I recently came across a thread from Pieter Levels that laid out his thoughts for becoming a nomad in 2023. Peter himself is famous in the Indie and nomad scene. Among many of his ventures, he created a website called Nomadlist where nomads could connect and network whilst providing data and information to give the best place to live as a nomad. Personally, I was looking up to him and was a fan of his journey and work. I followed him before remote work gained massive popularity as today and remote work was marketed in a different way.

_{Illustration unsplash}

However, during the first wave of remote working the biggest challenge was, I was an active student. So, it made it difficult for me to go fully remote despite I already had a couple of remote gigs. And the other day, while scrolling through his thread, I found an interesting question from someone who also comes from the same country as I do.

It reads something like,

“ I am 19 years old, from third world country and minimum wage is $150/month in the area and it’s hard to find anywhere cheaper”

I immediately scribbled my thoughts from all of my past experiences living a nomad life. We’ll discuss this one by one but the rough ideas were :

• l Figure out why you want to be a nomad. Is it because of peer pressure, trends, fear of missing out? Escaping problems? Simply because you find it enjoyable and it’s your life calling.
• l Asses your privilege
• l Calculate your burn rate
• l Define what type of nomad you’re going to be
• l Do you want to have business or work for someone else?
• l Figure out your living expenses

And after scribbling those, I am also reminded that after all these years, I learned that nomading doesn’t really have to go to another country. You can just go nomad around your original country because in Indonesia's case, it's a massive archipelago with so much to see. Unfortunately, infrastructure such as fast internet is quite a problem when you’re a nomad. It’s definitely hard to find anywhere cheaper in Indonesia because even living in a student’s city, life isn’t cheap anymore. When you’re a nomad, technically you want to be surrounded by those who get you and in Indonesia, Bali is the mecca of it.

But living among them isn't necessarily cheap. While I was hanging out around the nomad community, I learned that working with local/national startups aren’t necessarily paid well.So, in the end, it’s hard to keep up with colleagues who are earning in different currencies and have the currency arbitrage.

Bali looks a lot more affordable when you’re earning in dollars, euros, or pounds than if you’re earning in the local currency.

Now, back to my scribbles, the first one that came into my scribble was definitely the WHY. In the past,they sell the working remotely dream as working in a tropical country next to the beach and/or surrounded by lush green paddy fields. Without a solid why, it will be a lot more difficult and challenging moving forward. In the end, when you have something too much, it becomes a double-edged sword too. Picture this, you’re in paradise but the work still ties you down.

For me personally, as someone who has tried it, that type of thing wasn’t for me. It’s friggin hot and way too many distractions especially when you’re working in a beach shack with quite unreliable internet. Now, I can work from the comfort of my home and I’d call it a success. In fact, many places don’t have good chairs to sit on and it’s just quite unproductive. It took me long enough realizing that.

Then, there is a loud part where people talk about, “ travel needs money” and more often, nomad living is associated with traveling. The thing is, well at least for me, we’re not traveling as if we're a billionaire but we’re taking the time so that it doesn’t become too expensive moving from one place to another. Some nomads these days even choose longer term visas so that they’re minimizing visa runs. But certainly, there are nomads who travels frequently as well. While it’s true that it needs money,this is why having jobs, saving up, and investing would be the way to go.These days, there are more streams of income and it wouldn’t hurt to also do something called “Build in public” and sharing them on social media while earning at the same time, especially if you’re going the startup building route.

And I’d like to emphasize again that the answer is simple if you're really serious of becoming a nomad: find more jobs,increase the skill, invest, and save up before attempting to go remote and/or build a startup. Nowadays, everything is a lot more available and way easier than in the past.

While a lot of people mention that the OP (original poster) is from a privileged country. I believe that we all have our own privileges and it is up to us to leverage it. From money, beauty, to network, there are all privileges and it’s something to be used. Even our skills can be a privilege.

All these years, I didn’t realize that I had privileges until I thought about it and realized that I too have my privilege. Back when I was starting a nomad life, my adoptive parents still owned properties that if anything happened, we could sell them. That is also the fact that back in the day, before I gave up my privileges, I was comfortable.My school and rent were paid and I had allowance from my biological family.I could call them anytime I had a problem with money. Although my allowance was quite measly, when combined with what I made with my business ventures and freelancing, I made quite a bit.

So, traveling around wasn’t really a problem because I knew I had a safety net. I also made more than the minimum wage and was also investing in gold. Until I decided to let everything go and I was on my own. Thankfully, with some smart investment I made, I had quite a good run.

Except when you’re 20 years old and feeling like you don’t fit in, all you want to do is escape and make some silly decision.

Now, my reason for becoming a nomad was fairly simple.I love traveling and I was already used to it. Growing up, my parents often took me to weeks of road trips and I was fascinated about different cultures and food. So why not make money while I am doing something similar. It was also the time when my dream sort of shifted as I found out more that a government job just didn't suit me nor my morality won't allow me.

At the same time, I wanted to change my citizenship and bought my way into the Caribbean or any country which helped me unlock Europe. Working remotely would help me tie down less to the country where I am from and enable me to trade my citizenship down the line.

While I managed to accumulate cash reserves, I didn’t even know how much I spent monthly nor think about my burn rate. I was fascinated about the idea of bootstrapping but at the same time, I wasn’t making any decision whether I wanted to build or to work for someone. I’ll explain this a bit later.

With more net positives, instead of working on my app and business model, I was distracted with something else. In the end, my runway was pretty short.

Then, there's the nitty-gritty of being nomad. First, accommodation and the second are living expenses. Then,comes the business expenses especially if you’re building a startup by bootstrapping. If you didn’t know, bootstrapping is using your own money instead of relying on any VC (venture capital) or someone else’s money.

Some parts of the nitty gritty becoming a nomad are certainly objective and subject to personal comfort. I know some people who wouldn’t live in a $2 room as well as some people who do. For all I know, living in a hostel has its pros and cons, especially when you’re actively building something and need reliable internet or even quietness. If you live in a $2 dorm room, you could have more expenses on either co-working or transportation to reach the co-working spot. This scenario would have looked differently if you’re working for someone else.Certainly you don’t necessarily need to think about burn rate as you’re essentially a freelance.But for someone who builds a startup bootstrapping and even with VC money, this is a must.

You’re dedicating time and hours to build something and you have to make sure that they can make profit before the cash reserves are gone. This is why, it is also best to figure out, Do you work for yourself or work with someone else? Because as nomads both can have different scenarios.

One is that you have X amount of cash reserve while betting on the success of said startup and the second is that you’re paid monthly and/or by project.

In another note, from my personal experience, both types of nomads have intriguing social phenomena too. Usually, those who fall in the first category generally are more reserved and focused on their work as they only have a limited amount of money and time. While the second category, they are workers but they can do it anywhere hence not stressing out too much about expenses.

To summarize everything as someone from developing country, if I were starting out;

• l I’d figure if I want to build or be a remote worker
• If I go the startup route, I’ll make sure to find out how much it would cost to build the idea and time that I will dedicate time for it.
• I will also work towards enhancing my skill for either building a startup or being a remote worker
• If I go with the startup bootstrapping route, I’ll save up to accumulate cash reserve through freelancing or some other stream of income
• Last but not least, I figure my living expenses and make some adjustment

And for more advanced stuff, think about the end goal. Are you going to be a nomad until old age or settling down somewhere for good? Or was this all just a phase. Because nomadic life has its own challenges too and it’s much harder to build a stable relationship or even friendships. At the same time, building startups isn’t as glorious as it may seem and it is also still backed by the idea that having a wealthy family and a good network of friends are privileges as seen on this report where financing even in 2023 relies on friends or family. So, I definitely suggest you know your Why before even doing this nomad living thing.But one thing for sure is that even if you're from developing country with minimal free visa list, it's all still possible.