I say this as someone who has been a part of this world for over a decade. It started out as a temporary thing as I was growing tired of my job back in USA and informed my employer of my desire to do one of two things
- I could work remotely from another place other than my office of my choosing at a reduced salary OR
- I would stop working for them
It was a bit of a gamble on my part but in the end my employer at the time decided to take a gamble on my ability to self-manage my schedule and deadlines and we did it initially for a 6-month trial-period.
That was many years ago and it has become how I operate on a hopefully permanent basis.
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I had this dreamy idea in my head about what my life would be like as I imagined things not quite as silly as the picture above but something similar to it: I figured I would be in exotic locations all over the world seamlessly getting my work done. Unfortunately 10 years ago this wasn't very realistic as it turns out.
Most of the places I traveled to had rather dodgy internet and for the most part it couldn't be relied upon and when you would point it out there wasn't really anything they could do about it. So at first it was quite frustrating because my job at the time required me to have an always on connection in order to interact with real-time shared workspaces. The first several months were pretty scary and my boss was thinking that this wasn't working out and I didn't really disagree with him.
Then I discovered "shared workspaces" or "coworking businesses" in certain parts of the world and this was an absolute game-changer.
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These are businesses that exist in digital nomad "hotspots" around the world where the business pays a premium price to have super-solid and reliable internet connections. The good ones I have been in normally will have 2 networks and one of them is only used if there is a problem with the first. These places focus on having comfortable seating and lots of plugs and desks and they don't focus so much on having food and drinks. The places I had frequented before were basically just restaurants that happened to have WiFi and normally that WiFi was unreliable as hell and had a staff that had no idea how to troubleshoot if there was a problem.
Coworking spaces are normally run by tech savvy individuals whose sole purpose is to provide and office for traveling workers and they can and will solve any issues that might arise. They normally don't allow food at all in the working area but there is a separate dining area adjacent to it. This worked out perfectly for me at that point in my life and it still does today.
It can prove very difficult to find accommodation in a lot of the world that has this level of comfort and the largest problem is actually that everyone will promise good internet but that notion differs from one person to the next. In a coworking space their reputation relies upon them actually being able to deliver on this promise and it is very easy to find reviews online to make sure they aren't full of shit.
These days I make my choice about where to relocate to on the expiration of my next visa almost exclusively on whether or not the area I am looking at has a coworking space with a good reputation and solid internet connection. If you are a digital nomad and haven't started looking at these places yet, you really should
When I was relying on spotty home internet connections and even spottier public cafe WiFi, it would almost always take me much longer to complete whatever it is that I was working on at the time. In these semi-professional work cafes, everyone that is in there is there to complete a job and normally on a timeline, so there is less mucking about and noise going on as well.
If you are a nomad or are thinking of becoming one, this has to be in your arsenal if you are interested in making things work. In the past these sorts of businesses used to only appear in large cities that I wasn't really all that interested in living in but as the years go by they exist in almost any smaller and medium size cities as well. In some areas I have lived in I would have to commute to the "office" so to speak, but it was still in a tropical country that cost substantially less than living in USA would be costing me.
For me, the existence of these businesses has been an absolute game-changer... and I think it can be for others as well.