I didn't have a bad experience, but just got tired of it after a while. Here are a few reasons:
When you're an expat you meet a lot of people, but it's hard to form anything but superficial friendships because everyone is always on the move. You can always become friends with locals, but cultural/language differences get in the way.
While it may not seem like it now, your digital nomad life will eventually become predictable and ordinary just like life at home. Especially if you're working. Work is the same no matter where you are.
And the big one for me....it's hard or impossible to do a lot of things while you're nomadding. For example, growing a garden. Cooking barbecue. Fiddling with electronics. Playing in a band.
That said, there's no reason not to try it. Just don't assume it's a rest-of-your-life choice.
Completely agree. It was hard to have an extended relationship with anyone. It isn't like being at camp where you will see that person every day. If you aren't a place for an extended amount of time, it can be limited to hanging out only a handful of times.
I wouldn't say I got "tired of it", but when the time came to come home and I thought about it, I realized how exhausted I was. Even though we felt like we took it easy, it was physically & mentally draining. I think the excitement masked it, potentially artificially, where I just didn't know I was so exhausted, but was. I've tried to think of things which might have been impacted by that.
Yeah, I don't get why a lot of people are locked into a binary view point about it -- the beauty of this lifestyle is that you can just pick a spot and settle. I like to think of it as a walkabout to see more places before I decide where I want to settle.
I think when "digital nomad" is mentioned, readers' minds generally conjure up a person who never stays at a place longer than 3 months. There's a notion of constant movement.
On the other hand, "expats" are people who are relatively settled on year-long contracts with a rented flat.
I'm not agreeing with the binary, but there's a common image that comes to mind.
It isn't true. If you use your time wisely then you will be just fine. If your employer doesn't give you the time/budget for on-going education, then you need to look for a new employer.
the best and most productive programmers i know have lots of other hobbies and interests, both cerebral and physical. they are intellectually gifted people.
if you need to try that hard, maybe you're just not that smart. i learned that early, because i'm not that smart, and working 18 hours a day sure as hell didn't fix that.
What does programming in my spare time have to do with studying for my job? I think the idea that the article was trying to convey was that the best programmers love the work enough that they'd be doing it on their own, even if they weren't paid for it.
I work an 8 hour day. I may spend another several hours coding on some days, but I would characterize that as play, not work. I try to do things that I don't think I could convince anyone to pay me for.
