In this digital era, where everything gets digitalized, people are moving to a lifestyle where they don’t have an office, but they are working from a place where they feel they are productive and can be most of the time. The technology is changing, and so are the ways of working. This opens up a whole new world of opportunities for many people.
There are more and more people who are choosing to spend most of their time traveling the world and working remotely. There are professional working online, entrepreneurs, artists, writers and digital nomads. This means they work online from anywhere, they are happy to work from anywhere and they enjoy traveling.
Digital Nomad is a lifestyle of being a person who is working remotely, traveling, and living independently while doing it. It’s a lifestyle that you will enjoy the benefits of traveling the world, and to take advantage of the opportunities of your remote job or being your own boss. However, being a digital nomad are in fact have some hidden costs that we don’t usually talk in public.
Visas for Entry/Exit each Country
If you are a digital nomad, you know the financial headache of dealing with traveling to various countries on multiple occasions every year. Traveling can be expensive, especially since you need to have a valid passport in order to get a visa. However, there are some countries that can give you a visa on arrival, which is actually faster than getting a visa from a consulate in the country.
Currency Exchange
While Currency Exchange may not be a big issue for Digital Nomads who will travel to a certain country only once in every 10 years, it can be a problem for Digital Nomads who are often travelling to different countries. When you travel to a country to country, sometime it’s challenging to find a currency exchange company that charging a reasonable commission for currency exchange. This is especially when you have a large amount of money that you want to exchange.
Natural Disaster
Natural Disaster is one of the thing that we are out of control. When we are traveling, we often don’t know about their culture and what’s going to happen next week or next few days. You can avoid to it by taking some time to do some research about the area you place to visit to check the weather and natural disaster forecast. However, sometime we already purchased the airplane ticket and we can’t change to date. If you are lucky, you can request to change the flying date. Some companies allow their customer to change the flying date with a small fee. However, if you bought an airfare ticket with a fixed date, then you might need to buy a new ticket again.
Taxes and Surcharges
When you travel, you’ll incur a lot of costs, especially when you are traveling from place to place. Sometime, we might not notice that the taxes and surcharges aren’t cheap. It’s happened in a city that is extremely popular. When you book a hotel/hostel online, the price display on the site sometime not includes the travel tax or some other surcharge. You have to check the description note to see if it’s already included or not.
Airport Transportation
There is the cost of your flight, the time you spend waiting around at the airport, and any extra baggage that may be added. The cost of your accommodations and the cost of food can often be hidden costs too, if you eat out or get take away meals in the terminal. We also feel the cost of all the things that we never think about in the airport, such as the cost of the extra time we spend waiting for a taxi, or sitting in traffic on the way home.
Travel Insurance
Travel insurance is important for people like digital nomad. If you are traveling, it’s hard to predict everything will be fine throughout the entire journey. Travel insurance is a protection for you to protect unexpected things come to you.
Towels
Towel can cost a lot of space on your suitcase. Some people don’t like to bring their own towels for traveling. Then they might need to pay for renting the towels for travel.
Laundry Service
We often think about bringing a lot of clothes without need of washing it when traveling. However, you might need to wash your cloths as a digital nomad. Therefore, you need to use laundry services, and it’s usually not free.
Vaccine
If you have a vaccine certification, you will able to access some country more easily by proving your vaccination certificate. Some country restrict to their tourist must have a certain vaccine before entering the country. It’s usually not free.
Tipping
Tipping is necessary in some countries like United States. If you travel to a country that tipping is required, you might need to add tipping to your budget. It’s usually about 15% – 20% of your bill. Some countries are not required but recommend you to tip if the service is good. Sometime, we have a bill about USD 19.37, then you sum it up pay USD 20 straight.
Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi is free and accessible almost everywhere these days, but not all the place have free Wi-Fi access. As a digital nomad, a reliable internet is extremely important for you. Sometime it’s difficult to find a reliable internet around you or there is no free Wi-Fi in the area. Then, you might need to pay for internet access so you can get your work done.
Doctor Visit
It’s hard to predict we won’t sick or get injured as we keep moving from country to country. The weather of a country sometime can get super cold or hot. There is possibly that we might get sick in such situation and we need seek for help from the doctor.
Lost Items
Have you ever lost something in the public area? It can be the thing get stolen, or you forgot it and leave it on the table. But then you realize it’s gone, or you forgot where you left on. If the thing is necessary for you, you will need to buy it again.