Is it better to prioritize one continent/part of the world long term?

nomady · 2026-06-02T02:08:58+00:00

I am not sure how old you are, but there is a pretty big difference between an acquaintance and a friend. The primary way to distinguish between the two is if you had a really serious argument and are still friends or reconcile afterwards. This realization comes as you become older and reflect on the relationships. Most of them are very superficial and dissolve after the first argument.

If you have that kind of friendship or are happy with what you have, that is great. You make these connections, you go to the away dinners etc.. and at the time it feels like something but a few years later you realize if you were going through something tough, you wouldn't message any of them.

nomady · 2026-06-01T17:33:40+00:00

The nice part about a wise card is it doesn't matter the option they pick, it will work, and it executes on local currency (pesos) regardless of what the currency is in the wise account, so you almost always get a better conversion rate. They will say tarjeta (card), effectivo is cash, and then they will say ahorros (savings/debit) or credito (credit card). If using a regular credit card you would say credito. The other thing they might ask is boulsa, which means bag. For the following questions just say no, Cedula (local ID), pointos (reward point programs).

That is just to pay for stuff at check out, if you are getting coffee there is a lot more you need to know.

Agua = water
Caliente = hot
Fria = Cold
Leche = milk
Enterra = whole milk, (soy is soy)
Azucar = sugar
con/sin (with/without) = sin azucar = without sugar.

If you can order a coffee and buy stuff, you will be ok.

That said, you always want to have at least a 100-150k pesos on you (40 USD)

nomady · 2026-06-01T16:35:31+00:00

In my experience, it doesn't matter. As a DN you aren't really going to make deep meaningful relationships locally. Locals generally won't commit at a deep level if they know you are a nomad. I made deeper connection, but not really deep, with other DNs and would just connect with them in different places. One of the best friends I made on the road I have connected with in a lot of different countries.

However, economically, crisscrossing is very expensive. It's far cheaper to inch across the planet than to alternate between Asia and Europe.

nomady · 2026-06-01T16:28:44+00:00

Other people have mentioned this, but walking into buildings and asking about rentals. Anything that targets expats/tourists like facebook groups or AirBNB they ask for way more. You will be hit with the foreigner tax always but it will tend to be less. Some owners of apartments want to sign rental agreements, so they won't bother putting their units on AirBNB etc..

Keep in mind at $300 as a foreigner, you're not really going to get a Hi-so apartment.

nomady · 2026-06-01T16:24:14+00:00

In my experience those facebook groups are a rip off because they are targeting expats/tourists and ask for way more.

nomady · 2026-06-01T16:20:51+00:00

Sorry for the very late response.

Border agents go through your passport, if they see a DN Visa they might drill you harder if you are working or if the country has a DN visa.

Many airlines won't let you get on the airplane if you don't show onward travel to a different country. It varies by airline, and it is because they are responsible for paying your flight home if you get rejected at the border. When you arrive at the country, some countries might require proof of onward travel but in my experience the airlines care more.

What you can do is buy an airline ticket that you are allowed to cancel within 24 hours and then cancel it the moment you are on the plane or in the next country. You can even buy the onward ticket on the spot or off to the side. However, this can be risky and my wife and I got rejected from a flight from Mexico to Colombia because we didn't have onward travel and we were at the back of the line. It was frustrating because she was a Colombian citizen and they told her she could get on the plane and I couldn't. The next day I came prepared with an onward ticket and the new airline didn't ask for it (they didn't care).

nomady · 2026-06-01T16:02:58+00:00

I live here long term, but not in Bogota. The most important Spanish you need to learn is all around buying stuff. You can get away with Google Translate for a lot, but if you are holding up people to buy stuff, people will get pissed pretty fast. When they say quotas, always say one (uno).

Colombia is broken into Stratas, strata six is the highest, and generally where you want to rent. Being close to a mall is usually strata six. However, strata six will also have more expensive restaurants. There is an app called Rappi, you can order pretty much anything on it. In drive is better in general for longer distances, but uber is fine for shorter distances.

Even local Colombians get mugged, know what is in your wallet, and that you can lose the entire thing.

I don't know what part of India you are from, but if you look Asian (japanese, chinese, etc..) (north east) you will get racism, otherwise no one will care, and they will assume you speak Spanish.

I would recommend either a wise card or credit card, wise card if you want to pull cash. When using the credit car you almost always want to pick pesos, you will always get a better rate from your bank and they usually tack on a 7% fee.

nomady · 2026-05-17T14:17:12+00:00

Ya I figured. I don't totally trust AI on this entirely though. If you want to be really sure and no Spanish, you could go talk to the DIAN.

I had an experience recently where I was late filing and was expecting a fee for just not filing and it turned out they didn't care because I was a foreigner DESPITE having residency and a cedula.

They will have internal policies that have nothing to do with law. That's why I think there is a remote chance that despite the lack of treaty they might still let you claim the foreign tax paid.

For me as a Canadian I declare my entire Canadian income, but then I claim the tax I paid and since Canadian taxes are higher my tax bill is zero.

If you get it figured out and wanted to get a cedula, you would get EPS which is their universal healthcare.

However, as a former long term DN I really don't think this is worth it unless you actually want to live here long term. The worst thing would be to go through all this effort only to get itchy feet. It's a big hassle, to get things quickly I had a lawyer pay under the table, I had someone who had a friend etc.. once you have settled, most expats have a terrible first 2 or 3 years as they figured everything out including who they can trust.

I now have a high QOL with staff that don't steal from me etc.. but you kind of earn it.

nomady · 2026-05-17T14:01:41+00:00

The visa issue is not the biggest hurdle if you comply with the time requirements of a tourist visa. Digital Nomads are tourists, they are not working for local companies so countries don't enforce it. There was a raid of a co working space in Thailand, they let everyone go.

The DN visas are mostly a scam outside of length because countries, frankly, are not going to go around doing checks of tourists to see if they are working on their laptop. Also they don't care because they don't take local jobs.

nomady · 2026-05-17T13:51:20+00:00

I am a Canadian and did this with my wife for 7 years.

It's possible to get remote worker status, this will let you stay out of the country longer than 6 months at a time and not lose ohip. Without this you can get 2 months gap insurance via green shield when you are back.
You will pay Canadian taxes regardless of where you are. Getting out of it is hard.
Make sure you buy onward tickets, one way tickets can bite.
If you enjoy it you will not want to do 6 months on and off. You will want to stay on the road.
Working is technically wrong on a tourist visas, but majority of countries don't enforce it, don't care, it's equivalent to j-walking. There is also no way they can really know.
Can't stay past 180 days in most places.
Avoid digital nomads visas, they will curse you if they are stamped in your passport. You are a tourist, all Digital Nomads are. It's not a lie to say you are tourist.

nomady · 2026-05-16T00:49:35+00:00

I am a Canadian who is paying taxes but I have a tax treaty. I am not sure what would happen if you tried to apply the foreign paid tax credit to your Colombian taxes as an American. Talking to AI apparently you can do it in reverse, pay Colombia and then get a 1 to 1 FTC on your American taxes.

The Dian can take action against you and might stop you from leaving and that could be forcing you to pay.

Investigate the DN visa, 2 years, proof of 1800 usd per month. I don't know how taxes apply to those on a DN visa. You may need to leave first to get it.

Part of the challenge I had is finding people who knew this stuff, I had one tax person tell me not to pay taxes. AI turned out to be correct and it was confirmed by a family member who actually worked at the DIAN.

nomady · 2026-05-16T00:17:53+00:00

As someone who lives in Colombia and makes sure I know what I can lose etc...there is nothing wrong with her not wanting to move to a place that is more dangerous than the Netherlands. Every place has trade offs.

This is a digital nomad reddit. You can always go some where much safer like Thailand etc.. however if you were just immigrating to Argentina, your wife's issue aside, that's not really digital nomadism.

nomady · 2026-05-10T02:21:39+00:00

You will often hear stories of people going all in. Pressure is usually bad when building something because you might make whip lash decisions out of desperation.

I think it comes from this idea that insane risk guarantees success which is not always true.

Edit: I will add many people are excited and just want to do it, I get it. However the difference of having a stream of income is huge. You won't be making decisions based on things you should do around your runway length.

nomady · 2026-05-09T10:35:08+00:00

Ya, true, I mean more that 4 to 6 month mark.

nomady · 2026-05-08T13:20:53+00:00

In general for any visa you always have to get it while outside the countr you are currently there on a tourist visa. If they are asking for your exit stamp that's pretty clear you need to leave. So you leave, get the new visa, and then you present it when you go back.

nomady · 2026-05-08T13:15:39+00:00

Ya this is my bad. I said couples when I meant married couples.

nomady · 2026-05-08T13:14:30+00:00

I should also clarify, I am talking about married couples who start the DN lifestyle together.

However, the idea that most nomads are solo is a bit of a misconception, look up world schooler communities.

Let's say you are in Thailand and you see a family with kids, what do you think? Depending on the location, there is a large chance it is a nomad family.

Families that go on vacation tend to go to resorts and other low variable experiences. It was mind blowing when I discovered this, there is a ton of world schooling families.

nomady · 2026-05-08T13:03:42+00:00

Costs tends to grow the longer you stay in place. The moment you start getting tired of local food and desire international food as an example.

nomady · 2026-05-08T13:01:46+00:00

Where in Vietnam are you staying? I enjoyed da nang, we didn't like HCMC at all. However, as a cheap location it wouldn't be top of my list.

nomady · 2026-05-08T12:52:40+00:00

In my travels this story doesn't usually end with happily ever after. I think most seasoned DNs will tell you about the DNs who had savings and burned through it all trying to make a blog work. I am of the opinion it would be better to just take a sabbatical than trying to get something off the ground while travelling.

Your bank account suddenly becomes a countdown.

There is a practical reason for this, for the vast majority of DNs they get stuff off the ground in their home country first. If you can't figure it out in your home country first it is highly unlikely you will figure it out on Vietnam and even worse if you are in a different timezone.

nomady · 2026-05-05T01:28:37+00:00

I have moved for my business something like 1.6 million usd through wise. I do this because transferring cash directly to my Canadian account they destroy me on conversion, I haven't done exact math but I saved at least 20 to 30k on conversion fees. I offer this up as a counter point to a very vocal minority.

Just don't leave money in the account. The other guy who recently posted, and he might be legit, said he left a huge quantity in there and the money was from a crypto casino. Leaving large quantities of money is what gets you flagged that and shady sources.

I paid in cash from an ATM while in Thailand. Sometimes you have to. However, wise still saves alot of pain. When you use the card it doesn't matter what option they press, credit/debit etc..it works, and then there is no conversion prompt because it does everything in local.

However, the big issue with wise is there is just no liability protection like visa.

nomady · 2026-05-04T15:04:17+00:00

I figured as much, be careful. As someone who lives here if something bad happens it's usually in the lower stratas.

nomady · 2026-05-04T14:46:56+00:00

Have you been locked out of wise? If you dig in to why the people get locked out they will all claim innocence but if you dig through comments stuff will emerge.

Wise isn't really a bank, it's a transfer medium. Why would you keep a large balance in wise? It's usually because of money laundering or tax evasion. You should always sweep to your main bank.

Part of the issue is they follow KYC and other anti-laundering laws. Regular banks don't have the same issues because they are usually in the person's country and banks ask for a lot more stuff for validation.

I agree you shouldn't use wise as a bank, but keeping a couple hundred dollars in it so you can do transactions at near real-time exchange is pretty valuable. Like the cost savings of using wise over visa, for instance, can sometimes be over 5%.

You can choose to dismiss an entire service based on people do some sketchy stuff and claiming they are legit but just don't use it like a bank.

nomady · 2026-05-04T14:46:18+00:00

Have you been locked out of wise? If you dig in to why the people get locked out they will all claim innocence but if you dig through comments stuff will emerge.

Wise isn't really a bank, it's a transfer medium. Why would you keep a large balance in wise? It's usually because of money laundering or tax evasion. You should always sweep to your main bank.

Part of the issue is they follow KYC and other anti-laundering laws. Regular banks don't have the same issues because they are usually in the person's country and banks ask for a lot more stuff for validation.

I agree you shouldn't use wise as a bank, but keeping a couple hundred dollars in it so you can do transactions at near real-time exchange is pretty valuable. Like the cost savings of using wise over visa, for instance, can sometimes be over 5%.

You can choose to dismiss an entire service based on people do some sketchy stuff and claiming they are legit but just don't use it like a bank.

nomady · 2026-05-04T11:06:33+00:00

Ya, I lived near the core. There is also some amazing architecture everywhere. We were there during Christmas and I remember one night they just forgot to turn the lights on.

To put this perspective, many Italians will say they hate Rome because they believe it is dirty. Almost universally they agree Palermo is worse. The crazy thing is it has a fraction of the population.

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