Becoming a digital nomad is not an easy task, because there are many things to consider: how to build your business, how to look for remote jobs, how to be productive if you are away from your friends and family. Fortunately, there are many useful advice on that topic on the Internet.
For example, Nomadlist is a website created by a digital nomad that helps you to find a better place to work.
Create a plan
If you are working on 9 to 5 job and want to become a digital nomad. You will need to have a plan before you decide. Although there are many jobs able to work remotely, but you need to decide if digital nomad job is good for you.
Becoming a digital nomad isn’t easy, you have to plan well before you become a digital nomad. However, to become a digital nomad, that isn’t that as difficult as you think. If you are just starting out, it’s always recommend to create a plan about what you want to do, where you want to go, what you can do and understand the risks.
Determine how much money you need
First of all, you need to decide how much money you need to travel while working as a digital nomad. Maybe you want to travel with more luxury lifestyle as a digital nomad or you might be just want to travel around with low budget. It’s all depanding your preference.
For my preference, I always want to have a low budget but travel to country by country as long as possible. For my budget, when I was able to make about $1000 a month, then I can start traveling to low cost city like Bali or Chiang Mai. If you are living this these country, the $1000 is enough to cover for basic food, accommodation and transportation. If you plan to go to place that are more expensive like TaiPei, then you might need to have higher budget.
Choose a location
Once you have a plan, then you can decided where to live and work. When considering about where to stay and work, It’s always to consider from safety first, then the stable internet connection and the cost of living of that city. A few places that I recommend to visit is Penang in Malaysia. They have a very good internet connection and food surround there.
If you like to build a relationship with others, you can go to the digital nomad hub like Chiang Mai in Thailand. You will find and being able to surround with those like-minded people. Who knows, you can find things to collaboration with other.
Understand the risk
The next thing is, everything new place you visit. You should understand the risk, what you can do and what you can’t to in that city. You should know what you should be aware of when visiting the city and which street you should avoid to go. Every country has a different culture, I would recommend to do you research before you visit.
3 Ways To Become a Digital Nomad
If you have a laptop and stable internet connection, technically you can become a digital nomad as long as you have an location independence job. There are 3 common ways to become a digital nomad.
Freelancer
The easiest method to become a digital nomad is to be a freelancer. It can be a copywriting, graphic design, web design, web development or any other else as long as the job done within your laptop and internet. To find the freelance job, you can go to the website like fiverr, upwork or freelancer to get client and work with them.
Remote Worker
The other way to become a digital nomad is to become a remote worker. A remote worker is generally those people who work for a job but the company allows you to work everywhere in the world. Which means the location isn’t important, but you have a job that required to work with the company and you can work everywhere in the world.
A remote job is typically opening for the tech industry and the employer are consistently looking for software engineer to work with them.
Online Business Owner
The last method is to start an online business. It can be a YouTube channel, blogging, affiliate marketing, selling stuff on e-commerce site or any business that allows you to work internet.
This is one of the hardest and difficult method to become a digital nomad because it requires lots of hard work and effort. But it doesn’t guarantee your online business is profitable.
If you are just starting, I would suggest you start the digital nomad journey by picking up a remote job that allows you to work remotely. If you have time, you can do something else with that stable income.