difference that it’s not going to stop!”
You live like that and gather the fruits of your labour that brought you here. It’s not that straightforward to start this lifestyle, after all, and you must have committed to certain choices and made sacrifices. Enjoy the moment.
Just be aware that it is a moment.
Inevitably you’ll have to face the second stage in the curve, called “the low.”
“The low”: that moment when you realize that, yes, you’ve successfully done away with the past problems but - boy - are there new ones that seem even more daunting.
How am I supposed to deal with the fact that my social circle constantly changes, with taxes, with having to perpetually switch between cities and countries? Why can’t I enjoy the local tourist places like a visitor would but instead have to work and have little energy for anything else?
Is posting eye‑candy pics really the only pleasure I’ll get from all of this?
Before you know it, you lie in your bed depressed and feeling like a fraud. You quite convincingly tell the world how great everything is, while, frankly, it’s totally not.
For more than two years I’ve been travelling across South America, almost completely solo. While enthralled by everything new and feeling the winds of change, I certainly also felt the difficulty that my choices carried with them. I like change and thrive in it, but it has to be said out loud that it required a good amount of resilience from my side.
I’ve switched to working fully remotely for US companies as a software developer. That entailed various tax, financial, banking, and professional considerations. There was some risk attached to it.
I’ve been switching between countries every three months - making new friends and then completely resetting the social circle; having a lot of romantic encounters and then having the opportunity to maintain them only through Instagram conversations; trying out traveling with a friend only to realize how incompatible we are and parting ways; going through a daunting and difficult process of purchasing a car in a country where I don’t have residency; considerations about visas, crossing borders. Did I mention how hard it is to pack yourself and stay below the luggage‑weight limit?
A lot of unforeseen adversities.
This is when “the ascent” period comes in.
You put out one fire. You fix that other inconvenience. You learn how to cope with that one recurring thing, and that becomes your new habit. You also realize that maybe all this beach‑sitting, drink‑sipping, Tinder‑checking, and booty‑shaking is not for you. You also realize that there is a whole lot that is for you - that there are people who resonate with you more than ever, and despite them being hundreds of kilometres away, you maintain contact and somehow make it so that you see each other and explore in that one random place on the continent.
You start to see that this new freelance endeavor is paying off and not only are you working in a more comfortable environment than before, but you’re now connected with the regions in the world that pay the most. You lower your taxes, increase your income, and explore regions that offer the greatest quality‑of‑life‑to‑money‑spent ratio.
A whole new world has just opened to you.
Moses didn't walk away from the burning bush because it looked dangerous. He approached it because something extraordinary was calling him forward.
Look around. You might have more problems, and they might be more challenging than the previous set you had before departure, but don’t you actually love solving them?
It’s a set of problems you picking on your own accord. Those are exactly the problems we want to have in life.
You’re now envisioning your own path, architecting your own life, step by step.
Mind you, nobody - and I mean nobody - will help you. That’s what’s so thrilling about it all. There won’t be a story exactly the same as yours. You’re writing your own.
What you’ve entered is a life where opportunities are as wide and big as the world itself, and that is because you’ve now entered the world.
You are now literally free to roam the world as you see fit and to take the best out of it.
You might miss it, being deep in the trenches ironing out the skills needed to survive and thrive.
It’s there slowly revealing itself to you.