Once a crazy pipe dream for wanderlusters, the idea that you can earn a living while traveling has now become an attainable reality in an increasingly connected world. More and more individuals—especially those in the creative and tech sectors, like freelance writers, web developers, and digital marketers—are taking advantage of the opportunities for remote work. Consultancy group MBO partners found that 11 percent of U.S. workers identify as digital nomads.
But while working remotely makes it easier than ever to travel while earning money, it comes with all sorts of challenges—coordinating meetings in different time zones, maintaining a healthy lifestyle, coping with travel burnout, and dealing with guilt when you’re stuck on your laptop instead of exploring your new surroundings, to name a few.
Use the following tips as a guide to working and traveling at the same time, sourced from people who’ve mastered the art.
1. Create a daily routine—even if it’s for a brief time
We’d all love to spend the day roaming the alleyways of a quaint ancient city, but someone’s gotta pay for those plane tickets and Airbnbs (ahem, it’s you).
There are physical benefits to consistent habits, yes—staying healthy allows you to endure long journeys or travel mishaps—but it’s also mental. It may sound trivial, but doing the same thing every morning helps you feel more grounded and stable, which in turn makes for more sustainable long-term travel.
Greg Caplan, who founded Remote Year, a company that organized travel experiences for those working remotely, says that whenever he arrives in a new place, he always does the same thing: Head to the closest convenience store and buy a carton of eggs and two bottles of red wine. “It’s a small thing,” he explains, “but it’s nice to know that wherever I am in the world, I’ll have a glass of red wine before bed and some eggs in the morning.”
2. Make new friends—work buddies are digital nomad gold
Whether you’re a big extrovert or introvert, making friends with fellow remote workers abroad can help you deal with FOMO.
Once, when digital nomad Michelle Lawson was in Asia, she saw several remote workers logging on during East Coast hours. “They’d all huddle together in the villas at 3 a.m., taking meetings and working together,” she says. “No one wants to be on call in the middle of the night, but they all motivated each other, which really helped.”
Traveling with buddies can even help you create and maintain a routine. “Our participants often go to the gym together in one big group, and then walk to the coworking space after their workout,” says Dale Johnson, former chief marketing officer of Hacker Paradise, which curates travel programs for remote-working professionals, and a veteran digital nomad himself. “The camaraderie of it is so real—it’s a lot easier for many people to get motivated in a group than on their own.”
There are plenty of resources that can help you connect with other digital nomads:
- WorkFrom.co is a crowdsourced resource that lists all of the good places (coffee shops, hotels, etc.) that you can work from wherever you are. It’s updated in real time, too, so it won’t steer you wrong.
- NomadList ranks the best cities for digital nomads based on metrics like Wi-Fi speed and currency exchange rates.
- There are also plenty of databases like Coworking Nomads to search for offices in your nearest city. This is an easy way for people to find like-minded travelers looking to make new friends, go on a bar crawl around town, or even a speed dating night.
- If you want to be more immersed in the digital nomad community of your choice, there are also coliving spaces (where workers can live there among other digital nomads) like Outpost in Bali and Neighbourgood in South Africa. Some coworking spaces double as coliving spaces—and some countries have visas specifically for remote workers.
3. Embrace the digital experience with all the useful technological tools out there
Check out some tools digital nomads love:
- The Google Fi phone plan replaces a standard cell phone carrier. It picks up cell signals from partner carriers around the world, so your phone will work in over 170 countries. Your clients won’t even know you’re abroad. It only qualifies with a few phones (mostly the Google Phone), but you can also activate a sim card for an iPhone.
- Mobile wireless hot spots let you access the internet from your phone without Wi-Fi—and without using data.
- World Time Buddy is a web and mobile app that shows four or five time zones at a time, so you don’t have to calculate differences yourself.
- Video conferencing platforms like Zoom are great for video calls. And this way of meeting others is especially helpful for remote workers: “Video creates a much stronger connection with your clients,” says Greg Caplan.
You can find coworking spaces in Chiang Mai, Madeira, and beyond.
Courtesy of Peter Borter/Unsplash
4. When travel FOMO looms and you can’t seem to get “remote-ivated” to work, try a mind trick
“Instead of thinking of work as something I have to do, I think of it as something that has created this opportunity for me to travel,” digital nomad Duncan Falk explains. “I remind myself that my work allows me to be in this new destination in the first place—and that small mental shift makes it easier to concentrate on getting the work done so I can explore after.” Which, of course, is the whole point.
5. Location is everything
Who doesn’t want turquoise blue waters as their office view? Sadly, laptops don’t do too well in the heat, and glare from the sun on your screen will quickly make you realize that you won’t be getting much work done while out in nature. While a lot of the appeal is ditching the cubicle and working anywhere, you don’t want to get sand into the cracks in your keyboard. You need a calm café with fast Wi-Fi, tasty snacks, and plenty of outlets.
Another thing to keep in mind is how your location affects your health. One of the best tricks to staying healthy is to base yourself near a gym. Depending on the location, that’s easier said than done, especially in places like Japan and Singapore where they are not as plentiful or affordable. Do a Google search of the gyms in your desired area and read the reviews. If you can simply walk down the street to the gym, you’re much more likely to go.
Whatever you do, don’t forget your travel insurance with companies like Allianz and SafetyWing. Accidents happen, and people get sick. Paying thousands out of pocket is a fast-track toward a one-way ticket home.
6. Slow travel is the way to go
It’s exciting to visit a new location, but packing up your suitcases and boarding planes, trains, or buses multiple times a week is tiring and not conducive to work. It’s also not a sustainable way to travel and leaves a hefty carbon footprint.
Instead, pick one place and stay there for at least two weeks. That way, you can get into a groove with work, see the majority of things you were hoping to see, and develop a different understanding and respect for the local culture and community. That’s the great thing about being a digital nomad: If you like a place, you can always stay longer.
7. Pack light
Some nomads may disagree, but all you really need is a laptop and a charger. If you run your own podcast, sure, you’ll need a nice microphone. If you’re a photographer, obviously, you’ll need all your gear. But writers don’t really need anything else for work besides a laptop, and occasionally headphones. So forget a second monitor and ditch the extra mousepad, the laptop stand, and the portable keyboard. Pack light; you won’t regret it.
Oh, and depending on where you go, don’t forget to pack your converter.
This article was originally published in 2021; it was updated in January 2025 with current information.
