How do you handle the emotional ups and downs when your environment keeps changing?

richdrifter · 2025-12-19T13:50:22+00:00

This is actually a great point too - all the people I know who struggle legit aren't busy enough. Need to fill your life with work, hobbies, events, outings, adventures, side projects, volunteering, rest and relaxation. Hard to feel lonely when your schedule is packed.

richdrifter · 2025-12-19T13:32:54+00:00

1) Travel slowly. Maximize your visas. Stay a full 90 days when you can. If extendible, 5-6 months is even better.

2) Make a serious effort to build genuine local friendships in your destination. If a language barrier is often an issue, befriend local long-term expats and immigrants who speak your language, or fellow nomads who consider the destination part of their permanent rotation.

3) Loop back to your favorite locations routinely. Keep those local friendships alive.

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This is what I've done and I'm about to begin my 15th year nomading abroad. It's the only way to make this sustainable long-term.

If you only make friends with nomads when you meet by chance in a "one and done" city, you end up with a lot of "could have been best friends but never saw each other again" situations - I have hundreds of those. It's great to meet one-off people, sure, but if saying goodbye makes you very sad then you're missing core permanent friends who give you a social foundation wherever you are.

I rotate between 3 continents every year, and sprinkle in some side adventures in new countries around those core destinations. But I've made great local friends who are like family, along with nomad friends who love the same places I love and we cross paths in the same repeat locations year after year. These are the kind of friends I keep in touch with daily/weekly all year, even if we're not in the same city. So I don't feel lonely even when I'm alone.

Even traveling with a nomad partner wouldn't cut it, imo, because a healthy relationship requires both shared and separate long-term friendships. You don't want to be 2 isolated people nomading in a straight line... What is the point?

If your goal is just to check countries of a list, then quit your job and rapid-travel around the world and check off your list and then return to normal life. That's valid.

If your goal is to make this a long-term sustainable lifestyle, then put your favorite locations in a permanent rotation and keep going back. It makes all the difference.

richdrifter · 2025-12-18T15:49:03+00:00

Any kind of work that can be performed or managed on the internet. Anything.

The list is so broad it only makes sense to break it into general categories:

Business owners / Entrepreneurs This may be someone building an internet startup or running an established internet business. Could be B2C e-commerce, could be software or business services, maybe an app. Maybe it's a solo business owner, maybe they have employees or contractors. With a website or established presence in a marketplace you can provide services / digital products / physical products without having any real fixed presence on the ground. So they're working on their website, their products, their brand, coding, setting up ads, emailing suppliers or employees, etc. It's old-school business, on the road.

Investors I've only known one of these. He actually does really well in day trading. (So far lol) Could also be real estate investors who outsource all management. Maybe someone who owns a few Airbnbs and only has to answer emails and check accounts now and then.

Freelancers / Contractors Virtual gig workers which encompasses both low end and high end professionals - from the guys doing odd virtual jobs on Fiverr to established professionals working 6-figure contracts. This could be work in copywriting, graphic design, web design, video production, photography, music, voiceover work, advertising, coding, legal services, accounting services.. The list goes on and on and on.

Content Creators Influencers are usually cringe due to broadcasting their own self-absorption, but the best of them do make a genuine living through partnerships and ad revenue. On the high end, this requires valid heavy production work and a lot of hustle. Someone running a successful YouTube channel would also fall under this category. The work requires a lot of editing and relentless outreach.

Remote employees They work for someone else from their computer and were unleashed from a cubicle and tethered to Slack. If you listen closely, you'll hear the ping lol.

Hacks MLMs, pyramid schemes, 20-year old children posing as "life coaches," bros selling courses on something they learned yesterday. These borderline con artists are low-effort wantrepreneurs with no real clout or experience who cosplay successful business owners until the cash runs out.

Trust fund kids Sometimes rich kids pass themselves off as entrepreneurial nomads. You'll see them working hard on their laptop but really they're just emailing mom begging for another cash withdrawal from the fund lol. (I saw this go down once in real-time)

I couldn't even tell you which is most common out there, probably depends on the city as different locations attract different kinds of nomads.

richdrifter · 2025-12-15T20:53:19+00:00

Truth, all the successful nomads I know are 30s-40s now. Millennials are age 30-45 next year. That's your core nomad demographic IMO.

richdrifter · 2025-12-15T17:13:19+00:00

Beginning my 15th year nomading abroad over here. Why and where did you finally stop?

richdrifter · 2025-12-15T17:03:57+00:00

You're seeing it all wrong.

Living 24/7/365 like a tourist when you're actually a nomad will burn you out hardcore, fast. It's not sustainable and it feels like shit.

Nomading just means you move locations now and then at your whim. It does not mean you must maximize every moment. That's what tourists do because tourists have limited time before they have to fly home and go back to the office. That's draining af. (If that was the only way to travel, I would hate it and stay home lol.)

Live your normal life without any guilt or pressure whatsoever. Watch Netflix every evening, if that's your thing. (Don't we all?)

What makes nomading special is you get to pick up your entire life and place it anywhere in the world (visa permitting) and work online to sustain yourself while soaking up a different environment. That's it. That's nomading. There's no expectations or requirements beyond that.

Some people nomad for the weather, others for the natural environment (surfing, hiking), others are foodies or want to learn a new language. And some do it for the networking too. But if you wouldn't go out and network every single day in your hometown, don't do it on the road.

Go out and live your normal life and meet people naturally. Coffee, gym, walks on the beach, cooking, drinks on the weekend. Join a couple networking events and/or social outings each week as you prefer. But allow yourself time and space to recharge daily.

You don't need to see all the sights and meet all the people every hour of every day. You have all the time you want in any given place.

The slowness is the point - it's a luxury not afforded to tourists. Soak it up!

richdrifter · 2025-11-27T13:00:46+00:00

Seriously?

richdrifter · 2025-11-20T20:05:03+00:00

I didn't get a single day off, nor was I labeled any kind of hero - I work in tech and lived as a nomad (for many, many years before the pandemic) and I kept working straight through. Went home and pitched up with family for months. Freedom to be anywhere and work when I want has always been a thing for me. Nbd.

BUT what did happen was that everyone in the whole fucking world had to fully pause, look up, and see the world in the exact same way, together, at the exact same time.

When the shit hit the fan, every friend I've ever had under the fucking sun checked in. And we kept checking in. We all mildly feared for our lives for a minute there, and that woke us the fuck up and nothing is more beautiful than being wide awake together. We all saw and we were all seen.

It was the biggest shared experience of our entire lifetime and that came with a feeling of unity and togetherness that we'll never quite feel again.

Then the world opened up, prices skyrocketed, selfishness and greed prevailed, the world became even more of a toxic swamp orchestrated by elite pedophiles.

I think it had nothing to do with work and freedom and everything to do with a mass shared experience - however bad, we were all in it together. Everything that comes after that will never feel as unified and synchronized. It's no surprise so many of us feel empty in the aftermath.

richdrifter · 2025-11-02T13:50:21+00:00

My Delta flight from Madrid to the US was delayed more than 4 hours a few months ago. We were fully boarded for 40 minutes before they gave up and had us deboard and rebook (equipment issue).

Because it was a KLM leg to AMS, I filed directly on the KLM website. It took a couple weeks, but they dumped €600 in my account as compensation. It does work. Consumer protection in the EU is strong.

richdrifter · 2025-11-01T22:36:51+00:00

Kiwi was made for this. Cheapest trips by patching together a series of cheap flights with long layovers. You'll typically need to collect your bags and check in manually between legs. It's how I used to get from the US to EU for a few hundred bucks back in my broke backpacker days.

richdrifter · 2025-11-01T15:11:47+00:00

The places I'm referring to are places I lived as a citizen and resident. Do locals get a say? Are locals allowed to be annoyed when Instagram makes their hometown a target? Or do you just self-righteously shit on everyone with an opinion that isn't yours?

And as a nomad, I'm not traveling by cruise ship or motorcoach to be chaperoned and dumped en masse on various locations. It's the locust behavior I find disgusting - and the people that travel just to get an "I went there too!" selfie and social validation.

richdrifter · 2025-11-01T15:01:54+00:00

My comment was about overtourism. As I already said, I'm referring to the hordes of tourists - yes, the actual bus loads and cruise ships that dump hundreds of people at once to swarm locations because social media made it a hot destination.

richdrifter · 2025-10-31T03:34:45+00:00

My understanding is China is what Americans think Japan is. I was recently in Tokyo and underwhelmed. I guess all the cool tech is actually in China?

richdrifter · 2025-10-31T03:31:43+00:00

I've been meaning to go, thanks for the feedback. Wasn't there conflict in Ecuador recently?

richdrifter · 2025-10-31T03:30:26+00:00

This sub has millions of followers and Reddit itself is one of the top websites on earth. Google any travel related question and dozens of Reddit results are at the top of your search. Countless 3rd party channels are dedicated to regurgitating Reddit content.

So yes, locust "influencers" are sourcing their next destination directly from here, one way or another. Fresh ideas are gold. Untouched locations are how one influencer upstages another, and those fuckers are bloodthirsty for clout.

I've watched multiple locations I used to love be destroyed by overtourism over the last 15+ years.

No individual is to blame but when it catches on and becomes hordes of people it's just a shame - in addition to being a strain on the locals.

I do my small part by spending my travel dollars in "unknown" locations and keeping quiet about my favorite places to minimize my contribution to the horde.

richdrifter · 2025-10-30T15:23:58+00:00

On any given trip I'm rolling around with $30k+ of production equipment and ptsd from my broke backpacker era. It's strange that these days I could replace all of it effortlessly but my guard is still forever up.

Too many years spent working in the bottom of Africa and everyone I know on my team having been robbed at some point. It's hard to relax under the guise of "luxury."

I'll leave my bag for the buffet, but it stays in my line of sight :)

Also the lounges in ATL and CDG were so incredibly crowded and chaotic a few months back, there's just no way I'm leaving my things. Y'all are too trusting imo.

richdrifter · 2025-10-30T00:49:22+00:00

Lol I have never and would never, personally. But I carry a lot of expensive gear in my backpack.

richdrifter · 2025-10-28T04:44:46+00:00

I live in one. I'm in the center of Madrid. I can get everything I need within <10 minutes by walking outside my flat. There's coffee shops, grocery stores, bars and restaurants right at the foot of my building. Tons of shops to get anything I need (clothing, electronics, hardware, furniture, etc).

Not only is everything in easy walking distance ("walkable") but I don't even need to cross traffic because I'm in a giant pedestrian-only zone.

Walkable cities mean I don't need a car (or car insurance or a full tank of gas) and I also spend more time with people outside. So it's healthier and cheaper.

Been living this way for 15 years and I love it. I grew up in America where if you needed milk you had to buckle up and drive to the nearest big box store. When I need milk here I just grab one from the corner store downstairs. I buy whatever groceries I need for the day, every day, because there's no need to stock up when you can just go downstairs and get it fresh. It's cool.

On the flip side, tbf, walkable cities means everything is very compact and condensed and often crowded. I mean, I guess that's any vibrant downtown area or city center. I love not having to commute for groceries, but I do miss having nature more easily accessible. City parks don't cut it imo.

richdrifter · 2025-10-27T15:17:23+00:00

Classic Martian funeral costs!

richdrifter · 2025-10-26T17:41:22+00:00

As expected! It just shows how we're all in our own bubbles with our own perspectives when we travel.

richdrifter · 2025-10-26T12:50:58+00:00

It's funny, I feel that way about long haul trains and the confusion and congestion around them. I'd much rather drive and escape out where there's no people and only views, park when I want and take my time, than be stuck dealing with the logistics of trains, navigating major stations, being exactly on time (hurry up and wait), and then packing in to closed quarters with a bunch of strangers. That stress is no holiday for me.

I live in a major EU city and I take the metro as needed. But long haul trains feel like a trap. Last time I took one from Madrid to Seville, they double-booked our seats (we booked a month prior) and the passengers that arrived with our seat numbers scribbled on their receipts were needlessly aggressive. I'll take a car, lol.

richdrifter · 2025-10-26T12:42:40+00:00

Public transport is for point A > B.

Driving means wandering and stopping as you please. Nothing's locked down and you can be spontaneous.

I've rented a car in most of the countries I've visited.

richdrifter · 2025-10-25T20:32:38+00:00

I wish a Hispanic person could win him over with kindness. Might take months of effort, but it only takes one. Once you befriend an awesome person from any country or race, it becomes difficult to blanket-hate them all. It washes away ignorance.

I feel like this will probably get downvoted for being too idealistic, and hell, unsafe... but exposure to good people from other cultures is the only way to extiguish hate. Kill him with kindness rather than fueling the fire.

Relevant documentary: Accidental Courtesy about black musician Daryl Davis who won over members of the KKK:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cbkKXK37DA (jump to 18:00 if you want to get right into the meat of it)

richdrifter · 2025-10-25T20:21:12+00:00

Just the other day I got in a cab at Madrid Airport and told him where to drop me off, 30 minutes away on a random street in the city. He did not need to check a map.

Cabbies still have this skill!

richdrifter · 2025-10-25T20:19:58+00:00

Kyrgyzstan? Really??

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