Here’s a surefire way of knowing you’re in the company of digital nomads: they’ll eagerly tell you, without coaxing or persuasion, how they structure their day.
“We get up early so that we can be in contact with our UK staff while we work. Sometimes we’ll go to a wifi cafe with our laptops, and sometimes we’ll just stay in the apartment. By about midday we’re done with work. So we’ll go on a little excursion of some sort – go shopping, see the sights, go to a local event – and then at about 4pm we’ll hang out by the pool reading our books for a couple of hours. Then your mum has an exercise class, and then we’ll have dinner. At home of course: we’re not tourists who can go out for dinner every night.”
That’s my dad. Two weeks ago he and my mum flew to Sarasota for seven weeks, to test out the whole “digital nomad way of life”. I wrote about them when they made the decision at the start of the year.
My dad’s company has salespeople selling wedding rings to customers in their homes. He and my mum do all the business management stuff, and they figured they could do it from anywhere. So they’re running their business from Sarasota, while simultaneously seeing if there’s a market for it in the States.
So far, so awesome. Aside from the odd minor hiccup (like when a certain ring went AWOL for a while), everything’s running pretty smoothly back in the UK office. And to test the market over in Florida, my parents have been busy exhibiting at wedding shows, where they make at-home appointments with brides-to-be – just like their salespeople do in the UK.
Petrified, much?
Before they left the UK, my parents were pretty darn apprehensive. They’re used to living in a huge house, rotating between seven wardrobes full of clothes, socialising practically every night with friends, and enjoying the ease that goes with being in the same community for so long: knowing the layout of the supermarket, having insider knowledge on the best places to park, visiting the same doctor for years… all the easy stuff that’s made us rethink the whole digital nomad way of life from time to time.
In Sarasota, they’d be living in a tiny (by their standards) two-bedroom apartment. They’d have no friends there, and they’d know zilch about the local amenities.
They were so freaked out that before they even left, they started planning an early return to the UK.
And now?
“We really don’t need much space. It’s amazing. We love our little apartment – it’s the perfect size for us. We’re thinking of selling the house now… we’re on Rightmove every bloody day trying to find an apartment in the UK that’d be perfect for us.”
“We have so much STUFF in our house. When we get home, we’re ordering a skip and we’re going to chuck loads of it out.”
“I live in the same six t-shirts.”
“It’s just the two of us, but it’s fun! And we saw relatives yesterday, and your mum’s always on the phone to friends.”
Writing their own script
My parents took close to three billion suitcases with them to the States. (To be fair to them, they did have to take out loads of work-related stuff like sample wedding rings and exhibition stands.) A limo drove them from the airport to their apartment. There’s a doorman in the building. Their hire car is nowhere near close to the cheapest option. I’m going to guess they don’t buy any “own brand” items from the supermarket.
They’re still not quite sure of the difference between Internet Explorer and Chrome. They’ve only recently heard of Tripit. They get in a fumble every time they try to share a Dropbox folder with me. They only watch TED talks when I bang on about them for months. They have never listened to a podcast in their lives. And if you say the names “Eric Ries”, “Tony Hsieh”, “Seth Godin”, “Tim Ferriss” or “Jason Fried” to them, they’ll go blank.
“Typical” digital nomads – with their backpacks, travel hacks, techie obsessions and geeky idolatry – they are not.
But they don’t need to be. We may have mentioned this a few times before, but there’s no reason to live a specific “script” set down by other people.
It’s all about choosing your own life script and doing what makes you happy. (Having said that, I’m sure I’ll never give up on my crusade to get them into Mixergy interviews and TED.)
Long-term plans
So, my mum emailed me to say that – at the very least – they definitely want to do this same trip next year. As for other trips in between… it could happen. I think they’re far more open to the idea, and they’ve realised it’s not as daunting as they thought it would be.
They’ll never become “permanent” digital nomads: they’d miss their friends and family back home too much. But again, it’s not about living someone else’s script. Even if they end up travelling just a few weeks or months out of each year, they’ll have a cool, fun, exciting lifestyle that suits them.
The “downsizing” revelations are the ones I’m most surprised (and delighted) about. Not only are they intent on de-cluttering their house, but they’re actually even thinking about moving somewhere smaller – purely because they’ve realised they don’t need so much space!
So, they did it: they got the guts to try out something totally different and alien to them, and they’re loving it. The experience has made them more aware of other aspects of their lives they might want to change, too.
And they’re sounding more and more like digital nomads by the day…
“You should only SEE the printer we’ve bought. It weighs NOTHING, and it’s so LIGHT. And the cartridges… they’re the size of a thumbnail.”