So why did I swap my career for a digital nomad lifestyle? I’ve tried to write this blog so many times, and usually get a bit carried away! The decision to begin my digital nomad lifestyle (or whatever term you want to use for it!) wasn’t easy. There were so many factors which led me (and my boyfriend Aaron) to make that decision.
We decided to give a digital nomad lifestyle a go during the pandemic. A pretty confusing time for most and one which afforded a LOT of time to question our life choices!
Covid arrived at a time when I was feeling pretty miserable in and completely dissatisfied with my career. I had no idea what else I could do, and felt a bit ‘stuck’. Whilst Covid derailed our original travel plans and life generally, it also came at the perfect time. It’s one of the main reasons I am here, sat writing this blog from an Airbnb in Tirana, Albania.
I can see I am already waffling, so Aaron has prepared some questions, to help prevent me rambling! Hopefully this answers any questions you have whilst explaining why I swapped my legal career for a digital nomad lifestyle.
Here goes!
Why did you leave your career for a digital nomad lifestyle?
In simple terms; so much about it made me unhappy and I didn’t enjoy it.
I began to feel disillusioned from when I qualified as a solicitor in 2019. Rather than feeling happy that I’d finally done it, I felt a bit lost. All I could see was 40+ years of this in front of me and that thought scared me to death! I mean absolutely no disrespect to those doing it. In some ways, I wish I had enjoyed it would have provided a lovely, comfortable life. But it just wasn’t for me. Not to sound cliche, but life is too short to not be happy. And the rat race, the possibility of promotion and becoming a partner in a law firm just didn’t do it for me.
For some people, their goal is to climb the ladder, go on epic holidays, buy a lovely house, get married and have a family. I suppose this is what is considered the ‘norm’ for most people. For me, I didn’t understand how I was expected to “give up” over two-thirds of my week, just so I could pay the bills and go on a couple of holidays.
That sounds horribly bratty, particularly because I was very lucky to be earning what I did, to comfortably afford my rent, and to be able to have lovely weekends and holidays, something not everyone has the luxury of enjoying.
I feel sure that I’d have felt differently had I been doing something I enjoyed at the time. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that there had to be more than waiting for Friday every week and feeling the dread of Sunday.
But, if building a career, buying a house and settling down wasn’t the goal – what was?! It was a very dramatic time and it was something I thought a lot about from mid-2019 through 2020.
Over the last 5 years, Aaron and I had travelled a fair bit already, using our annual leave and taking sabbaticals. This includes an epic three-week island-hopping trip to the Philippines in 2018 and a 9-week trip to Central America in early 2019. The two of us love to travel and we always wanted to do more.
The legal world is not conducive to remote working. Seriously before Covid, “I’m working from home” was translated in the office to “I can’t be arsed today”. You had to have a good reason to work from home. It was inevitable that networking and client meetings would go back to being face-to-face so remote working would not work full-time. Annual leave only goes so far, so it was always the plan to quit to pursue more travel adventures.
Anyway, in 2021 I FINALLY left the law. It was like a weight had been lifted and started working freelance. It is without a doubt the best thing I have ever done.
This was the first stage in the transition from 9-5 to a digital nomad lifestyle. Once you’ve given up the security blanket of a guaranteed monthly, and fairly healthy wage, you’re pretty much there/have left yourself no choice but to leave the UK ha ha!
Why did you decide to do it now?
The middle of a pandemic is when most people make life-changing decisions right?!
The main reason was that Aaron, and I aren’t getting any younger! I appreciate that sounds silly, coming from a 27-year-old (at the time!) and Aaron was 34 which isn’t exactly old. However, we wanted to give this a proper go and if we did it for a few years, I’d be 30 and Aaron 37 by then.
We didn’t want to leave it too late to do ‘grown-up’ things like settle somewhere and have a family. Whilst we don’t want that now, that’s not to say we don’t want that in the future. Equally, we didn’t want to limit ourselves if we found we loved the digital nomad lifestyle and were eager to crack on!
So, it all felt a bit now or never for us. There was also practical (and therefore, boring) stuff to sort out.
At the time, we were renting a little house in Manchester, which was due to end in July 2021. We either had to be out by then or postpone for another 12 months.
Aaron also had to give 6-months’ notice at work. So, at the time Aaron gave his notice, we were still in peak lockdown, just after Christmas 2020. We had no idea whether in 6 months’ time it would even be possible to travel again.
It was a risk, but we didn’t want to postpone any longer so we went for it!
Why not just go travelling?
This was actually our original plan. It kept us going through the first year of being back in Manchester after travelling in Central America.
Our plan was that we would focus on saving up for a year, and put all our extra money into a “travel pot” to fund a year of travelling. Our first destination was somewhere in South America. We’d burn through the travel pot money, return to the UK and take it from there.
Around 8 months into that plan, Covid struck! Our travel plans were looking pretty dire. There was no chance we were getting to South America now. With no idea of how long Covid would continue to impact travel, we were faced with working until that situation became clearer.
However, in the meantime, most office workers in the UK began working from home full-time. What a game-changer that was! I think it started to change attitudes completely about how we viewed homeworking. It also got Aaron and I thinking…why couldn’t home be wherever we wanted it to be and why couldn’t we just work from there?!
It was at that point, after a little research that we stumbled across the ‘digital nomad’ community. I’d never heard of the term before. However, it turns out that a few more people had had the very same thoughts as Aaron and I. Digital nomads are people who move around, or rather are location independent, and work remotely from their laptops.
The ‘digital nomad’ way of life would protect our savings, whilst allowing us to travel. Travel would look different to how we had done it before and how we’d originally envisaged. It would require us to stay in the same location for longer periods of time, but that was exciting! It started to make sense!
Why did you want to leave the UK?
I love the slow, more relaxed culture of other European cities. Neither Aaron nor am I really interested in the corporate hustle which is ingrained into British culture. Also, the weather is pretty dire! Living in Manchester, one of the rainiest places in the UK, will definitely encourage a move to warmer climes!
Aaron and I have always spoken about what it would be like to live abroad too, so this way of travelling ticked all boxes.
Before we started this big adventure/experiment, Aaron and I visited our friends Lexi and Chris in their hometown, Limassol. Both of them worked full-time, yet their lifestyle was completely different to how it is done in the UK. Of course, they still spent some evenings in front of the TV watching Netflix as we all do, but walks on the beach and promenade, cafes open till midnight and spending weekends and evenings outdoors also were major features.
I think we both wanted to try a completely different way of life and that’s where the digital nomad way of travel seemed to suit.
We have also heard a lot about these digital nomad destinations where other digital nomads or remote workers are based. These nomad ‘hubs’ tend to have coworking spaces which specifically cater for people that work remotely. They provide the basics like a desk and guaranteed internet but also a social scene to meet others. This is one of the things that remote working can lack so these can be amazing places. Sometimes, not so amazing!
That isn’t to say that we won’t return to the UK and settle there at some point in the future. We haven’t made that decision yet but for now, we are enjoying travelling!
What do you hope your digital nomad lifestyle will achieve?
I want to find out what it’s like to ‘live’ in a different country. Is it what I think it’ll be like? Or will it be much like life in the UK? Will I miss being in the UK?
I hope to find a way of working flexibly and earn enough of a living that would sustain me in the UK, (if we were to move back!). I’m in no hurry to return to the 9-5!
Finally, I hope to prove that there are other options! You don’t have to dedicate those two-thirds of your week to work in an office, in a job you don’t like if you don’t want to!
WE SHALL SEE!
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