Transcripts
1. Become a Digital Nomad: Introduction: Hi, my name is Douglas and I'm here to show you how you can travel the world and make a living from your laptop. If you'd like the idea of exploring a town you've never been before. Hiking forests with strange vegetation and working from quaint cafes, that digital nomad lifestyle may just be your cup of tea. Perhaps you aren't sure what steps to take or still have some doubts or can't quite put together the puzzle pieces to see how it all will work. Maybe you've done the research and just need that final push to commit. Or maybe your job was pushed remote by coded. And you want to see just how remote it can be. Whatever the reason you're in the right place. I'm here to show you every aspect of the modern nomadic lifestyle and take you step-by-step from being stationary with no income to fully support in yourself while traveling the world. So who am I and how can I help you meet that goal? For starters, I'm a digital nomad. I've been travelling for three years, half of them with my girlfriend Cordelia. I met in Peru. And in these past few years, we have lived in over 50 cities in South America and are now preparing to move on to the next continent. I love to create, whether it's music, art, poetry, or even building web apps. Pretty much ado, what's exciting to me all the time. And by traveling, I stay constantly inspired to keep creating, which in turn pays for my journey. If you've taken my cellar it online masterclass, you know, my teaching style is well-researched, structured, and practical. So how about this course? This course is designed to prepare you mentally, financially, and logistically to travel the world. We'll start out by reviewing any limiting beliefs that may hold you back and replace them with expanding beliefs to propel you forward. Then we'll focus on clearing the biggest hurdle to becoming a digital nomad. Our finances will break down the expenses and types of income you can earn while traveling. And then we'll go into detail with examples and links to websites for each type of income will provide you with a Google sheets. So you always have this information handy and so we can update it in the future. After we have our finances figured out, we'll talk about life on the road, including your roots, the best type of lodging to fit your lifestyle, how to pack smart, and exploring the best ways to get anywhere from anywhere. I'll also share tips and tricks for making sure you always have reliable high-speed internet. Everywhere you go. We'll talk about gadgets, services, and apps that will make your nomadic life goes so much smoother, will also go over some ways to have fun on your journey and share some budget ideas to help you find rewarding experiences in each destination. Finally, we will review the total workflow from 0 to a digital nomad, giving you actionable steps, taking you up to your departure flight and beyond. Let's hit the road.
2. Removing Limiting Beliefs & Locational Ties: To live our best life and to fully enjoy the digital nomad lifestyle, we must remove limiting beliefs that have been planted by society, Movies, media, friends, family, and even our own mind. Removing limiting beliefs and locational ties. A limiting belief is something you believe to be true about yourself, others, or the world that narrows your possibilities. Narrowing possibilities means you won't be able to take chances and you'll miss out on opportunities because they disappear from your field of vision. What's worse, you won't even realize you're missing out as he's possibilities won't even show up in your mind. We will replace these limiting beliefs with expanding beliefs that open up possibilities we never knew, insisted. Let's examine some limiting beliefs. You may have been exposed to. Limiting beliefs about money. You have to be rich to travel to exotic places. Many of the most beautiful places are also the most affordable. Chances are you'll be spending much less living between your dream destinations, then you would living in one spot. You need to have X amount of money to travel. Everything in travel is flexible, including budget. Of course, it's better to be secure, which is why we'll go over many possible streams of income for digital nomads in this course. You need to work hard to make money. You need to provide something to others that they value and have a way to receive money for that. With the internet, you can work, wants to provide benefit and make money countless times as people download stream or read your product. Limiting beliefs about safety. Certain countries and cities are unsafe. There is no country or city that is completely safe or unsafe. There are places in times within every country and city where caution needs to be exercised more sometimes to the point where it's best to avoid. For example, going to a sketchy part of town, especially if you're drunk at 2AM. But at 02:00 PM sober, there is a lower chance of any negative situation. I am not in control of what happens to me or the victim mentality. You are in control of what energy you put out. And the vibe you put out is what you'll get back. Radiate positive energy. Choose to avoid sketchy situations and don't hang out with problematic people. Limiting beliefs about place. Beliefs about certain cities, countries, et cetera, being generally good or bad. This can take two different forms with different effects. You're going to have too high expectations, which takes away from really experiencing a place as you are comparing it to your expectations. And too low expectations that may make you not notice wonderful things around you because you don't expect them either. Everywhere has the potential to be wonderful or dreary, depending on how you play your cards. Replace high and low expectations with an excitement to experience somewhere new. Anywhere you go, there are wonderful people to interact with. If you love nature and exploring cultures, you will find every place rewarding and full of incredible experience. Some places are unreachable to me because of high cost of living. There is always a way to make it work. It's not only possible to live on a budget anywhere. There are already travelers there doing it. That said, there are plenty of cheaper destinations to start out with. Limiting beliefs about family. Distance. You'll be too far from family and get homesick. You're always connected with your family. No matter the distance, you can stay close to your family with video calls and daily messages on whatsapp. Your family doesn't want you to go or won't let you go. Your family wants you to be happy and we'll be happy to see you happy. You are an independent being and you deserve to pick your own path without guilt. Limiting beliefs about language. If I don't know the local language, I'll be lost. You can get anywhere you need to go and do anything you need to do, even without speaking their native tongue. Communication isn't limited to words, and you can always use translation apps. I'm not confident enough or don't have time to learn a new language. You will learn a language by immersing yourself in it. Many travelers learned just a few basic words a week or two ahead of their next destination. The rest will come by communicating with locals in day-to-day life. Plus a lot of people around the world can speak English. You'll be surprise. Limiting beliefs about success. You need to settle down in one place to be established in life. Being established is to be living the life you want. And there are no limits to what or where that can be. You need X amount of money, a car, and a house to be successful. Happiness is a better measure of success. If you are happy and doing what you want to do, you are successful. Times are changing and you deserve to live your dream venture forward, take chances, and get out of your comfort zone to discover what's out there waiting for you. Removing locational ties. Now that we have cut our mental ties, it's time to cut physical ties and get ready for our journey. Becoming a digital nomad doesn't happen over night. The first step towards this life is to take the necessary steps away from your old life. Start paring down by getting rid of the things that you no longer need and that no longer bring you joy. Make plans to store or get rid of your car if you have one and if you have a lease on your apartment or house, consider aiming for the end date to start your digital nomad journey. This should give you plenty of time to get everything in order before you start out. If you have a pet, bind him or her, a loving temporary home with friends or family or else plan a new life with your furry friend by your side. Now that we have opened our eyes to possibilities and removed artificial barriers, is time to talk about finances and how we can balance the income and expenses of our travel lifestyle. Income can be lower than expenses for some time. As long as income increases faster than expenses.
3. Finances: In this lesson, we're going to talk about finances and expenses. We will continue this talk in the next two lessons, which focus entirely on income to help you find the perfect way to make money while traveling. But first, let's look at the basic financial situation of the traveler. Finances. Let's look at the basic financial situation of a traveler. Basics. Travel budgets can be more flexible than you think. Meeting so many people traveling with no or practically no money really opened my eyes to what's possible. Don't get me wrong. The travelers I met always had some sort of hustle and often have a special talent for crafts or juggling or music. While it's certainly possible to travel with little or no money, It's not the easiest life. Having the purchasing power to get what you need and also cover the justin cases, as well as the I would love 2's will give you the peace of mind and you'll have a better time on your journey. Let's look at some concepts that will help you unlock financial freedom, which will open infinite portals as a digital nomad. Starting money. Starting Money is the fund you have when you get on the plane. This should be enough to last you until you can earn the income needed to cover all of your expenses. Less income and earning potential you have, the more starting Monday you need. Speaking of your bank account, your physical debit card is usually the cheapest way to get cash out of an ATM. So make sure yours is working and doesn't expire for a few years before starting out. Obviously, a good chunk of starting money is ideal, but it's not as essential as May 1 think. And that's because of the next concept. And accessible. Accessible money is the money that you were able to access but do not have direct possession of. This is usually credit, often in the form of a credit card. Accessible money can also be investment you could cash in on or any other money someone has agreed to send you when you need it. Accessible money can take the place of starting money. But if you blow through your starting funds and your accessible money before you increase your income, your journey won't last long. There are people that plan on their credit, running out. The travel on credit, then come home to work and pay it off. Then they travel again, often in a yearly, seasonal cycle. It's a great workaround until you can earn enough to travel full-time. Income. Income is the money you receive by providing value to another. We need to be sure we have enough income to cover all of our expenses. Will talk about passive and active income in the next lesson. But for now, let's go over dependable income concepts. Guaranteed income. Guaranteed income is the income you know, you will receive. This could be from a salaried position, a side project, a business and investment, or any other source of income. Guaranteed income allows you to live the Nomad life to the fullest as you can keep traveling indefinitely, so long as your income is enough to cover your lifestyle, whatever that may be. Of course, we want to enjoy our lives to the fullest. So we often look for a boost to our guaranteed income. Let's call that earned income or double income is money you are sure you could make. For example, if you know that you can work for $20 an hour to build websites and you already have clients waiting or nowhere you can easily find gigs. Carnival income comes in handy when you're guaranteed income is low, typically when you're starting out and when it's time to pay off debts if you have them, guaranteed and earned income are important concepts because it gets your mind into gear to review what options will work for you in the long term. As we continue. Keep this in mind. Any type of income is always relative to your expenses. And it doesn't take much guaranteed income to make some sort of continuous traveled lifestyle very feasible. To figure out exactly how feasible, let's look at expenses. Expenses, there are four main categories of expenses. Lodging, food, travel, and everything else. Logic. Lodging is often the biggest monthly expense. So it's important to know all the options so you can figure out what's right for you at any given time. We have a whole lesson on finding a place to stay. Food. Food is an opportunity to save some money, but it can also be a sneaky expense if you love dining out. Many countries have very cheap food, and if you cook for yourself, it's possible to eat cheaply anywhere in the world. Travel. Plane tickets, bus tickets, cabs, travel expenses are often the least flexible. But by using sites like Rome to Rio, we can be sure we're getting the best option for us. We'll talk more about this in the getting around less than everything else. Everything else includes your tours, entertainment, drinks, close souvenirs, unexpected expenses, et cetera, et cetera. Lumping everything together into one category may seem lazy, but it's not. The idea is the more you can shave off of food, lodging, and travel, the more you have for everything else, and vice versa. If you decide you need to tighten your budget, start by reviewing your everything else category and see what's really essential and what brings you joy. There is a key point of this lesson, and that key point is balance. Sure, you can sleep in the cheapest hostile hitchhike and starve yourself. So you have enough money to go on the fanciest tour, but that's not really living your best life. You have to get a field for balancing. How can you do what you need to do and experience what you want to experience on the budget that you set for yourself. Your balance will change as you grow. As a person, gain experiences and change Taste and as your income grows, or you're starting and accessible, money shrinks. It's something that will become automatic after your first few months of travel. In fact, chances are your first few months will be the most expensive as you'll want to do everything and haven't yet found this balance. The biggest factor in your expenses is where you are living lavish for two months in Thailand is cheaper than living frugally for two weeks in NYC. So your whole idea about how feasible it is to live travelling may be off by a lot if you grew up in an expensive city or a nation. Parting ideas. Before we move on, I would like to share some ideas with you that have helped me. The more you have in your bank, the more you spend. You probably figured this out. Anytime you've got a paycheck, when you have money, you spend money. When you start traveling. It's not hard to spend way more than you realize. Everything is new and shiny, plus it all seems so cheap. You hardly realize how much you are spending until a credit card gets declined. Protect yourself from yourself by swirling away most of your starting money. You can give to your parents to hold onto, put it in a separate bank account. You never use ribbon, invest it in something secure you can access online. Now when you check your bank account, you don't see a bunch of money waiting to be spent. You start in the income stream before you leave. You don't need to be making enough money to support yourself starting out. You also don't want to start traveling without figuring out how you will make money and knowing it will work. Once you've started your online hustle, you can better utilize time on buses, planes, et cetera. However, you plan to make money as a nomad. You can surely do it wherever you are now. So start now. Sometimes it takes some time to figure out what's right for you and you don't need the stress and trying to figure that out on the road, test new income shames until you find one that vibes with your soul and your pockets. This will not only make you feel good, it also means you're actually starting to make some income, which will now be easier to increase while traveling. Shoot to make enough money to cover credit card payments for all of your cards before you buy a plane ticket. Also, make sure you feel good that your income stream will increase over time or else plan to branch off to other options while maintaining this stream. Income can be lower than expenses for some time, as long as income increases faster than expenses. Here's an example from my travels on how my income and expenses changed over time. Don't pick up too much weight. In addition to drain your savings, everything that you buy that isn't edible or an experience is extra weight that you have to carry around. If you want to experience a culture, what better way than to experience it? Enjoy some foods that pick up every little trinkets you see along the way. Now that we have our financial hats on, let's explore the different types of income you can earn while traveling. Ideally, you want to be doing what you want to do while at the same time making enough money to thrive. The more income streams, the better.
4. Income: While I can't tell you every way to make money, in this lesson, we will review the different categories of income generation. And in the next lesson, we'll dive into our top picks for every category. Focusing on what's best for you based on your passion and skill sets. Income. Money is the number one reason people say I wish instead of I am travelling, but it doesn't have to be developing a healthy income. Doing what you love is easier now than any time in history. No matter what you love, chances are you can work your own hours and work anywhere in the world. That is the digital nomads life types of income. Remote salaried work. Close to 40% of salaried positions can be fulfilled remotely. According to Forbes. For tech, This is probably closer to 80%. If you love where you work now, you may be able to keep working there and travel or find similar work where you can. If you want to do this, talk to your employer and also decide if working this particular job remotely would fit into the lifestyle you want. Advantages, good and steady pay. Keep doing what you love if you love your current job. Disadvantages, time commitment, possible inflexibility due to meetings, deadlines, et cetera. Remote gigs. Gigs are jobs you do once in exchange for money. Generally, a gig is a service and you're selling your time, attention and expertise. Remote gigs, like those posted on fiber, are readily available online, but can be competitive due to everyone else around the world seeking similar work. But if you are skilled in your field and your field is in-demand, This can be lucrative work, plus it gets easier and easier to complete similar gigs. Advantages, quick turnaround. You can choose what gigs you want. Great for upcoming bills, offsetting tours, or unexpected expenses. All ranges of pay grades exist depending on skill and demand. Disadvantages. High competition leads to low pay in over-served fields. Dealing with clients can sometimes be stressful. Local gigs. Local gigs are gigs you actually show up for. This could be helping with the harvest painting, a mural, massage therapy, energy healing, performing flow Arts, et cetera. While it's not technically digital, local gigs can supplement online income and be a lot of fun. Developing a skill that can be used in real life may help you in a pinch. And it adds to your resiliency as a digital nomad. Flow art like juggling, hooping, wrapping, break dancing, et cetera, is fun and part of a well-rounded life. I burned a bit of money doing flow art with a donation hat. If you plan to do something like this, make sure you talk to other people doing similar things to ask about the rules. I was kicked out of a few places in Cusco, Peru. Though, if you leave when you're asked, there usually isn't a problem and you get to keep the money you already earned. Advantages can be an experience in itself. Meet new and similarly minded people, earn cash in a pinch and it can even be fun. Disadvantages. Pay is low in many fields and places. Depending on generosity for entertaining skills only works well at certain times and locations and therefore is unreliable. E-commerce. Selling stuff online is a broad category, especially today. This can be selling an e-book or online course, song your art on red bubble, drop shipping furniture on Amazon or anything in between. E-commerce can take a little or a lot of work depending on what direction you go. Sometimes you can set up and forget while others create a list of tasks for each order. The profits can also have a huge range. Digital and print on demand products offer the opportunity to create something once and sell it as many times as you can without any additional cost after creating the product itself. Digital informational products like e-books, music, and even this course can have a huge potential to make income because of this, especially if you create something that benefits people tremendously. The only limits are how much value you can pack into your product and how many people who would benefit from this value you can successfully presented to the big catches. People have to buy it. Sometimes you do a lot of work on something and it just doesn't get any attention or sales. Like anything in life. You have to learn to pivot and you'll need to be good at writing sales copy regardless of the field. We'll talk about specific types of e-commerce in the next lesson. But in general, here are the advantages. With digital products. The income potential is huge and you can often work ones and reap the benefits for years to come. Plus, you'll have something to show for your work which feels good, especially when that something helps out another human being. Disadvantages. Competition, especially in older markets, risk doing a lot of work for little or no return. Fiscal commerce. Many travelers I run into have a board full of crafts that they have made and are selling. I often wonder how these folks make it work as the stuff they sell is usually pretty cheap. While again, this isn't digital. It's something that thousands of people are doing daily and it can be a good way to connect with people, share your art with the world, and gives you another form of income utilizing your unique skill set, you can even work on new art or any other project while you show off your wares. Advantages. Non-techie allows you to use your crafty skills and can be sociable. Disadvantages, low and unreliable income in most cases, a huge time commitment to display your stuff. And it requires you to carry around more weight and also have good selling skills. Investing. Investing gives you a percentage of what you put in back over time. Investments can be high risk or low risk. Low risk investments like bonds and index funds can sustain you. If you have a bunch of money to invest, they can be reliable and a responsible use of a chunk of money whenever that falls into your life. We're also in the emergence of another type of investment, crypto investments. And no, I don't mean I CEOs or Bitcoin. With the advent of decentralized finance or defy, you can make a provable guaranteed income loaning out crypto assets. State tokens also offer return on many blockchain, usually in the same token you have steak. While crypto investments can be risky as no one knows what the value of ether or EOS will be in 20 years. The returns can be sold in fiat over time, mitigating some of the longer term risks and providing a stream of income. High risk investments like I CEOs, some IPOs and startups usually end up losing most or all of the investment, but there's a slim chance it pays off big while that long shot maybe appealing. Why not instead invest in yourself, in your growth and in your own ideas? Fulfill your mission on earth is so much more satisfying that Earth dollar. Advantages. Investing is a responsible path. If you receive a lump sum of money, some investments are stable. D phi is changing the game of crypto investments. Disadvantages works best if you have a chunk of money to invest and can risk losing all of that money. There can be a barrier to entry legally and conceptually. Plus, there's nearly always risk which increases alongside rewards. Income goals. Ideally, you want to be doing what you want to do, while at the same time making enough money to thrive. The more income streams, the better. Even if you feel comfortable with a single income stream, It's good to have other options ready to go just in case. Having multiple income streams makes it way less stressful if your main income stream goes component. Another more financial route is to build up a business which also supports your lifestyle and then sell it and live up that chunk of money for awhile until you find your next challenge. Now that we have our goal in mind, let's follow our passions and figure out what streams of income will be best for our travels.
5. Finding Your Perfect Income: Finding your perfect income. Dear fellow skill share students, because SCO share is a skill focused learning site, I'm actually not allowed to teach about passive income. So some of the content has been removed from the Skill Share version of this course, including part of the income lesson and this lesson on finding your perfect income. But don't worry, you'll still have access to the spreadsheet at this link that lists all the employment options we're aware of for digital nomads. In the following section, we will talk about travelling the world, starting with the very first step, selecting a location. I'll see you there. We rarely book more than one destination in advanced. That way, if we fall in love with a town or city, we can extend our stay before moving on.
6. Selecting a Location: One of the most exciting parts about preparing for your life as a digital nomad is figuring out where you want to go. Here's some ideas that may help you in that process. Selecting a location, pick a route more than a single place. Before you start looking, remember that you are a nomad, you move around. This means that instead of finding one perfect location, you should be more interested in a region of the world. Chances are the cheapest ticket will be to a major city. So why not stay there for a week and then start moving around? Probably the biggest change when transitioning to a digital nomad lifestyle is the pace of living. You no longer have to live life according to a clock and a calendar. Now, your big concerns are the weather and the seasons. Trying to plan out everywhere you'll be for the next year may not work. Plan to start somewhere and explore from there. I'm not saying don't have a plan at all, but your plan should be fuzzy, malleable, and open to suggestions and new information. Once you know where you want to start, you can set a general destination and then figure out the steps to get there along the way. This is what we did starting out in Peru to get to oeuvre way, then again, to get from Brazil to Columbia. Duration of stay is another big decision. We usually start out with a weak minimum for each place. We rarely book more than one destination in advance. That way, if we fall in love with the town or city, we can extend our stay before moving on. This would be impossible if we booked a whole route months in advance. We recommend, instead of worrying about the planning aspect, focus on finding your vibe and enjoyed the energy of each place, giving yourself the opportunity to stay longer if you like. Climate. The climate of a region you're visiting should be one you like. If you don't like the cold, maybe skip Scandinavia for now. And if you don't like the heat, you may not enjoy the Caribbean. Even if your friend had the most amazing time there. You can do a quick check on climate by looking at the Wikipedia page of a city in the region, you will see a climate section and the graph of the temperatures. Elevation, and micro-climates. Elevation plays a huge role in climate. Quito, Ecuador is just a few degrees off the Equator, but 18 hours a day, it's cold. We had the heater on every single night we were there. That's because the elevation is nearly 3 thousand meters. Driving through the Peruvian Andes, we were literally in the jungle. And a few hours later, outside of the band throwing snowballs. It was insane. Seasonal considerations. Remember to consider the amount of time you're travelling and the changing of the seasons while summer, fall, winter, spring, maybe the norm where I grew up, it's not for most places of the world. Many places have a wet season and a dry season instead, or leg median Columbia. They're pretty similar throughout the year. Also, what wet and dry season means for each location is different. Some places it can be so intense that you probably don't want to be there during wet season, while others, it's a wonderful thing as the rain is less intense and brings new green life to a brown landscape. Seasons also coincide with tourist season, which can have a big impact on your experience. Visiting during low season means you are a hot commodity and we'll have more bargaining power as well as more options of places to stay. Do your research though, because some things may be unavailable during the low season. For example, in the Amazon River Basin, low season is rainy season. When the waters rise up metres and turn into rapids, making most just for fun ventures, impossibly dangerous to even attempt if you're doing local gigs, consider high season and low season in the area for that gig and try to be there, we can generate the most income. Landscape. Beach, mountains, forest, jungle, desert, plains. The feeling of the horizon in the distance is a wealth greater than any paper or glimmering coin can provide. Surrounding yourself with nature and connecting with the natural spirits is a crucial part of the human experience, though under emphasized in some so-called advanced societies, landscape can also be a valuable tool in your work depending on what that is. If you sell stock photos, consider the beauty, commercial viability, and coverage by other photographers. Wherever you go, be sure to look out the window on the way their cities versus tau. Do you like the restaurant and entertainment options of the big city or the natural tranquility of a small town. There's plenty of room for both. We end up staying in bigger cities more than we would like for practical reasons, like internet and transportation. But most are best experiences, the ones we will reminisce about when we're old. Small towns, it's usually a bit cheaper to stay in small towns, which brings us to the biggest factor in our expensive. How much does it cost to live there? There's a website called nomad list.com that lists a fairly accurate living price for nearly every major city in the world. While it will never be fully accurate, it will give you an idea about what places are more expensive than others. The best thing is, there's absolutely no correlation between cost of living and how awesome it is to live there. There are tons of amazing places that are very cheap. And they're often near each other, making it easy to plan a travel route. You should also consider the exchange rate with your native currency. On ethics top.com, there is a map that shows you visually how the exchange rate has changed all around the world in any time span you shoot. On the map, you'll see places that are red are now cheaper for you and places that are green are now more expensive. When a country's currency goes down against your own, you will get more for your money, although the prices in that country will usually adjust. It takes time from months to years. So you do have opportunity to take advantage of these changes. For example, you have US dollar. Brazil is now a lot cheaper to visit than it was when we were there. We have a whole lesson on helpful websites and apps. So don't worry, we'll show you some more great tools to select the right place to start your journey. Language. Language barriers are less intimidating when you're smart phone has Google Translate and you've downloaded the languages for offline use. Still it's something to consider. There are two places may both not officially speak English. May 1 have a much higher percentage of people who can understand and communicate the basics in English. The best thing to do is to learn the language at least enough to cover everything. You may need, food, bathroom, lodging. Can I have the bill? How much does this cost, please? Thank you. Wait for me. I want extra block, et cetera. Learning this will only take an afternoon of practice and there are no rules against carrying around a cheat sheet. Tourist visas. One of the quickest ways to narrow your list is by looking at Visa requirements. Most places you won't need to apply for a visa. Sum, you will have to apply online. Some you will have to apply via mail or at a consulate. There's sometimes a fee, but not always. The fee is often the same fee that your home country charges called reciprocal theme. Before the US of a, that's a $160, a healthy chunk of money. You'll have to check the visa requirements for each country you visit. But here's some general tips. What to expect. Most tourist visas that you don't have to apply for require a few documents when you get there. A passport with over six months until expiry, outward travel tickets, financial statements, and sometimes a vaccination is required as well. I remember the vaccination was one big worry for me, not about getting sick, but about not being let into a country. So I ended up getting the yellow fever vaccine before I left crossing the border into Bolivia, there was a place to buy a fake yellow fever document literally attached to the border consulate building. But don't expect this luxury. I did get the yellow fever vaccine before leaving the US, but I misplaced my document. So I ended up buying a fake vaccine paper. Onetime crossing a border, actually getting back into Peru from Brazil this time, somebody said something to me about having a vaccine, and I declared with great confidence that I did. They looked at me skeptically. I showed them my Bolivia and VSA and told them I had to have it to get that. It seemed to work. But do yourself a favor and get whatever vaccine you need and take a picture of the document just in case you lose it. So what about the outward traveled ticket and financial statements? Chances are you don't know when you're leaving the country and you may not have enough in your bank account to prove you have enough to cover the trip. Luckily, there are solutions for these problems. The outward ticket problem can be solved with an online fake ticket generate. It may seem sketchy and it is, but it's the only option in some cases and has never failed for me before. The funds issue can be solved in a few ways. The first way is to just show them that you have enough credit on your credit card. Take a screenshot of your available credit. If this isn't an option or it isn't enough, you can go to your bank or credit card page online and use inspect element on Chrome or Firefox to edit the numbers. Then take a screenshot of the edited page and printed off. Now that we've covered all the considerations when selecting a location. And the second part of this lesson, we'll put them into practice by planning out a ski adventure in Euro. Let's go through selecting a location for our journey. This can be our first leg or any subsequent leg of our digital nomad like
7. A Place to Stay: There are so many options in the hospitality and shared space economy that you, a person looking for a place to stay or a hot commodity, a place this day. Let's look at how our options stack up. Of course, you're a unique person with unique needs that change over time. So there's no correct answer. Only possibilities. Hostels. Hostels are great when you're traveling alone, wanted to meet new people and have fun, plan on enjoying local cuisine more than cooking, and don't mind sharing space and a single Wi-Fi connection. There generally the cheapest option for single travelers, but with two or more people and Airbnb is usually cheaper. Hostels tend to cluster in the touristy section of town. So you'll always have cafes and restaurants close by if you'd rather work their friends and fun are the shining attributes of hostels. But it can be hard to completely devote your attention to work with so many awesome people around. The best place to find hostels is hostile world.com, which is the only major service focusing just on hospitals and bed and breakfast. Hotels. Hotels are almost never the best choice. They usually don't have a place to cook food. They can feel like working in a cubicle that is also your house. Plus they're usually more expensive than a hostile or an Airbnb. On the bright side, you can be isolated if you need to focus, the Wi-Fi is a little bit better than at a hostel and you have more privacy and much greater freedom. Our journey, we have only stayed in hotels when it was the only option. And they've always been super cheap here in South America, something like ten to $15 a night. Airbnb. Airbnb is our favorite way to stay. I love checking into an Airbnb because it brings me back to the excitement of being a kid, stepping into a vacation house. We have stayed in Airbnb is over 90% of the time in the past two years. Two people, it's cheaper than hostels for a private room or small apartment. And for a bit more, we can get a really nice apartment or house. Airbnb has a range of options from private rooms to entire houses. And each place just unique. But in general, the Wi-Fi is dedicated and fast. You can cook food whenever you want. You have privacy and the ability to make a bit of noise. You also have a pretty high level of freedom, with the exception you usually can't invite over and new friends to your place, though you can ask the host for permission. The review system on Airbnb means that hosts are really on top of things and communication is easy. If you're booking and Air BnB, particularly for a longer time, it never hurts to ask for a special offer. Often hosts are happy to fill their availability and we'll give you a little bit better price. Don't be afraid the host will say no or get offended. You'll be surprised that the results you get. Location is the most unique feature of Airbnb. Sure, you can find Airbnb is in a touristy part of town alongside the hostels, but you can also find them in every other part of town, far into the wilderness. If you have a vehicle, this can make for a very unique and wonderful experience. Airbnb is synonymous with the shared space economy, but it's not the only option. Similar services include VRBO, FlipKey, and home to go. Some of these services have crazy expensive rentals and won't make much sense for a budget traveler. On VRBO, you can't even set the price filter for less than 50 US dollars in night. We've stayed in wonderful Airbnb is like this one and never paid close to that. Couchsurfing. Couchsurfing is an incredible experience and every time I've done it, it was wonderful. The concept is people open up their couch or spare room to you for free. There's so many wonderful people out there who do this to give back to the kindness they receive and meet interesting people. And it's a really beautiful thing. Once you have a couchsurfing.com account, you basically message people who you think you would vibe with. Tell them your story and hope they're willing and available to host you. This messaging takes a lot of time. So it usually ends up being a copy and pasted message about yourself that you personalize for each host, telling them why you think you two would get along based on what you read on their profile? A stage usually one to three nights, as it's a lot to ask to stay for a long time with a stranger. So it's not a viable long-term option, but it can help in places you are passing through that are very expensive. My girlfriend and I have done this in ergo. I, and I have solo and Iceland and Luxembourg. Co living. Nowadays, you can find houses and villas that have dedicated co-working areas and shared spaces for digital nomads. Also, co-working spaces may offer code living either on-site or close. By. Either way, you can normally rent a room with a bathroom and have access to shared space to eat, work, and relax. With fast internet connection. You can also interact and make friends with others that have your same lifestyle. So it could be a good option if you're traveling alone. But it isn't always cheap and you'll have much less privacy than in a rented apartment. Some platforms where you can find CO living options are CO living.com and outside dot co house sitting. How setting can be a great option if you find a good match for you. It's usually free, but some platforms might charge you a membership. But apart from that, you'll have a whole home or apartment for yourself. And some places can be quite luxurious. In exchange, you'll have to keep the place, how the owners like it, rather than creating a space that works for you. And you usually have to take care of pets too. So if you'd love animals, you'll be very happy. Find options on House cares, how sitting world and my, my house. Work trait. If you want to learn something on your journey, have the time and drive to help out and wanted to stay for free. Sometimes with Niels included, work trade can be a rewarding experience. Woof, or worldwide opportunities on organic farms allows you to learn about sustainable and regenerative permaculture and stay for free, sometimes with meals included. Usually you are expected to work about 20 hours a week. Work away is the niche leader and has a wide range of experiences from farms to boats to staying with the family and teaching a child English. If you're on a spiritual path, new mandu focuses on transformational experiences where you can help out and get to be a part of a spiritual community. You Monday was a little bit different because some of the experiences you have to pay for, some you get paid while others are true work trait. The models of work trade platforms very many charge a membership fee. So check them all out and figure out what's best for you. Van life. Plenty of digital nomads live in a van, RV or car. This option is for those who want to set their own pace and keep all the freedom the open roads can provide. You have to figure out internet, hygiene, food, and be able to deal with any complications you may face, as well as the legal requirements of driving through wherever you want to go. And if you get tired of sleeping in your band, you can always camp or rent a place for the night. Other options. Booking.com is a trusted budget friendly site for booking hotels, hospitals, and private apartments. There's also tripping.com, which is a search engine for places to stay. It doesn't search through Airbnb listing, but it does go through most of their competitors, including Booking.com, VRBO, Expedia, home to go and more. Search workflow. To get all of your paid options quickly. Check hostile world.com for hostels, AirBNB for private stays, and then search tripping.com to get everything you missed. Comparing all of our options. Let's look at the major factors that will influence our decision, like caused freedom, ability to work, et cetera. The cost. Hostels are the cheapest option for single travelers and Airbnb for groups or couples. Sometimes a private room on Airbnb can even be cheaper than a hostile. The biggest cost factor is how many people you're traveling with. And of course, where you are in the world. Always calculate your own cost per person, per night using the final price. Airbnb and similar services can make it confusing with the fees telling you one price and then it ends up being another. Free options like CouchSurfing and work trade are available. And so his life on the open road, it's really up to you. How many people are traveling? This greatly affects your ability to book whole houses and apartments at an affordable price per person. The more the merrier booking in advance. If you're checking into a hostel, there's rarely a problem booking one day in advance or even just walking in. Though the most popular hostels may get fully booked in high season, if you're looking for an affordable Airbnb book at least two to three weeks in advance if you can't. If it's a very high demand time, like during a festival, you should book two to three months in advance. If you want a nice place at a decent price. If you're in a big city and want to stay longer, you shouldn't have a problem finding a place a day or two in advance, so long as it's not during Carnival. Ability to work. The concern of workability is greatest when staying in hostels. Consider your hostel choice carefully as a good night sleep in a party hostel is pretty much a myth. Even if you go to bed on time, people will be in and out of the room making noise and no probably be loud music until very, very late. If you aren't staying in a hostel, your biggest work concern is usually the wifi speed. So be sure to ask. Ability to make friends. Hospitals are awesome places to make friends and joined together to have thought. The amount of awesome people is almost overwhelming. Couch surfing and work trades lets you get to know a few people at a time in a more intimate setting. Freedom. Freedom can be more limited than you. At some places. Airbnb is usually don't allow you to bring guest home and hospitals don't let outsiders in the hospital at all unless it's to go to the bar area. Some hospitals have curfews or are difficult to get into at night, and being locked out of your hospital sucks. Cooking and eating. Cooking nearly all of your own food is a sure sign. You've been traveling for awhile. Ability to cook is greatest in the Airbnb is sometimes distant hostels and usually non-existing and hotels. Work trades usually feed you and CouchSurfing can offer opportunities to cook and share meals together. Privacy and space. Don't expect any privacy at a hostel where you'll likely be in a six to eight person dorm unless you want to cough up a bit extra for a four-person suite. Private rooms at Airbnb and even hostels offer a bit more privacy. But if you want to really feel at home, nothing is better than getting an entire place to yourself through Airbnb or a similar service location. Do you want to be in the action or far from it? You'll have plenty of options in the best part of town if you book at least a few weeks in advance, last minute bookings are usually more expensive in high-demand areas. We usually look at the distance to a market and public transport when comparing places and tried to stay away from busy streets when we're planning to film a course, be sure to look at Google Street View and heatmaps to get an idea about where you'll be staying. Plus knowing what the building actually look likes will help you find the place. Alright, now that we've got our place Book, let's go over what we should pack as a digital nomad. Whatever my fewer grads in traveling was fine. A backpack instead of a suitcase with wheels.
8. What to Pack: I'm the type of person that tends to over prepare for things. So the first time I left my home country for three months in Peru, I brought way too much stuff. In this lesson. I hope to save your back that trouble mine had, and make sure you have the right stuff to make both your life and your work happy and complete. What to pack. The essentials. Light laptop. Hopefully you already have a good and light laptop with the long-lasting battery. If not, it's pretty much required. How light the laptop is depends on the type of job you have. For example, my girlfriend has a heavy laptop because she needs the power to edit and render 4K videos. Rugged case and screen protector for your phone, which is pretty much self-explanatory. Earplugs. Earplugs are essential to sleep on buses, trains, and hostels, it's the most benefit for the least space out of all of the items. So don't forget them. Keep them in your day pack at all times. Passport, ID, debit, and credit cards vest to keep these in a small travel wallet. If you're a guy and have one of those massive dad wallets packed with silly cards. It's time to leave it behind. Your wallet will be with you almost all the time. So it's one of the most practical things to downsize. Cash. Wherever you go, consider taking a decent amount of cash in dollars or euros that you can exchange in case you have trouble with your cards. When you can get local currency, keeps some bigger bills hidden away in your backpack or another place that isn't your wallet. It's best to keep only a bit of cash visible in your wallet when making transactions, not just for safety, but also so people don't think you have money and try to sell you more stuff. Plus if you don't see it, you're less likely to spend it. Water-filter. Many places don't have drinkable tap water. Investing in a good filter like this, Sawyer many will save you money and reduce single-use plastic consumption. You can buy a solar many online at a camping store or even at Walmart. Storage devices. Having a USB drive is a must. Extra memory cards and a huge external hard drive are also very useful depending on your type of job. Toiletries. This includes toothbrush, toothpaste, dental floss, deodorant, comb or brush and nail clippers. Day pack. A day back is a light backpack that you can take with you to go out and about, you know, hold your laptop and will be your carryon on flights and buses. Clothing. What clothing you bring depends on your lifestyle. These are my general suggestions out gift to myself three years ago. Remember to consider the weather and not to over pack. You'll probably be picking up some local close on your journey. So stick to the basics and avoid multiples of bulky items. What to bring? Outdoor shoes, hiking shoes, sneakers, or any type of comfortable shoes for walking long distances off the beaten path. Comfortable sandals or crocs for hot temperatures and short City walking. Rain proof jacket. A light layer you can throw on top of everything is best. A sweater, especially if you plan on travelling to cold places. Athletic wear, including pants, T-shirts and shorts. Athletic wear is light and takes up less space than cotton clothes. Actually don't have any cotton shirts. There's a saying that cotton kills because it won't keep you warm if it's wet. Synthetic fabrics are lighter and more practical. Long pants. I enjoyed my light track pants and layer up underneath that's cold. If you're visiting a colder climate, a pair of thermalize and your favorite pair of jeans could help. Long sleeves. A light synthetic long-sleeved shirt is useful for mosquitoes and to prevent sunburns. A wide brimmed have will be essential for shade. I prefer the soft ones that you can fold up. I had a hard time finding a good foldable one on the road, so it's better to pack what a son dress. If you're a girl, you're probably get a lot of use out of a light sun dress, a swimsuit. The best ones for guys can double as a normal pair of shorts. The best socks you can find. Good socks make for a happy life. Also, I suggest at least one or two pairs of socks or other long socks for cold buses, et cetera. Things you probably will need. Let's look at some more good ideas to bring along. Charging brick. This is key for long travels and can help you out in an emergency. Travel Adapter. Get a global power adapter box. I'm USB ports on it. You'll be glad you did. You can find them online for ten to 20 bucks. Tau. You'll see high-tech and tiny travel towels. But I prefer a real towel not as travel one because it can double as a blanket and neck pillow or lower back support if you roll it up. And it allows you to eat lasagna on the bed guilt free. But that part's up to you. Good headphones. These will give you some privacy, especially when you're in a noisy place, in your headphones or the smallest, but over year may be better for long-term comfort. You can always bring both. It's worth the space, soap, shampoo. And It's true that some hostels, most hotels and Airbnb have soap and shampoo, But the shampoo is always really bad quality and conditioner is rare. The soap is usually decent though. Cordelia recommends getting the best quality shampoo and conditioner that normally comes in smaller containers. They work better and you only need a little bit of product to get your hair clean. Unlike low quality products that are heavier and you have to apply a lot just to get a little bit of foam, HealthKit, band-aids, gauze, something to disinfect, or just get actual kit. At the very least, throw few high-quality cloth band-aids in your pack before you leave. Insulated water bottle. If you love hot or cold beverages, this item will bring a sprinkle of happiness to your day. Every day. Small things that make you happy. Depending on your hobbies. Don't hesitate to carry something small to enjoy your offline times and take breaks. We'd been carrying this colombia since Argentina. Things to consider. Here's a couple of things that might be for you and they might not just one book, really, just one book is enough. And they're often chances to swap your book for another book at hostels, travel pillow. These will save your neck on long bus trips and flights. Consider it essential if you have trouble with your neck, the good thing is you can attach it to your backpack so it doesn't take up space inside. Spice kit. For those who loved to cook, it's better to carry your own spices so you don't have to buy black pepper or paprika every destination. We even have a pepper grinder, but that's a bit extreme. Small roll of tape. Tape is something you probably didn't think about, but it really comes in handy. We've been carrying around masking tape lately, and we end up using it multiple times a week for various things like clothing, food bags, marking tripod locations, and hanging our beautiful paintings on the wall. Office kid. Having a notebook, a pen, and some highlighters, and even a Paris scissors is always useful for your work and other purposes. Sunscreen and mosquito repellent. These were usually be cheaper at home, so it's good to throw them in the check luggage before you depart. Things you probably won't need. Conventional pillow. Airbnb is hostels and hotels will have pillows for you. Carrying one could take up a lot of space, even if it's your favorite pillow, just leave it. Hairdryer. Most hotels and Airbnb is have a hair dryer, so you don't have to worry about it. You also won't have to worry about having an extra voltage converter or an extra adapter plug. Valuables and jewelry. If you can't afford to lose it, don't take it with you. It can also give you the chance to pick up some amazing jewelry made by locals and other travelers. Sleeping bag. This is something I was sure I would need, but did if you're planning on going on treks without a guide and sleeping in a tent, you're going to need one. But guided tracks will offer the option to rent one. Backpack versus luggage. Whatever my fewer regrets in traveling was buying a backpack instead of a suitcase with wheels. Though it seemed fine. It first, my backpack got heavier and heavier probably because I love crystals. My reasoning for starting out with a backpack was simply, I thought it was the thing to do and I thought I needed it to go on treks. I did take it out a few tracks, but over time I took less overnight checks and they just unnecessarily hurt my back to lug it from place to place. I ended up getting a suitcase with wheels, which comes with its own problems like stairs. But it's much better for my Airbnb and day trip lifestyle. While a big backpack is needed if you plan to go and solar treks, guided trek should provide most of the things you need. So you can probably get away with your day pack. You can rent a sleeping bag from the companies as well for a few dollars and clip it on the outside. You will for sure need a small or medium backpack for daily life. But a large May 1 be happily substituted for a practical suitcase, depending on what your digital nomad life looks like. I don't mean to talk you out of a backpackers PAC as I traveled with mine for two years before calling it quits. I'm just sharing my wisdom that made me decide to change. Alright, now that we've got our bags pack, let's look at all the ways we can get from point a to point B. Planes, trains, buses, legs, bikes, and more. Let me stamp your ticket and we'll get going. Remember, as a digital nomad, you're not just a tourist. You are living and experiencing the world at the same time.
9. Getting Around: Sometimes I wonder what travel was like a 100 years ago or 1000 years ago. Going to a place based on something someone else sketched on a piece of paper. Getting around. Thankfully, we live in an age where you can figure out how to get anywhere from anywhere with a cellphone and likely buy the tickets with a few taps. Chances are there are at least three ways to get there, all easily accessible and with minimal risk. So how do you pick the best fit? First of all, it depends on your travel style. Not all digital nomads have the same travel rhythm. Some prefer to jump from one continent to another. Others enjoy long stays in a single place, while others tend to hop around a country quickly. For us, we enjoy a slow travel style. By finding our rhythm and balanced, we eliminate the stress of rushing around and the pressure of seeing everything. Traditional vacation time can bind with tourism packages have ingrained the idea of consuming experiences in our society. Consuming experiences isn't sustainable and to live a balanced life on the road, you'll be living your experiences in every moment, not only when following a few meters behind a guide, finding the right speed for You may take some time. So consider what experiential aspects matter to you most while traveling and be open to completely new directions and suggestions. Enjoy the journey by focusing on the present moment, not the destination. Remember, as a digital nomad, you're not just a tourist. You are living and experiencing the world at the same time. With this in mind, let's talk about how to move from destination to destination. We'd like to start off on Rome to Rio, which tells us the options to get from point a to point B and the estimated price and time it will take. There will usually be an obvious best choice with a brief look at Room to Rio. But there are more considerations in traveled than simply the time and price to get somewhere. Let's look at our travel options and then dive into some other considerations to see how these options stack up with different needs and scenarios. Planes, planes are the only practical option to get far, far away. They're the fastest way to get from place to place and provide you views you won't find anywhere else. Planes may be expensive for short distances, particularly if you have more than the allocated luggage. But the competitive nature of the airline industry seems cheap. Flights happen all the time. There are so many sites nowadays to help you book flights and find deals, including Google, Sky scanner, secret flights, QE, kayak and more. In ancient tip passed down from generation to generation, is to use an Incognito browser tab. And even better with a VPN to check for flights. Why sometimes airlines put cookies in your browser so they know what flights you've been looking at. And those start to jack up those prices, so you panic and buy them. If you have a VPN that allows you to change your location, you can also tricky airlines by looking from an IP in another country where they have a better price. For example, instead of booking the route Madrid to Rio de Janeiro from Madrid, you can get a better price if your IP address is from Thailand. If you're planning to visit a lot of destinations in a region, flights won't be the best option most of the time, since you can save money and get to know the countryside by taking buses, trains. Trains are my favorite method of travel, as they are very smooth compared to buses and have much better scenery. To me, it's a bit less stressful than airports and being in a metal bird a mile above Earth. Trains vary by place. Europe has very good trains. Asia has great trains. Great, they're overcrowded. The United States has slowed trains, and India has an incredibly vast trade network. If you like trains to look up a trained network map for the region you are visiting. You could plan a journey completely by rail if you desire. But it depends where you're going. As some countries don't have any training at all. You can see all of the train routes in the world on Rome to Rio by clicking transport at the bottom of the math, train routes will appear in purple, buses in orange, and water routes in blue. Pretty cool, right? If you're looking for some more train info, seat 61.com has practical insights into railroads worldwide, including pictures, histories, and valuable insider perspectives. Buses. Buses can go more places than trains or planes. They can go pretty much anywhere. There is a road. And due to competition in most of the world, they're relatively cheap. Buses and bands can take you out of the city and into folklore, counts and cultures. One big step closer to nature. There are downsides. Buses are slow, they can meet poor road conditions. Some can be uncomfortable, though there are often different comfort options available for a bit more. Unlike a train, you will feel every little bump on the road and a bus plus abrupt stops and all the noises and smells of the highway. There are upsides to buses usually stop for Meals on long trips, giving you a chance to stretch your legs and refuel. There are much more relaxed about luggage and there's always the overnight bus, which can save you the cost of booking into a room for the night. But buses are not always bad. If the road conditions are good, you can travel very comfortably and safely. We took buses almost the entire way across South America and back. There's some good apps for booking buses. We use red bus in the countries where it's available and where it isn't available, there's usually a regional competitor. Or you can simply click the links you find on room to Rio. Boats and fairies. Often the only way to get somewhere is by boat or ferry. Boats can also be a more adventurous way to get the flyable destinations, assuming you can take a few days without Wi-Fi. For example, to get from Colombia to Panama, we were considering taking a sailboat, which even though it's more money and takes longer than a plane. It's a wonderful chance to stop at small idyllic islands in the Caribbean, swim with colorful fishes and relax. I also took a river boat to Iquitos, Peru, the largest city in the world you can't reach by road, which took four days. It let me connect to the river and the Jungle in a way that I wouldn't have been able to on a plane, usually boats or the long way. But they can also be a shortcut across rivers and bays as it was for us, crossing Marta Plata from Venice at age two out of lie short transit. Once you get to your major destination, you have the option to get around with public transit taxis, Buber's and took talks and more. This is something you'll have to get a feel for in each region of the world to see what's best for you. Though, I do recommend taking at least some public transit to immerse yourself in the experience of local life, Uber is usually the easiest option for us, especially when we have our luggage where Uber isn't available like here in Columbia, there are always other apps to hail arrive. Asked the locals what app they use. That's how we found out about an app called In driver that lets you offer which you want to pay and the drivers can accept your offer or negotiate. Also, if locals are using a particular app, there should be plenty of drivers and the best rates. Van life. Living in a van is super trendy these days. It's certainly solves the big issues of getting around and having a place to sleep. Vandalized also comes with a lot of preparation, investment, and potential complications. If you're thinking band life is for you, take the time to research and see if it's really the best fit for your lifestyle. And if it is, keep learning and listening to others already out there to ensure your journey is a smooth line. As far as comparing band life to other methods of transportation, having your own band isn't really the cheapest way to travel, as fuel costs are usually more than you would pay for a bus or train ticket. And sometimes even more than a plane ticket. Plus you have to pay tolls and the occasional unavoidable parking fee. There's also repairs, Wi-Fi considerations, navigation, and whether on the upside, they are the cheapest place to sleep. And you can sleep just about anywhere. On the way you can stop to investigate anything and everything that catches your fancy. Plus you can bring a lot more than you can carry on your back. This could be a desktop computer, art or recording studio, and even bikes, electric scooters and kayaks. Benz cars and RVs also opened up the opportunity to travel with pets, something that isn't easy. Otherwise. Bikes, if you're considering being a digital nomad and travelling on a bike, that's incredible. I'm sure you know way more about it than I do. So I will leave you to it. Legs. Okay, now that's just silly. But we have met travelers who get around mostly by legs. But there were not digital nomads and the legs part was usually out of necessity, not choice. Now that we reviewed the major ways to get around, let's look at some considerations to keep in mind when making a decision. Considerations. Cos, whatever mode of transport you choose, make sure you're getting the best balance of price and value, including comfort and time. Remember that when you travel slow, you spend less on transport and we'll have more time and money to enjoy each place. Time. Consider the total travel time, as well as the departure and arrival time compared to your check-in and check-out where you'll be staying and leaving from. It's really nice to arrive at a place and check right in. Otherwise, you may have to wait around. If we know we're going to be early. We asked the host if 20K to drop off our luggage and come back. They often say yes and sometimes say It's no problem to check in early amount of luggage. Planes are the biggest inhibitors of too much luggage. So if you can limit yourself to one carry-on bag and one check bag, your journey will be more affordable and easier on all of the many obstacles, like carrying your luggage up the steps and around the bus terminal. If you love handicrafts or souvenirs, also consider mailing your extra weight back home to your parents or friends. We've done this multiple times in multiple countries and it has never been a problem. Carrying delicate items. Don't expect your backpack or luggage to be handled lightly. So plan ahead by keeping your delicate items with you in your carry on day pack or in a hard case or wrapped in clothing in your main luggage? I have a studio microphone with me that I wrapped in a fixture and then stuff and my clothes in the middle of my backpack for extra protection, Comfort. One thing I learned early on is it's worth the extra five to ten bucks for a nicer seat on buses, ending up sore from sleeping on an uncomfortable seat, just to save a few dollars will cost you productivity and well-being in the long run. On planes, dropping hundreds more for a seat cushion you will sit in for four hours, probably isn't worth it. Weigh your comfort options and decide what's affordable and make sense for you. Sleeping. One benefit of overnight buses, trains, and flights is you get an extra day of travel without booking a place. Sleeping in transit is hardly ideal, but it has practical benefits. You usually end up earlier at your destination so you can handle your business in the daylight and then catch up on sleep the following night. Safety safety of self and possessions from accidents, harm, and theft. Usually this is not an issue, but regardless, you should always minimize your risk by keeping your fragile and expensive items in your carry-on and others tucked into the middle of your big luggage, protected with clothing and never on the outside pockets. Restrictions and political climate. As Covert has shown us, travel restrictions can catch us all off guard and derail plans. Not only that, protests can close roots entirely, global health and localized political climates can impact our ability to cross borders and how we travel. Keep an eye on these factors in the planning stages of your journey so they don't trip you up later on. This is another reason not to book too far in advance. Now that we've reviewed the major ways to get around and the things to consider when making our decision. I'd like to give you a few more final tips before we move on to the next stop. Final tips. Always take a picture of your ticket just in case you lose it and need to present it again. Also, don't lose your ticket and don't throw it away until the journey is completely over. If they give you any sort of paper when checking your bag in a bus trip, keep it as you'll need it to get your bag back. So far, every country has done this differently and stepping onto a bus for the first time in Brazil, I thought that the wax paper sticker backing was trash and tried to throw it away until the bus people saw me and stopped me. This sticker backing had the same number as the sticker which was connected to my backpack. Use your downtime plan to have things to do in long transit. I get a ton of work done on buses simply because I don't have Wi-Fi, because my options of work and my distractions are limited. I can focus on the tasks that I've been putting off for a long time. And finally, enjoy the sites. Don't forget to look out the window. In the last few lessons we covered the Nomad part of being a digital nomad. In the next few, we will cover the digital part, starting out with securing high-speed internet. Everywhere we go. Got your ticket. Let's go. Free apps like Wi-Fi finder offer map-based searches for free Wi-Fi worldwide.
10. Internet & Staying Connected: Let's look at all the things you need to know to be sure you have reliable internet while traveling. Internet and staying connected. Let's be real. The internet is the most important tool for a digital nomad. In general, big cities, especially on the coast, have great internet. Here. I'm barren, KIA, Columbia. We have add internet close to 200 megabits per second, download and upload speeds further away. And in small towns, especially the internet can be very slow. Sometimes in small towns the internet gets beamed in and everyone shares that same connection. If there's a storm, the internet can be out for the duration of the storm, sometimes longer if there's damage. In our journey, we found small towns and Bolivia to have the slowest internet speeds, often only two megabits per second. Download impossible uploads less than half a megabit per second, and connection areas that made uploading anything bigger than a picture impossible. To deal with this, we had to buy mobile internet packs, which gave us very fast Internet, costing just a few dollars. Mobile Internet can be a savior, but it's less than ideal. Mobile internet. Having a SIM card in the country you are traveling is a must. And best on shortly after arrival. A local sim is the cheapest way to get the Internet on the go. Plus, you'll need a phone number to do various things. And even if you run out of minutes, others can call you and you can receive texts. Purchasing a SIM card is different in each country, but usually accessible with a passport. In Peru, there are people on almost every corner who will sell you a SIM card for less than two US dollars and a data package for less than three. You should Google before you get there to see what the best carrier is. But fierce competition means that there probably isn't much difference between the biggest carriers anywhere you go. Don't overthink it. Buy a SIM card. Ask for the speed test. The only way to accurately judge internet speed is to do a speed test. There are several sites that do this for free. Don't be afraid to ask any place you are staying or considering to work in to do a speed test. Hospitals in hostels, internet is shared and you can tell it's often slow as multiple people may be using it. And often the hostile itself is streaming music. Well, this is fine for browsing. It may or may not work for video calls or uploading videos or other large files. One good thing is if the internet does go down, they will try to fix it quickly. There will already be somebody complaining to the desk person before you get there. Every time. Don't expect this at a hotel or Airbnb. Airbnb. We almost always stay an Airbnb. And we ask every single potential host for a speed test before we book. In big cities, it's rarely too slow, but you will see big differences in speed depending on what package the host has purchased. In small towns, everyone has pretty much the same speed. But you should always ask about the reliability of the connection. And cafes and restaurants. Cafe internet is a step above hostels and a step below most Airbnb eat. Don't be afraid to ask to speed test the internet before you order. It's not uncommon for the internet not to be working when they say it is. And then you have to enjoy your coffee while tapping on the table and then continue your search. There's another important concept related to Internet speeds. I want to bring up different parts of towns may have different internet speeds. Specifically, if it's an older part of town, it may not have the infrastructure for things like FIOS or even cable internet. So you're stuck with DSL at best. We encountered this in Quito, Ecuador, where every cafe we popped into in the Old Town area had slow internet. In general, newer section of town, faster internet, global Internet Options. Global unlimited Internet is super exciting to me. Anywhere you go in the world, as long as there's cell reception, you have wi-fi, no worrying about buying local Sims. Just step off the plane and connect. You can go with an international SIM card or a SIM free physical hotspot. I'll give you my top pick for each type, but there are plenty of options out there. Google phi is a rare international SIM card that offers unlimited international data. The catch is you must connect to a US cell tower once every six months or less. Or they'll shut down your international data. Plus, it's only open to US citizens. So far, the price is $60 for unlimited data. And if you use less than six gigabytes is just $10 a gig, you get 15 gigabytes of high-speed Internet a month before your speed gets throttled. This is an amazing deal. And if the citizenship and US touchdowns are for you, go for it. Sky Rome offers SIM free hotspots with unlimited data options and maybe the best option in its category. The unlimited data works as 24-hour or monthly passes, which caused nine or $99. The cool thing is, you can activate the packages exactly when you want, meaning if you time it right, you can basically get two days out of an unlimited day passed or at least a day, night and the following morning, the daily plan is throttled after one gigabyte and the monthly plan after 20 gigabytes. Data counter is reset in the next cycle. Sky room also offers a monthly plan that is a bit cheaper and charges you by the amount of data used. To use Sky Rome, you must purchase a router type unit that is around a 120 to $180, depending on which one you get. Overall sky room cost way more than a local sim wood for the same internet. But it's pretty cool to not have to buy a SIM card. And the reviews are mostly positive. Wi-fi finder Apps. Free apps like Wi-Fi finder offer map-based searches for free Wi-Fi worldwide. You can find passwords to connect to Wi-Fi from houses, restaurants, malls, and more. You can download the offline maps before you arrive at the next destination. The database is kept up-to-date with new editions from fellow users. Wi-fi map and we men are also popular options. Let's review. Let's go through the basic internet workflow. On a rival to a new country via local sim card with a bit of data on it just in case loaded up with more data when you need it. Ask the places you're considering to stay to do a speedtest. Don't trust it's fast. Also ask about the reliability, especially in small towns. If you're in a hostile or shared space, cafes and restaurants can be a great place to escape and work. Just make sure they have good internet before you order. Even in a big city, if you have the extra money and it will be switching countries often and just want to forget about the Internet issues in international SIM card with data or a SIM free hotspot can be a wonderful campaign. Alright, now that we're all connected, let's look at some gadgets and services that we can use to take our digital nomad life to the next level. If your computer has an HDMI port, you could usually hook it up to the TV where you're staying for an extra monitor.
11. Managing a Digital Life: Without the digital, You're just a nomad. Managing a digital life. As you build your online presence and business, you will have an increasing amount of files to deal with depending on what your work is, this can present a serious concern. You want to be sure your important visual files aren't going anywhere, including your work files and your personal pictures and videos. You'll also need to protect your hardware. But if something does happen to your laptop, phone, camera, harddrive, et cetera, your backups will make it a problem that can be solved with money, not a career altering catastrophe. The only dependable solution for your files is cloud storage. I recommend keeping all of your important files in one folder that is automatically sync with a free cloud solution like Dropbox or Google Drive. If you sign up with one of these, you'll be given a folder on your computer that you can put anything into, and it will always be automatically sinking to the cloud anytime you have wifi. If you keep your working files like your Illustrator or Photoshop documents and you're renders your contracts, your papers, and any sort of code you may be writing in this folder. You will never have to worry about losing it or even manually backing it up ever again. Never lose travel photos on your phone. You can use Google photo to get unlimited free backups of photos from your phone. Really unlimited, as many as you can take. You can keep. Just download the Google photo app on your phone, enables sinking over Wi-Fi only. And remember to open Google Photos and tab backup when you hit a fast Wi-Fi patch. Google will shrink your photos to 4K and compress them. It also compresses your videos. If you backup your full quality images on a physical Dr. still back them up on Google Photo just in case if you do want to keep your folk quality photos and videos in Google Drive, it will count against your free 15 gigabytes storage quota. So let's explore some more cloud storage options. Free cloud storage. Google Drive offers 15 gigabytes for free. Mega offers 15 gigabytes to, and you can earn up to 50 gigabytes with referrals. Pi Cloud gives you ten gigabytes. Apple's iCloud offers five gigabytes. Microsoft's OneDrive offers five gigabytes, and Dropbox offers a measly two gigabytes. You can earn up to 18 gigabytes via referrals. If you need to send large files anywhere, even China, you can use PI Cloud transferred to send up to five gigabytes at once for free without a PI Cloud account. It's a really useful tool. But keep in mind, p cloud will delete these files after one week. So it's not a cloud storage hack. There's really no reason you can't sign up for multiple free accounts and store files away like a squirrel, though, if that sounds confusing, you could just pay for a single solution with your favorite provider. Paid cloud storage. When free solutions aren't enough, you'll have to cough up five or $10 a month for a terabyte or two of data. There are plenty of options and the prices are comparable. So it's usually best to go with what you already are using and enjoy. External hard drives. Although external hard drives and you ISPs don't offer the guarantees of cloud storage. They are faster and cheaper in the long run, and they're essential for backing up photos and videos from your camera in areas where the Wi-Fi is slow and just working on your laptop, if you're like me, and your laptop has a, a 128 gigabytes solid state drive. Why Apple? Why? Hdmi? If your computer has an HDMI port, you could usually hook it up to the TV where you're staying for an extra monitor. If you're on a Mac, you can buy a converter online for just a few dollars, which will unlock this option for you. I have a converter for my Mac, and I have done this several times, but not as many times as I thought I would, simply because it's rare, a TV is within two meters of a workable table still I think my convertor is easily worth a little bit of space and weight. And it does come in handy to watch movies when my Chromecast won't connect to the Wi-Fi network and the TV can't read the file format on the USB. Which brings us to the next tip. Chromecast, fire stake, acoustic, et cetera. Having a device that can plug into any TV can be really convenient, allowing you to watch YouTube Gaia or throw any browser tab on a TV without wires. Get one before you leave and you will never regret it. Cameras. If you're planning on buying a new camera for your trip, you may be happier with the smaller one. If you aren't planning a career related to photo or video, using a GoPro in combination with your phone's camera can be a wonderful solution to document your travels and not break your bank or your back. We did this for awhile and even phone three courses with just a GoPro before we got our DSLR. I love our DSLR because it's tiny light and shoots for k and came with a travel case. That travel case is absolutely essential and I couldn't imagine living without it. If you buy one of the bundles that comes with the camera, a case, and an extra battery. You'll be very happy that you did laptop. Your laptop is your workstation as a digital nomad. It should be light, have a good battery, and the processing power you need, and you should love it and treat it well. Having a laptop sleeve in your small backpack is definitely a plus. Other accessories. Some other things that are likely going to make your life easier are a USB power bank, possibly solar, a small drawing tablet like a whack them. If you're an artist, a durable phone case, a good bluetooth speaker, a drone. If video is part of your life of physical Wi-Fi hotspot is questionable, as most phones can do that for you. Just throw it in here because it's something I thought I needed, but I actually didn't. Oh, yeah. And having good in-ear headphones that are sleepin up to sleeping. So definitely not. Air pods will save your life. And noisy buses shows me so hard on this one. Vpn. Having a VPN is super-useful when traveling abroad. Certain websites in your home country won't work if you have a foreign IP. For example, I can't login to my health insurance website in Colombia. That will save you a lot of trouble if you can switch your servers to just about any country. A common feature of most VPNs, some YouTube videos, music, and other media will be blocked because of distribution licensing. So you can avoid these problems to a good VPN should be around 20 to $40 a year max. Securing your gear. Ideally, all of your text off should fit into a small day pack, which is your carry on on airplanes and buses. This way, when you travel, you can keep all your valuables with you at all times and not worry about your big bag in the bottom of the bus or the back of the airplane as much, Whatever you do, don't store anything valuable in the easily openable pockets on the outside of your backpack. Anyone can just reach in and steal your stuff. Or you can do like I did and use a Caribbean or to lock it down. Okay, so now that we have our gadget game on point, let's look at the most useful apps and websites that will save your digital nomad lights. Anyone can create a slack workspace for free. So we decided to create one to organize our projects and send files and messages to facilitate our work.
12. Life-saving Apps & Websites: In this day and age, there are so many apps and websites designed to make your travel life a little easier. We want to show you our favorites. Life-saving apps and websites. Translation and communication apps. Google Translate. Google Translate lets you download languages to use offline, so you're never without a translator. It also offers text-to-speech, which can be a big help when you're trying to communicate with older folks with failing eyesight. You can also decipher and translate text from an image. So you can take a picture of a sine and see what it says. This feature will require an internet connection. Whatsapp. We use WhatsApp everyday to talk to our families and friends. Outside the United States, WhatsApp is the most used application for text messaging and can also do voice and video calls and audio picture and video messaging. It's great to keep in contact with new local friends from around the world and with our host from Airbnb, we can send pictures, videos, and Boyce and use the shared live location feature when we have trouble finding our accommodation. Soon. Although you can make video calls with WhatsApp for free as well, Zoom does a better job to keep a steady connection when the internet is low. Plus, you can talk to many people at once, whether we use it for work or to talk with the family, the quality of video is usually superior and it works through desktop or mobile. Unlike what's app where you can only make video calls or a smartphone. Slack. Slack is a desktop and mobile application that my girlfriend and I use every day. A lot of freelancers use Slack to keep in touch with the organizations or communities they work with. In our case, we use it for a different purpose. Anyone can create a slack workspace for free. So we decided to create one to organize our projects and send files and messages to facilitate our day-to-day life and work. Slack allows us to create multiple channels so we can organize information for our next trips. Store favorite pictures, share recipes we've found online and write our own recipes. So we don't forget, there's plenty of cool add-ons like Jiffy. So you can send just the people. You know, the important stuff. Slack has a limit of five gigabytes of storage for free. After that limit, you have two options. You can delete the heavy files like videos and zips or pay a monthly fee. But five gigabytes is a lot. That has been two years. And we're still using the free version. And we only had to clean house once. We highly recommended to keep everything organized and in one place. Learning a language. There are so many apps to learn a new language. Some are very good, some are fun, but don't teach you much. Some are free, some are paid, but they all are better than doing nothing. Because there's so many we're just going to cover are personal favorites. It's best not to depend on any language learning up to teach you a language, just like Microsoft's flight simulator won't teach you to fly an actual plane, but it will help. And it's a productive use of time spent in short transit or waiting in lines. Drops. Drops works with a swipe, right swipe left functionality, matching words with images and writing the rightward based on splits syllables. They're usually simple words according to the language you pick and the level you start with. It's really fun to learn and they have a free version for five minutes every day. It's a very practical app to learn only words and short expressions. Duolingo. Duolingo is a fun way to brush up on the basics of the language, but not a good tool to go deeper. It was my first language AB, and I had a lot of fun playing, but in the end, I didn't learn much. If you're a complete beginner wanting to grasp only the basics of a language. It's a good and gameified way to learn. Close masters. Close not source is one of the rare language apps that I actually felt was teaching me a lot at a good pace. You pick the right word in the context of a sentence. There's no hand-holding or clicking the word for Apple 15 times. If you start on Duolingo, jump over to close masters when it starts to feel too easy. Spanish dict. For those interested in learning Spanish. Spanish, Dick, is the hands down absolute best tool to learn the language. They have a Spanish to English dictionary accessible offline with examples, regional use and contextual information. You can also type the phrase that you want translated and receive three different translations in case nobody understands you the first time. The best part is the conjugation tables, which are very useful to learn all the tenses of thousands of Berg's. The grammar section is also great, along with the pronunciation feature, which does require the internet. They also have a vocabulary game that makes you type out the word and is very forgiving. It's simple and one of the best teachers when you are past the beginner phase. Travel and transport. Google Maps. Google Maps is the most popular and useful app for exploring the world. Every time we traveled to a different location, we download the offline maps in advance for the city or even the entire region we are heading to. This allows us to move around without having Wi-Fi to save our accommodation location and label the places we plan to visit. Google Maps is full overviews and pictures. It's a great tool to find hidden spots or national parks that don't normally attract much tourist attention or are not popular enough to appear on TripAdvisor. Many times we have found incredible places by exploring the map around our area. One example was our trip to match allele, a national park in Ecuador. While everybody was entertained with Monte Nita and Galapagos, we found this place on Google Maps and it was totally worth it. We were very surprised when we realized we were surrounded by palo santo trees and found some unique landscapes and pristine beaches. Maps dot maps.me is another great tool for getting around. Unlike Google Maps, map stop me uses data from OpenStreetMap, meaning the map is based on community source data. Anyone can freely edit and contribute to the map. A similar concept to Wikipedia. Because of this, maps.me is often better to find small hiking trails and other places that don't have roads if you love adventure, this app is the way to go. You can also download maps on Maps me for offline use. Rome to real. Room to Rio is essential when planning our next stop. It allows us to select a destination and see a list of transport options available for each stop along the way. It tells you the cost for each transportation option and includes links to book tickets for the bus companies, trains, fairies, and flights. Map not only has the standard map view, it also contains the ability to overlay all trains, buses, and very routes. So you can use this information to make broad travel decisions. Like, what region of the world should I visit if I wanted to take trains to hallway? Bitmaps. Bitmaps is a crowdsourced neighborhood map to navigate cities around the world. It gives us an overview of what kinda urbanite is most likely to be found in different neighborhoods of a city. The categories are hipster nor armies suits, tourists, uni, and rich. It gives us a bit of a feel for what's happening where you won't find on a normal map. And since anyone can label areas, it can be pretty funny to browse. Food and entertainment. Trip Advisor. Tripadvisor is a great tool to find the best option for the type of diet we have. Especially when we are in a country with a totally different food culture that provides us with a lot of reviews for different restaurants from different points of view. We'd love to work in cafes. So we usually check the comments about the quality of Wi-Fi first and then decide where to go. It's perfect to find information on touristic destinations and small attractions that don't require a tour agency. Youtube premium. Now hear me out. You're probably already pay for Spotify or a similar service just for music. Well, YouTube now does that. Plus it has all of YouTube. You can watch all of your videos without ads. And you have the option to download videos on your phone so you can watch them without an internet connection. Youtube Music is included, so you can download music too. It's great for traveling long distances since you can download those long deep house mixes to work to comedy specials when you're feeling down, affirmations, full albums, and also educational tutorial videos. Work and internet. Work from. Work from is a crowdsource global network of cafes, co-working spaces, restaurants, and even bars with the work friendly vibe. The site shares information that is especially useful for digital nomads like us. Just set a location and the filters you want to start searching. The map will show you select places that have been screened for this type of work. You can find information like how many power outlets they have, how fast the Wi-Fi is, and if they have good or bad food, tea and coffee, you can check for outdoor work areas, what type of seating they have available and much more. You can also see pictures of the vibe from fellow nomads. Speedtest.net. Speed test measures wifi speed. Whenever we need to upload heavy files and don't have good internet at home. We go to restaurants or cafes. And before reorder, we speed test. If it's not good, we go somewhere else. We also ask potential Airbnb hosts to do a speed test for us and send us the screenshot. This is crucial as nearly every host will tell you it's fast and it isn't always fast. In conclusion, there are a ton of apps out there, and these are just our favorites. Explore the web to see what else you can find. And if you find something good, please start a discussion on this lesson so others can discover it as well. We didn't want to repeat ourselves, so we left out the apps we already mentioned in the other lessons like Airbnb and hostile world, et cetera, et cetera. Also remember that there are websites listed in the spreadsheet that we introduced in the finding your perfect income less. Now that we've got our phone maxed out on apps, in the next lesson, I'll share some tips for having a great time without breaking the budget. We have visited tons of national parks without a guide or tour. Now because of the price, but because we preferred to go their own pace.
13. Having Fun on Any Budget: You didn't become a digital nomad because you love computers. You did it because you wanted to expand your horizons, experienced nature, culture and climate, and most importantly, have a ton of fun along the way. Having fun. Each new pin on your map opens up opportunities to meet new people, explore new spaces, and to do things you've never done before. We know you'll probably be on a budget starting out. So let's talk about some free, cheap and flexible ways to have fun. Freeways, to have fun. Go to the park. Relax, take off your shoes and spend a few hours observing the details of life around you. Open your senses to the smells, the colors, the sounds, and the locals interactions go into real nature. Most of the time, there are forests or hiking areas nearby that you can access for free. Pack a picnic, and enjoy the landscapes and scenery of each destination. You can also scoop out waterfalls and swimming holes on Google Maps. Visit free attractions. We'd love museums and we always find a lot of them for free. Many paid museums also have a day or two a week that they are free to visit. But depending on your destination, you can have infinite options to explore. For example, colonial houses, astronomy centers, monuments, natural features and more experienced culture, local markets. Instead of going to a supermarket as your first stop, this at a bustling local market. Here you can find seller's offering all kinds of fruits and vegetables that are native to the region. You'll find exotic foods, small restaurants selling local cuisine and friendly people who will be happy to show you fruits you've never seen before. Seek out fares. If you're lucky, you can find organic fairs where farmers sell directly to you. These growers enjoyed talking about what they're planning and anything else. Plus, it's always good to support local organic farmers. Carnivals. Join in the celebration. Carnivals are full of cultural experiences, music, people of all ages dancing, parades, parties, masks, and costumes. Release your inhibitions by dancing to a foreign rhythm and have the Tommy or light. We had a wonderful time celebrating and dancing with the locals by joining into small block parties at barren key is Carnival, the sheer. National holidays. During these times there are usually parades, lots of fairs, music events, expositions, and so much more. It's a great opportunity to follow the vibe and enjoy the energy of the day. A free walking tours. Join free city walking tours during the first days of your arrival. These tours help you get oriented in an unfamiliar city. Scope outs on photo ops. Learn a bit about the history of the city and maybe make some new friends to you're expected to leave a tip. So this is technically a low budget option. Volunteer for a good cause. If you have some extra time, consider volunteering for worthwhile projects when traveling. Not only is it a very rewarding experience, but you often learn more about the country and its people and make new friends. Low budget ideas. Visit national parks by yourself. We have, as did tons of national parks without a guide or tour. Now because of the price, but because we prefer to go at our own pace, can meditate and connect to nature in a more meaningful way. It's always better to research about the area before. So you're prepared to learn more during the actual experience. Research the route you need to take and read some reviews of past travelers, which are often more practical than the official publications. Pack your own food and remember not to throw food trash like banana peels, the wild as they may affect the bio. Head out early to avoid the crowds and set a solid intention for your trip. Low budget tours. You may find some good deals in certain places, but never book online. It's never the best price. Wait until you arrive and negotiate with local agencies to see which one has more to offer. After they tell you the price, Don't feel bad to ask for a discount. Sometimes the agencies will tell you a higher price because they expect people to haggle. They may also give you a great price. If they have empty seats, they need to be filled quickly. Or if you're booking as a group, your budget is very small. Don't worry. You may be able to help out in some way and exchange or make some kind of trade. Onetime while carrying home of fresh Maki Mahi from the market, someone offered us a snorkeling tour in exchange for preparing some civility for them. When they found out my girlfriend was Peruvian, We didn't do it, but it is crazy how many possibilities there are out there? Eat the local food, visits some restaurants, or even try street food. You could ask local people for recommendations or simply pick the vendors with the biggest lines of people. The food is cheap and you get a taste of culture included in the price. By exotic foods. Seek out dishes, fruits, vegetables, and other foods only available in the area. Visiting a local market is the best place to find a good price. Sometimes there are people in the street selling exotic fruits to. Here in Columbia. We tried mangas Tino for the first time and we loved it. Flexible budget ideas. Taking tours. Depending on the destination that tour agencies can offer you very unique experiences. Especially when they take you to places that you aren't allowed to go buy yourself. Tours make these experiences possible and are often the only way to do certain things, like going to certain sections of the jungle or anything involving the boat. They take out the thinking, planning, uncertainty and stress. So all you have to do is have a good time. You can check out Adventure tours, jungle expeditions, whale watching and so on. Check out what tours are available where you are. You may be surprised at how affordable they are. Visit at least five different tours agencies. So you know what your options are and what's best for you and your budget. Paying for an experience. Apps like Airbnb now have a list of local experiences you can book for certain destinations. You can find dancing classes, cooking classes, pottery classes, craft classes, sculpture classes, and pretty much anything else you can imagine. Every country has certain things they are known for and local experiences maybe your best shot to get an in-depth understanding of an important aspect of a certain culture. There are plenty more activities that you will find out by yourself while traveling. I invite you to visualize all of these amazing experiences for your journey. I wanted to share some tips that will help you adopt the mind state that makes travel easier and more rewarding. Keep an open mind. It's more difficult to have fun if you're focusing your attention on judging the lifestyles or customs of others for being different than your own. Embrace different possibilities, opinions, religions, customs and inches. Ask questions and you don't have to agree with everyone. But you may be surprised what you learn from the people you meet during your travels. If something you see in another person or culture makes you react in voluntarily with a negative thought or feeling. Investigate the root of that discomfort within yourself and give yourself the opportunity to address it, let it go and grow. Ditch the plan. If something or someone fun pops up, don't be afraid to ditch your original plan and roll with it. Trust your gut and feel good times before they happen and let that feeling guide you. If you're stuck choosing between two paths, close your eyes and imagine you made a decision. Feel how that fields. Then. Imagine you made the other decision and feel how that feels. Picking the best feeling has never failed me once, but my mind has many types. Let the moment flow. Perhaps you're used to being places at time, but you don't have to be a places at time anymore except if you have a ticket or torque. So there's no need to worry or rush to the next thing. Let your conversations and your experiences play out fully to their natural conclusion. You never know what topic may come up. If you keep talking to an interesting person for just a minute more, it could change your whole day or even your whole life. Document your trips. Besides taking photos and videos, we picked up a notebook to document each destination we have visited with drawings, pictures, clippings from brochures and more. We write down some fragments of memories that bring us right back to the places we visited. Once in awhile. We look back at it and have fun reminiscing on our many adventures within our adventures. In the end, keeping your work and play in balance is the key to a successful life. Whether or not you're traveling, work hard to, you can't wait to play and play heart. So you can't wait to take a break to work. If you can find this balance, you have unlocked the key to a digital nomad lifestyle that never has to end. In the next lesson, we will review the final considerations related to safety, health, Finding Love on the road, and clear up any lingering doubts you may have. Call your bank and credit card companies before you travel to tell them which countries you're going to be visiting.
14. Practical Considerations: In this lesson, we'll go over the tips and tricks that didn't fit into any of the other lessons. These tips will help your journey goes smoother and further. Practical considerations. Staying safe on the road. Travel insurance. Travel insurance provides protection from certain risks when traveling, including, but not limited to medical theft and payments in case of flight gets delayed. These benefits vary by plan and are often geared towards short-term travelers more than digital nomads. Read the conditions and limitations carefully before choosing a plan. There are also credit cards that include travel accident insurance, which covers many of the same things that travel insurance covers, including baggage delays, trip cancellations, and even more serious things like accidental death or dismembering. But remember, you are only covered when you book with that credit card. You may not need to purchase travel insurance if you choose a credit card geared towards travelers with these benefits. Medical considerations. If you need emergency medical service, you're not going to have much choice. But if you need a semi elective or elective procedure, it's best to do your research. Certain countries are specialized in certain procedures and it will have skilled doctors at a fraction of the cost. Emergency tools. Ice. In case of emergency. Iphones and Androids lets you set some ice contacts and information that others can see without unlocking your phone. Panic button apps. Absolutely be safe, allow you to make a list of contacts. They will notify if you hit the panic button, which can also be triggered by speech. The app will then contact these people and stream audio and video of what is happening to send to them, as well as recorded on the app servers. Survival Guide. If you're going on a solar trek with no guide, be sure you're well-informed. The offline Survival Guide by Leakey is an app contain basic survival skills including building shelters, recognizing poisonous plants, and basic field medicine. Staying healthy on the road. Don't let the bed bugs, but do your best to avoid bed bugs, which are real concern while traveling. Keep an eye out for any mention of them when you read hostile reviews, Especially if you catch bed bugs, you'll have to go through a process to get rid of them as they will hide in your clothes and follow you around if you don't. Stay hydrated. Keep a bottle of some water or infusion near you at all times when you're out. Those insulated bottles can be great. Balance your diet. Keep a tally on what you're consuming and at what time. Shovel may be irregular, especially if you're moving fast. Control your diet by cooking your own meals. Begins and vegetarians, specific diets can be handled very well if you cook your own food, it can be problematic trying to maintain a strict vegan diet in many places just by relying on restaurants, exercise, learn some exercises you can do anywhere without equipment. There are plenty of yoga, tai chi qi and workout videos on YouTube. Mind and spirit help stay aligned with your truth and give your mind plenty of positive feelings and visuals to focus on and bring into your reality. Meditation can be a great practice to balance any chaotic energy you may encounter. Staying wealthy on the road. Make a monthly budget. From day one of your travels. Keep notes on what money you are spending, where look at what percentage of your budget is going to the different areas we talked about in the finance lesson, food, lodging, travel, and everything else. And make changes accordingly. Call your bank. Call your bank and credit card companies before you travel to tell them which countries you're going to be visiting. If you don't, your bag may not allow any transactions or ATM withdrawals abroad and they block your card thinking that transactions are fraudulent. Getting local currency. The best way to get cash is usually by taking money out of an ATM using your debit card. Look online to see which banks in the country have 0 ATM fees for foreigners. If there are no ATMs with 0 fees, take special note of the highest amount you can take out and figure out what's the most money you can get out at the cheapest price. Rewards programs, sometimes called travel hacking. There is a whole community dedicated to using frequent flyer miles, loyalty programs, and credit card travel reward programs to score free plane tickets and more. Keeping Social over distance. Connect with other digital nomads. You can meet up with fellow digital nomads to share some good times and also learn from each other. We mentioned nomad lists earlier in the course as a way to check the cost of living. But you could also see other nomads that are currently or will soon be in each city. You could message and connect with anyone on the site. There are also digital nomad groups on Reddit, Facebook, slack, and more. Go on a date. Dating in a foreign country has never been easier thanks to dating apps, but don't miss out on the real life opportunities. Meet strangers with similar interests everywhere you'd go. A local weather, a friend or a romantic interest can help you experience their country in a whole new way and open your eyes to many things you may have missed, as well as many new ways to live which you may not have known. That's it, my friend. Now that I've told you everything I know about being a digital nomad. Let's review the total travel workflow in the next lesson. This will give you actionable steps you can use to blast off on your journey. Let's go through our full transition from stationary life, that digital nomad, step-by-step.
15. Your Assignment: Plan your Adventure: Selecting a location, Part two, class project, planning and adventure. Let's go through selecting a location for our journey. This can be our first leg or a subsequent leg of our digital nomad light class project. You're going to plan out a leg of your journey, whether it's the first leg or something distant in the future. Follow along with me as I share with you the process I went through in planning a ski trip in Europe. But not just the ski trip, a digital nomad ski trip. You'll find a Project Template attached to this class which you can download and fill out. And then when you're done, upload it to the class project section, even if your leg of the journey is much warmer and sunnier, you'll still learn something by watching me plan my wintery adventure. For me, my biggest considerations are budget and I went to ski for six days at each place. To keep it simple, I'm only going to do two different ski resorts. My starting ski resort and my destination ski resort. The first thing I did was look at various articles online to figure out where I could ski well, cheaply. After surfing around. I've found this article which tells you exactly how much it costs for six days of skiing. I picked out the destinations that all had six days ski passes under $200.1 in Romania when in Bulgaria, one insult mania and one in the French pyramids. Because budget was a big concern and for me, cost of living was the most important factor. So the first thing I did was go to nomad list.com and check out the cost of living at the major city closest to the ski resort. I found out that Romania, as well as Bulgaria had much lower costs of living. And France were Slovenian by almost $1000. Why? Because Slovenia and France both used the euro, which means that prices are a lot higher. So I decided that my journey should start at one of these destinations, go to the other destination. And I would mark off Slovenia and the French peer entities for a different trip. The next thing I did was look at the cost of flight because I need to know what's better to fly into Romania or Bulgaria. I plan to be leaving from Mexico City because I'm currently in plateau Carmen, Mexico. I found out that both flights had Turkish airline tickets, which were literally almost exactly the same amount. And they both came with two check bags. But I also found out that flying into Busan, Romania has many cheaper options, as low as $375 luggage. So there's a chance, depending on what I ran, I could figure out how to make it a lot cheaper to fly into Romania. I'd tentatively planned to go there first. Next though, I looked out the tourist visa requirements, the CIA, but even made sense to go there. And I found out that luckily, you do not need a visa for staying under 90 days and even more, luckily, you don't need any vaccinations to visit either one of these, which probably isn't much of a concern in Europe. But some places you do need a vaccination. That's all well and good. So the next thought is the seasons. Well, I know it has to be winter. I thought best to go forward powder skiing in February in Romania and then spring scheme and my second stop in Bulgaria. Now thinking about demand, it will probably be high season for skiing in Romania in February. But once I get to Bulgaria in April, is probably not as many people skiing. So I do want to make sure I book Romania as quickly as possible. And since I'm going there first, I should know exactly what dates I need a book. Then I can move the my way down to bore vets in Bulgaria and book a place when I get clips. Next, go ahead and look at my travel options. How am I going to get from piano or solve in Romania two orbits in Bulgaria. So I hopped over to Rome, to Rio. And I found out that since I loved trains, there is a chain option for about $450. Now if I'm tight on money, I can take buses, although I don't know exactly how much that's going to cost because all of their options have liked this crazy $100 taxi where this crazier $4 thousand BUS shuttle, which obviously is not going to be part of my plans. But now that I know the bus routes and the train routes, I can start to plan my possible stops along the way. So I made a tentative schedule that fits into my 90 day requirements in each country. I'm going to fly into Persol. I'm gonna go skiing employee number solve for about a week, maybe stay another week if I like it. And I'm gonna go back to personify, chill a little bit, go to Bucharest, get some work done, and then hop on a train, go to Sofia, gets some more work done, wait for it to warm up a little bit. And I'm going to visit a small-town semicolon, ASU and Bulgaria, a lot closer to the ski resort. Then we're going to end up at four orbits where I'll spend another week or two scheme. And then off to Sofia, Bulgaria where I'll probably get on a plane, lie somewhere else. Now before we finalize anything, we do want to look at the climate. I found out that the climate was quite agreeable FOR scheme February employer on ever solve we have highs of 40 to sixties almost every day or five to 15 degrees celsius. And once I get to bore events in April, it should be nice and warm for spring scheme, the landscapes. So my journey are going to be beautiful mountains. And I decided to pick small and large cities. Sang in three small cities include new ski resorts and three big cities. Along my journey. To get an idea about the economics, I looked into how the currency had changed in the past year. I found out that the US dollar went down compared to local currency for both places. 1% in Bulgaria and 7% in Romania. But this isn't much different to how's the US dollar feared against the euro. So there's no red flags there. Next, I looked at if these countries have a lot of English-speaking people. And I found out that Romania has 31% English figures and Bulgaria has 25%. There's aren't huge numbers. So I'm going to want to make sure I study up on key phrases for getting off the plane. Last, I looked at Airbnb to see what kind of places I could book. And I found out that there are a ton of places everywhere rose thinking of staying except for one place. And that one place is one of the most important. It's the first ski resort town. Employ Yana resolved. There's only two or three places that meet my budgetary requirements that are actually in the ski town. So I'm going to want to book those right now. But that's okay because I know exactly when I'm going to be there. Now there are plenty more places in the main town. But I don't want to try to commute every day just to go ski. Luckily, in more events where I'll be ending up, there are dozens of places, including apartments right near the lifts for just $30 a night. But I should still book those as soon as I know when I'm going to be there. All right, guys. That's it. We are ready to go skiing in Europe. While this may be a lot different than the journey you're planning to Southeast Asia or South America or the Caribbean, you can use these steps to get you started on your research. So you feel a lot more comfortable heading off on your journey. Now it's your turn to fill out the template with where you're going to be going. Once you're done, please share it as a project on this skill share class so we can all be a part of your journey. If you have any questions or run into any difficulties along the way, I'll be happy to answer any questions you post on his Scotia class. Now that we know where we're going, let's look at all of our options on finding a place to stay. This greatly affects your ability to book whole houses and apartments at an affordable price per person. The more the merrier.
16. Total Travel Workflow: Let's go through our full transition from stationary life, that digital nomad, step-by-step. Total travel workflow. Work on limiting beliefs. Explore the limiting beliefs you have, and replace them with expanding beliefs. One way to ease your travel-related limiting beliefs is to watch travel videos on YouTube that will show you that people are doing this. And you can to get the apps. Downloading apps on your phone is a small but important step in the right direction. When you catch yourself mindlessly scrolling Social Media, stop and hop over to a language app or start looking at possible routes on room to Rio. And looking at Airbnb is in the region you are considering. Work towards financial freedom. Take everything from the lessons on income and finance into consideration and build a plan that works for you. If you need to start saving, start saving. If you don't have a credit card, it's probably a good idea to get one aimed at Travelers, which doesn't have international feats. If you plan to build a passive income, now is the time. And don't just start with one income stream, start with 35 or even ten streams. Then cut back and focus on the ones that are working for you. Make time to invest into these streams by cutting out that toxic and time draining people and activities in your life. If you plan on working a new remote job or developing a business, get started as soon as possible. It's best to begin long before departing or cutting off any current streams of income. To be sure you can get extra income in a pinch, test out an online active income using your skills. This could be freelancing, consulting, or anything else. It gets easier to complete a type of job after you've done one. So you start gaining experience. That way when you take a job on the road, you'll be competent in your ability to complete it well and on-time. Pick your first destination. Remember when we talked about planning more of a region or route you would like to take, then a single destination. Now is the time. Look into your options and read the travel blogs of fellow digital nomads, starting in South America or Southeast Asia can be a good idea, since say, a very low cost of living and our tourists friendly. Plus, you'll find wonderful nature and climate. Plan. Your date. Your departure date should align with the big things in your life, the end of your lease, current work obligations, et cetera. Also considered the season where you plan to start your journey. Buy your tickets, pick up your plane or bus tickets about six weeks in advance for the best price. Book your first day. Figure out where you'll be staying so you can land and hop in a taxi. Pack your bags. The last step is to pack and repack your bags. The repack is to be sure you aren't forgetting anything or packing things you don't really neat. Start living. Your now a digital nomad. Now, all that's left is to live, adapt, and grow into your new lifestyle. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask. I'll be happy to answer to the best of my abilities. And your questions may help other students as well. I want to leave you with this idea. Abundance is the ability to do what you need to do when you need to do it.
17. Congrats & Happy Travels!!: Congratulations, you now have the knowledge, tools, and motivation to start your digital nomad. Like, I want to thank you for taking this course and for taking the decision to break away from what society has fed you and instead open your heart and your life to this incredible planet we're all a part of, I'm grateful every day to experience life on earth and to observe and learn from each plant, animal, person and place. No amount of money, no prestigious position, no fancy car, house or neighborhood could ever replace the feeling of connecting with somewhere new and not just through a glass, but to be a living part of that place, to express your energy and see what comes back. I have so much learning to do. Having significantly covered just one continent. I plan to keep exploring for a long time and I hope we bump paths somewhere along the way so we can share stories, swap ideas, and co-create in new ways. I want to leave you with this idea. Abundance is the ability to do what you need to do when you need to do it. A few times in history, have so many people had so much abundance, but that abundance is easily sacrificed for comfort and to fight the fear of not having enough. I encourage you to drop the fear and step outside of your comfort zone. Not just to discover the world, but to discover who you are. Because I believe we are all the universe and within us, we housed infinite potential. Thank you for taking this course, and I welcome any questions you may have. If you'd like to stick around curly, and I would love to show you some clips from our coast-to-coast and back journey through South America. Enjoy yourself out there. Well, Goenka. Waterfall as far as the eye can see. And then we go up into the water. And by the way, and the conclusion is, should we be just one slip reasonable across to me? Okay? Okay. Okay.
Douglas Butner, Teacher of Nomadism, Art, Music, Code
