Digital nomadry, working online, and travel

I (and my fiance) spent the last 15 months working remotely/online, moving to a new country every 1-3 months. After saving up for nearly a year to have enough to get over to Europe (and finding a job that let me continue working full time wherever I ended up), I lived in month-long Airbnbs and had a suitcase that held all my belongings. When I wasn't getting over constant culture shock, I was working, exploring, and picking up bits and pieces of various languages. This is one variation of a trend called "digital nomadry", which promotes working online to prevent being "locked down" to a single location.

So, I'm happy to answer any questions on what that's like, what it's like to move every month, and any questions about some of the places I've lived while doing so:

• Kansas City, MO
• Amsterdam, Netherlands
• Chesterfield, England
• Reykjavik, Iceland
• Dublin, Ireland
• Pisa, Italy
• Alesund, Norway
• Podgorica, Montenegro
• Zagreb, Croatia
• Athens, Greece

Ha, it was an amazing adventure, but it most certainly was exhausting. By the time you're finally getting accustomed to a place, learning where the nearest grocery store is, how to interact with people, etc… it's time to go to the next place!

All of the places were super different, though, and I'm not sure there was one that just clicked, however both Iceland and Norway came close. Probably because I'm ridiculously introverted and those countries also happen to be, but there was definitely a sense of "these are my people" and "these people get me" when seeing anyone on the street / at restaurants / at stores / etc.

And, on top of that, Iceland has some awe-inspiring sights that literally left me breathless at times. Honestly, it was almost a spiritual experience to see some of the vast emptiness, surrounding (gigantic) mountains, and wonders that someone would kill for elsewhere but were normal to these crazy people that live in both extreme winters and 24-hour daylight summers.

So of all the places I went, that's probably the one that feels the most home-away-from-home-ish, even though (or maybe because?) a lot of it feels so distant you could believably convince yourself you're on another planet. Having red algae everywhere instead of grass, and/or yellow windswept grass that looks almost like unmoving water, wild horses roaming everywhere – it all feels so strange, yet at the same time feels familiar enough that I could happily see a different version of myself living there.

It was honestly super lonely (even with the lovely @amy (the most wonderful woman in the world) by my side), and that played into one of many reasons I eventually moved back to a stable place back in the US.

Knowing you leave in a month (and wanting to avoid the long story of how you got there, what you're doing, why it's legal, where you're going next, etc that inevitably – and repeatedly – follows) is kind of a huge deterrent to trying to make friends, especially to someone who's already so introverted such as myself. The closest friends I made were probably just the people I worked alongside at a coworking space in England (shoutout to Monkey Park!) since it was a lot more organic from seeing people every day moreso than going out of my way to "make friends". Even then, I still very rarely talk to the people I met there (but would definitely stop in to say hi if I were ever back in the vicinity), so you can decide for yourself what your definition of friend means. I'd still call them friends, though.

But I guess to answer your question: nope. I probably met a dozen or two people over a year and a half traveling (met in this case meaning more than a passing conversation). And from those few dozen I still talk to 0 of them. That said, I talked to my friends in the states pretty much daily while out there, and still talk to them now (still online, since most are spread all over the US – I don't see physical friends often even when living at "home").

Traveling, especially in nonconventional ways, is most certainly isolating and lonely. You definitely need some social outlets (online friends, pubs, or meetups) and even then the lack of permanence in relationships keeps them from really taking off in most cases.

Ha, no worries. To answer your question: yes and no. There's certain aspects of knowing you'll never see a person again that makes it a bit easier to let your guard down and get into super deep conversations with them, but a mutual understanding of both people knowing they'll never see each other again also makes it harder to get to a point of deep conversations in the first place. So… in some ways yes, and in some ways no.