‘Tired’, ‘lonely’ and hated by locals: the reality for the digital nomad | Hacker News Reader

‘Tired’, ‘lonely’ and hated by locals: the reality for the digital nomad

telegraph.co.uk

68 pointschewz124 comments

I like to think that you are either consuming culture or contributing to it – if all you are there to do is consume, you may be better off in a place less foreign. I've found that taking the time to integrate with the people, learning the local language and overall just trying really hard to fit in with the rhythm around me has melded quite a different experience for myself. I have tried hopping around the world, doing a month at a time here or there and I've had mixed results - in Lisbon I felt like just another one in a pack of people taking the charm out of a small city that has a lot of resent toward digital nomads and the like, from younger folks to old. In Vienna and around Switzerland less so, as english didn't make me stick out like a sore thumb and there is much less of an influx in those places. On the other hand, during my last trip I stayed about 4 months in Buenos Aires, taking language courses with a teacher, working a bit less, and making lasting friendships with several people. Argentina felt very welcoming, but I think my efforts helped tremendously. If all you have time for is work, good luck in an Iberian or Latin city – these are slow places that do not have sympathy for people who revolve their lives around work as a city like New York or Zurich may.

As culture becomes more global, cities that are glossed over with the amenities digital nomads demand will all look one and the same. You can go to a city center in nearly any part of the world and get a pretty latte and an avocado toast, or go to a cute cowork. But why travel at that point?

You touch on a major reason where a lot of American digital nomads fail, and that is that it takes A LOT to integrate into a foreign culture. Europeans tend to have a lot more contact with diverse cultures and are more likely to understand that they will suffer from not being about the integrate fully into a foreign culture, but I think that Americans assume that they will be fine wherever they go. Asia in particular is a place where lots of Americans go and end up failing, but it can also apply to Europe and Latin America to an extent.

You're painting with very broad strokes.

I would say perhaps Europeans as a whole have much more experience living in a foreign country than Americans do. But as an American with significant travel experience globally, I have yet to visit a country that is as culturally diverse as America.

This never makes any sense to me. Have you been to any country in Southern Europe? Parts of those are akin to the Mexican border with nationalities from all over the world - for example Portugal has a half-Indian prime minister and most of its immigrants are from Latin America, Middle East and Africa, with a number from China via Macau.

What do you consider southern europe, as a red-blooded American, I suck at Geography.

But, I have been to Spain, Italy, Greece, and Turkey.

And it was all full off Spaniards, Italians, Greeks, and Turks, respectively.

Colonialism does mean many european countries do count among their ranks people who aren't "native" to europe, but America is a land of immigrants. Full stop.

Southern Europe has much more visible minorities than most of the US, especially the smaller and medium sized towns. Not sure where you have been. Most Indians I have met usually have negative views about racism and diversity in the US.

> Southern Europe has much more visible minorities than most of the US, especially the smaller and medium sized towns.

Sources?

I've lived and worked in the US and Germany. I've travelled all over Europe at this point (except Italy, notably).

Most of Europe is not very diverse. It took me a while to overcome the culture shock of what is essentially a European monoculture. The most diverse country I encountered in Europe was probably Spain.

What do you mean by "mexican border"? I think you are talking about preconceptions based on the news cycle.

At work in Europe, you will get weird comments if you are not a white person. I never encountered anything like that in the US.

Northern Europe is much less diverse and Southern Europe, but there are also parts of the US which are similarly less diverse (especially once you have taken out Hispanics from the equation who are often white or slightly non-white). American culture is also a monoculture - people forget that the "immigrants" in the US are actually highly assimilated into American culture, often moreso that the immigrants in Europe - black people are a good example; it says a lot that I, a Brit, get into far more arguments with Indian Americans than actual India Indians.

Most ethnic minorities in Europe tend to be more thinly spread out as compared to the US, and there is much more interaction between Whites and racial minorities. This is one of the biggest complaints that I get from Indians about the racial culture in the US, but it's also traditionally famous among Blacks as well. It's based on the traditional mixing of ethnic groups that has been going on for thousands of years - remember even during the Roman Empire and Ancient Greece, there were immigrants from Africa, Middle East and South Asia.

EDIT: This chart on the Non-Hispanic White distribution similarly has Northern America as being more white than Southern America: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/54/Non-Hisp...

> black people are a good example

Black people aren't immigrants. They were taken from their land, had their culture stripped away from them, and sold as property.

And if you're talking about the recent wave of immigrants from Africa, they have maintained their own identity and culture in addition to adopting american customs.

British Blacks.

And also just to point out that racial minorities have been mixing in Europe, Africa and Asia for thousands of years. Look at immigration in the Roman era for example.

Just to add another point. You forget that the minorities in the US have assimilated into American culture. If you put a British Black person and Black American into a same room, or Indian American and British Indian, they would have a lot of cultural differences based on their nationality and not their race. Assimilating into America is no different to assimilating into Germany or Mexico.

You're right. 'America' as people talk about it often means coastal US metros... definitely nothing to do with 'flyover' areas smaller than Chicago.

I'm surprised by pockets of the city I grew up in when I walk a few blocks off the roads I've driven 100s of times. Latin/Somali/Vietnamese/you-name-it neighborhoods I had no idea existed. Sqaure-mile or two neighborhoods within a 1-200sqmi metro, not too surprising.

But you have these types of places everywhere, all over Europe and much of Asia. You forget that much of Southern Europe and Asia has had immigration for millennia and ethnic groups from all over the world have been living beside each other for thousands of years.

The "flyover" areas have a lot more diversity than they are given credit for, including many of the cities smaller than Chicago. I don't think there is a US city of any size without pockets of interesting diversity. (Certainly none in my experience though I will admit to generally limited exposure to the Plains states and some "Midwest" bias.) Plus there are all sorts of large "contiguous statistical area" regions in "flyover" land that correspond to multiple "small" cities but overall have the same diversity/pockets/feel-ish of coastal CSAs. Chicago seems an interestingly over-large cut-off point to me for "diverse city" and may show some bias of inexperience in "flyover" areas.

There's definitely a startling lack of diversity in many of the US' truly rural areas, which is why the current US culture war seems dominantly city versus rural. But there are also fewer truly rural areas than people expect. (The US love of suburban and exurban expansion touched a lot of the country.)

Just guessing but you have probably not traveled all over India where each state has a different cuisine and culture and language.

Well I am Indian, and during my time in India, I did not find it nearly as culturally diverse as the US.

I'm not speaking about regional differences, those exist in pretty much every country.

Indians are fairly culturally diverse if you only compare the major cities. You have much more ethnic differences in India than US as well. Immigration from the more "Middle Eastern" North-West India and the more "East Asian" North-East India is also widespread.

And it is also important to point out that regional differences are much more stark in India than in the US. Most Americans have only ever met ethnic minorities who have assimilated into being Americans. That would not be considered an ethnic difference in many racial philosophies.

> Most Americans have only ever met ethnic minorities who have assimilated into being Americans. That would not be considered an ethnic difference in many racial philosophies.

America deserves it's fair share of criticism, but to criticize America as having no/limited experience with diverse cultures shows pretty gross ignorance.

It obvious you have limited interaction with people from around the world since you seem to have no knowledge about how diverse many other parts of the world are, with much better results too.

I actually meet a lot of Indians who critise the US over places like Europe and South East Asia because of the lack of mixing between races/ethnicities in the US. I often get Americans in East Asia who don't understand that ethnic minorities from other parts of the world frequently make friends across ethnic boundaries. In America you are divided by race, whereas in the rest of the old world people mix like a port market - people in America seem to forget that inter-race and inter-ethnic immigration has happened across the old world for millennia, and they have been mixing for thousands of years.

> you seem to have no knowledge about how diverse many other parts of the world are, with much better results too.

It's hard to pin point your opinion because it keeps shifting--are you saying the US has racism? Are you saying people in the US don't mix with other races? Are you saying American's don't have experience with other cultures?

All of them.

I often attend a lot of events where you get diaspora from across the world, and one thing that all the Indians will agree on is that Indian American don't mix with natives as much as Indians in other parts of the world. This would be a type of racism in most European and Asian racism philosophies.

The other point is that most minorities in the US are highly assimilated into American culture and American norms. And most Americans have had very little experience of anything more drastic than Canada or possibly Hispanics (which is itself a very American concept). Americans drastically tend to underestimate just how different other cultures are and quickly jump to racism - I've been in a lot of situations in third countries where Indian Americans and other Americans call racism on "problems" they have that are considered normal in places like the UK or Australia.

You're saying every US immigrant population has assimilated except for Indians, and that's why America is not culturally diverse as Europe?

Every ethnic group that has immigrated to America (including Europeans) formed communities with others from their own country of origin.

That isn't an American thing. That exists in every country. As does the disdain for immigrants who forcibly avoid assimilating into local culture. In fact, every major European country I know has seen rise in nationalism fueled entirely by anti-immigrant sentiment.

Could you please stop crossing into personal attack? You've done it more than once and we have to ban that sort of account.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> You touch on a major reason where a lot of American digital nomads fail, and that is that it takes A LOT to integrate into a foreign culture.

I find they are disappointed because the wealthy are often the first to travel and live multiple-house nomad lifestyle. Which is nothing like being a nobody who has only average income. An actor traveling all over the world with a personal assistant and businesses arranging everything is who they hear about most as the nomads of the world. As they are the big sports stars, film stars, book authors, musicians - doing their show.

But a lot of musicians and such will tell you that it is by no means easy to live on the road and to follow your own path.

Back in the 1980's, George Lucas and Joseph Campbell really tried to make this knowledge clear to people. Campbell: "They've moved out of the society that would have protected them, and into the dark forest, into the world of fire, of original experience. Original experience has not been interpreted for you, and so you've got to work out your life for yourself. Either you can take it or you can't. You don't have to go far off the interpreted path to find yourself in very difficult situations. The courage to face the trials and to bring a whole new body of possibilities into the field of interpreted experience for other people to experience -- that is the hero's deed."

Most people in 2023 wave around light sabers and have never bothered to study any of the things Lucas filmed about the mythology interpretation and human history of experiences.

“One must travel, to learn. Every day, now, old Scriptural phrases that never possessed any significance for me before, take to themselves a meaning.” ― Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad

This looks like non news to me.

People don't "hate" digital nomads (and the article itself does not even back up this claim from the headline). In fact, most people do not even notice them most of the time, as they don't make up for a significant percentage of the population anywhere.

There will be always small and very vocal groups, complaining about effectively irrelevant things like this. That is not newsworthy.

> But they add: “While the constant state of motion was exciting in the beginning, it eventually became tiresome – literally.”

Well, yeah? Constantly moving and traveling around the world tend to have this effect on people.

I don’t hate them, but they tend to be pretty cringey.

There are problems with tensions between locals and digital nomads in several places, especially Portugal, but also in a lot of major cities where they are having a similar effect to Airbnb. A big issue is the strength of the US dollar simply makes it impossible for anyone else to compete and attracts so many Americans.

> There are problems with tensions between locals and digital nomads in several places, especially Portugal

I have never heard of this before, and I have a few portuguese friends.

Also, in the context of Lisbon, I doubt that 16,000 salaried workers [0] could influence the market to that extent in a city of 500,000 people, especially given that digital nomads make, on average, $120,000 [1].

It seems to me that digital nomads are the new scapegoats for people who don't like to point their finger inwards.

[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20221227111848/https://nomadlist...

[1] https://www.twoticketsanywhere.com/digital-nomad-statistics/

Depends how many houses there are, if they had 'just enough' then adding any amount of people can cause a large price spike as everyone tries to outbid each other for remaining inventory. The price increases can become sticky as people start joining the market to speculate

> Also, in the context of Lisbon, I doubt that 16,000 salaried workers [0] could influence the market to that extent in a city of 500,000 people, especially given that digital nomads make, on average, $120,000 [1].

16000 out of 500000 people will definitely move the needle quite a bit in housing, given the small % of people who move every year

16,000 digital nomads that need individual housing, in a culture where multiple generations of families live together.

This is nonsense, and definitely not a thing in Portugal.

It's famous that the Portuguese and Spanish live with their parents until 30s (increasingly 40s) and usually close to their grand parents.

Isn't that just housing market going to shit ?

Because the housing market has been effectively closed to many young people for a couple decades now.

Was the 2008 crisis also caused by digital nomads?

> especially given that digital nomads make, on average, $120,000

Minimum wage in Portugal is about €760/month, or $10,000/year. You're seriously underestimating how much $120k is.

I think you are overestimating the impact of 16,000 people in a city like Lisbon.

The median salary of a digital nomad is sure lower than $120,000. I don’t have numbers, but I would say it should be closer to $60,000. Average salary in Lisbon is also roughly $48,000.

If locals want to blame someone, perhaps investment banks eating up the available housing stock would be a better target.

16k digital nomads will have a negligible effect on a country the size of Portugal.

AirBnB disregards zoning laws to repurpose residential housing as hotels.

It's a completely different thing from new workers moving in to a city.

One common thread among the people profiled in the article is that they are all "influencers". I do think there there's something unique to influencers vs other digital nomads. There's something off putting about the egoism of thinking you're giving back to the world by broadcasting your life. It's probably more that aspect that people "hate", not necessarily the digital nomad aspect.

This is probably the linchpin. Same thing with "tourist hate" I've read about; I've never had any major issues anywhere I've gone, but then again I don't do the "stereotypical asshole tourist" stuff.

"Influencer" is almost synonymous with "online asshole".

I feel the same about being a tourist. I've never felt unwelcome anywhere as a tourist, but I'm also not loud and pushy. They're happy to have my money, and I'm happy to have their hospitality. Even the locals that aren't actually involved don't really mind tourists that are nice.

People who try to change things, whether it's actually for the better or not, are not well-liked. The locals like doing things their way, and they won't like being told to be different, regardless of the long-term benefits.

> and they won't like being told to be different, regardless of the long-term benefits.

wild assumption that just because something is different that it will be better. Especially when it usually comes from sheer utter ignorance and not being there long enough to understand, yet alone change for better

I've been doing some budget digital nomad for several years and the most boring part of it is having to re-explain what I do for a living every time I meet someone - oh why does every conversation start like this? I don't think I've even met a single soul who knew what programmers do or what "digital nomad" is when traveling within the USA over the past 2/3 years.

Granted, this is mostly rural camping and small-city AirBNB all in the borders of the US. (Except for one time I stopped in DC for a month - strangely the only people that came to talk to me were the homeless and even they held decent conversations)

We're getting our adrenal glands pumping over Narcissistic obsessives dedicating every ruminating moment towards writing the next hit piece where they finally resolve their past scenarios, and they finally said all the right things to the wrong people, in an orgy of retraumatizing material. Just ignore them, go travel, say hi to people, change the world and all that stuff.

Might be my wrong sampling methods but I thought introducing yourself with the job description was more of an American thing? My impression meeting people around here (Europe) is more like "where are you from? aaaa cheese right?" and it goes on from there.

I know three different people who sold their homes, moved into sailboats, and set out to be waterborne digital nomads, sailing around the world and doing freelance work to support themselves. I know one guy who did the same thing, but with #vanlife. In all these cases, without exception, they regretted it within a year.

My advice is, before you liquidate your assets, quit your job, upend your life... give it a dry run. Try it for a month or two first. See if you still like it. If you don't, call it a long vacation and re-evaluate.

I think that most people can't give it a dry run without that liquidation, though. Having a normal job gets in the way of that lifestyle and is virtually guaranteed to sour the experience.

Obvious not all of them like it, but I think even fewer would like it if they don't commit to it outright.

It's definitely not for me. I need a lot more stability than that.

> I think that most people can't give it a dry run without that liquidation, though. Having a normal job gets in the way of that lifestyle and is virtually guaranteed to sour the experience.

I was thinking you'd probably take your standard 3-5 weeks of yearly PTO, plus however much unpaid time off you could get your company to agree to. That would make for a good month, month-and-a-half, or possibly two months test. And, I think if at all possible you should try to work while traveling, either your current job or some freelance work, because that would be part of the actual experience you're testing.

> It's definitely not for me. I need a lot more stability than that.

Same here. I like sleeping in my bed and making pizza, and taking showers any time I want. Also, as a designer, it's kind of a non-starter for me, since I can't seem to get by without a gigantic monitor.

I don't know about other places, but I can't take even 2 weeks off at a time without getting special approval. There's no way I could take my entire year's PTO at once. And they won't allow any unpaid time.

I know a few people who didn't really commit to it but, yeah, they didn't really last that long. And, especially as you get older, there are also just a lot of practical issues with not having a home base. And, if you do have a home base, then you need to worry about maintenance and checking in on that base.

My personal take is that I can easily see heading off to someplace for a month. Maybe two. But probably not much interest in more than that.

> In all these cases, without exception, they regretted it within a year.

Did they regret that they did it at all, or did they want to stop because they realized they would regret it they kept doing it?

Have you talked to them after they've gone back to a stable life for a while to see if they still regret it?

I can definitely see it being a bad idea overall. But I can also imagine someone realizing "This isn't as great as I imagined, and I'm done but I'm still glad I got it out of my system and made a lot of memories."

I doubt they hated every single second of it. Probably just novelty wore off

Yeah, I think they probably have mixed feelings about it, good and bad. But it's safe to say it did not work out the way they hoped it would.

Are remote workers who don’t choose a digital nomad lifestyle somehow immune from being tired, lonely and hated by locals? As far as I can tell all of these issues are just as real for the average tech worker working in a big hub. The difference is being a digital nomad offers way more flexibility on how you live your life and the variety of culture you get to experience.

I think one of the key differences is how you socialise varies from country to country, but just that a lot of the internet is dominated by Americans and people assume that "they are unfriendly" or "they are friendly".

The truth is that most of these "friendly" countries are just engaging in a form of small talk and politeness, similar to going from London (unfriendly) to Ireland (friendly), and that you are not actually making what normal people would consider friends.

There are some who do genuinely travel a lot and make friends, but these people usually have global links from childhood or something else that forces them to travel overseas.

I work remotely in a rural ranching area. Since almost day one we've been fully integrated. The key is our kids. We all do the same sports and kids activities together. We even go to branding parties and help out a lot. It was a real commitment moving down here we didn't just decide to live in an area, we joined a community. I could see how things would be very different if we didn't do that.

This is it; if the ONLY interactions you have with others are negative, they will view you negatively. So if you hide in your house all day and only emerge to complain about the neighbor's dog or something, you're going to be disliked.

All you have to do to counteract much of that is just say hi now and then, talk a little bit. Kids help tremendously here, because they have absolutely zero filters and feel it's entirely appropriate to run up to random strangers and yell "I POOPED".

That doesn't sound like a 'nomad' to me.

Maybe for the first few months but the parent was considering if maybe those sentiments applied more broadly.

doesn't 'nomad' imply you're moving from place to place? remote workers can settle down and integrate into an area, but the digital nomads i know usually only stay as long as their tourist visa lasts - which isn't long at all.

> Are remote workers who don’t choose a digital nomad lifestyle somehow immune from being tired, lonely and hated by locals?

If all you do is get out of your apartment to get groceries in and trash out and say good morning you will probably not be hated by locals.

If you need to do near-zero upkeep of the lifestyle (vs driving van around or whatever the nmoads to do), there is also pretty good chance you won't be tired.

And not being lonely is easier if you don't just leave after a month after getting to know someone.

Sooo yes.

> The difference is being a digital nomad offers way more flexibility on how you live your life and the variety of culture you get to experience.

You can just go on vacation if you want to experience culture a bit.

If all you want to do is to experience culture fair enough, it fits like a glove, but pursuing most other hobbies is far easier living "normal" life.

For what it’s worth America is one of the easiest if not the easiest place to be an immigrant, all things considered. You’ll find a community of your fellow countrymen already thriving, you have well established rights that are maintained by the rule of law, and so long as you try to fit in and work hard nobody will pay much mind. Many if not most digital nomads are Americans traveling from an open minded heterogeneous society to a more conservative and homogeneous one. No matter what you call it you’re leaving a society that is relatively pro immigration behind for a society that is very likely less inviting of foreigners!

I hope the recent wave of digital nomads makes the world a more open and inviting place but there will be growing pains. America has been the land of immigrants for centuries now and we still have blowback. Imagine going to some rural village or regional capital, making 10x more than all the locals while sitting at a hotel on your laptop, and expecting them to roll out the red carpet! Be respectful, be optimistic, and welcome to the life of an immigrant.

You represent what the problem with Americans tend to be. You assume that your culture and philosophy is the best, and then start to hate how all the locals hate you and blame it on their culture. Southern Europe and much of Asia has had inter-ethnic/inter-racial immigration for thousands of years and have developed their own ways of how ethnic groups live side by side and integrate/merge together.

Where can I read about this, about other sorts modes of integration?

Read up on the history of immigration to Europe, Africa and Asia. You act as if the US is the only place where immigration has ever happened.

I was wondering if you recommended any specific texts or resources.

https://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/immigration-diversity-...

Thanks!

parent comment didn't say that it's the best, but it's obviously the easiest for the modern digital nomad. in most other places integration probably happened over timespans of several centuries.

check the history of germans outside of germany. they lived in places for centuries and never integrated at all, but kept to themselves, except in the US.

in asia today foreigners are not expected to integrate at all. nor in africa. they will always stand out, and yes, maybe through intermarrying in a few centuries some will have integrated. but there is no place like the US where you can effectively integrate from day one if you have an open mind. i have lived in all these places so i speak from my own experience.

Well, and the fact near-everyone in US speaks english. Ability to communicate is kinda a key thing.

Unlike others, i’m going to say I get it.

I had a stranger recently come up to me and ask to come to an event I was inviting others to. No problem! Come along

But the thing is the dude was very shy and awkward. Which isn’t a problem, but definitely cast a bit of a cloud over our social event

All of a sudden I was managing him, taking time and focus out of my night to make him feel welcome. I’m sure he didn’t intend it, but he didn’t make it seem as though he were ungrateful

There are so many little social cues to make social work. And if you’re not even remotely part of the group, you’re probably going to clash

Which is all well and good - it’s let of meeting people… but this guy was just blowing through town. All the investment for what? So he could be 1,000 miles away next week? (he said he would be)

The problem with nomads or even superficial travelers is you are taking from the environment you travel to but rarely give much back. And as the trend grows this back and forth becomes tiring fast

So basically if you’re going to travel or be a nomad - be a badass people want to be around. Commit to it and be ready when you get there to shine a personality. If you can’t do it in an environment and culture you’re familiar with - respect the people you travel to by working on yourself first.

Don’t expect other people to be the prop up to make your life interesting

what kind of event was that? tech or something else?

Which is all well and good - it’s let of meeting people… but this guy was just blowing through town. All the investment for what? So he could be 1,000 miles away next week? (he said he would be)

that made me think of this song: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heute_hier,_morgen_dort

be a badass people want to be around

i am probably just like most average introverts, but i don't have problems at tech events, it really depends though. today i was at a meetup of people building brick models (LEGO and alternatives), a hobby i share on the sides. it was way more difficult for me to join that group because i don't have the experience and background as most others, and if it wasn't for people i had already known online, i probably would have acted like your friend there.

on tech events on the other hand i can contribute with my experience, all you need to do is to get me to start talking. likewise any community that is curious about visitors, like my religious community which is always welcoming stories from other countries, which meant i was welcome everywhere i went.

other groups are those where it is possible to integrate without a long history. irish folk sessions. show up with an instrument and play. instant integration. dungeons and dragons. i found a group that would run weekly one-off's. while multiple sessions followed an overall storyline, each session was designed so that it didn't matter who and how many players joined. the DM was ready for anything, the only rule was that all players were at level 5 and had the same number of points to create their characters, so they were all of similar strength. instant integration. board game meetups were even more open. every week i'd see different people. again, easy to integrate.

it does help to have a variety of interests. irish folk sessions were sparse outside of western countries (only in big cities with lots of expats), board games and dnd too. tech events are a lot easier.

It was just a casual bbq with very relaxed friends.

Being social and fitting in is a skill like any other. So many people in tech believe they don’t need to work this particular muscle and it shows

Can you talk about things with a stranger at length that aren’t in your core interests?

Can you make people interested in what you’re talking about even if they’re not exactly your kind of people?

Do you have confidence when you speak, at least enough to get your words across? Do you enjoy being around others in a purely social situation?

All these kinds of things are important. And personally I think they should be developed before one injects themselves into foreign places. For safety as much as the respect of those you travel to

I think they should be developed before one injects themselves into foreign places

i am going to have to disagree with this. if anything i found doing this a lot easier in foreign places than at home. so if i would have waited until i was able to do that at home, then i would never have been able to leave in the first place.

and you know what, after three decades i still feel uncomfortable in a room when i don't know anyone and i rely on others to welcome me. i don't know what or how i should have learned anything other than keep doing it, be patient and to try not be too awkward.

i have literally just been through this experience today. in a group of tech people that all had the same cultural origin as me too. a few people talked to me and i was able to join the conversation.

to answer your questions: i have a variety of interests, some stronger some less, (like most science topics, even if i know nothing about them are interesting) but if it's not about any of those, like most sports or chit chat about celebrities, then i'll struggle. i'll listen, but i may not have much to say.

i don't know if i can make people interested but i can talk to them if they are interested in a way they will understand.

i can speak confidently, and i don't shy away from social situations, but how much i enjoy that depends on everyone there. today was so-so. nobody made me feel unwelcome, but i have experienced much more welcoming groups (mainly from other cultures, most notably africans). so today wasn't bad, but it was somewhat mentally exhausting, just as i expected it

sometimes you just can't predict what happens when you join an event with people you don't know. at one event i talked to someone for 5 minutes, and half a year later he invited me to work with him on his project. at another, after attending a few times, one of the organizers talked to me and eventually became one of my best friends even though he hardly spoke my language, and i don't speak his.

i would not have been able to live such a life rich of experiences if i had stopped myself due to the challenges i face interacting with other people.

actually so far from my experience, the only group of people that seems to have difficulties to welcome others into our groups, is us.

While much of this is true- and I speak from some personal experience, here- the article also takes an unnecessarily critical tone, as if these challenges somehow invalidate the ideas behind the digital nomad lifestyle.

There's no rule that the nomad life has to be permanent, and I don't know of anybody who went into it thinking that it would be permanent (myself included).

It's very useful as a breath of fresh air, a respite, and a chance to shake up one's life in positive, meaningful ways. In many ways, it's useful to think of the nomad life like a multi-year vacation, and oh by the way, when you do decide to "go home," you have many more options for defining where and what "home" is than you might have considered possible before. I think some folks who have _only_ ever lived a settled life might be a bit blind to those nuances.

'Hated by locals' is a stretch. I don't think the number of digital nomads is enough to have any meaningful impact on rents or real estate prices in most countries. This is just xenophobia in another form.

A whole of locals, from Lissabon to Bali, actually might disagree. Not to talk about the defacto visa and tax fraud some digital nomads commit. Nothing wrong with going to live and work in a certain place. But do it the proper way: get a work visa if you have to and register for taxes like everyone else. Otherwise your taxes not paid are an unfair advantage compared to locals, it is illegal and basically cheating.

My friend who started having a public affair with a local woman - Indonesia - could have easily gotten himself killed, TBH I’m surprised he’s still alive.

Really, why could that have gotten him killed?

Sounds like your friend overstepped local cultural norms which is quite the opposite of "integration"

No, those people are mad about Airbnb and that's not the same thing. I have rented my vacation home for years and maybe once did I have a "digital nomad."

And I don't know about Bali, but I pay taxes through the nose on each rental for them and the property taxes and income taxes if I make a profit or not (not in the US). I'm happy to do it, I'm not complaining about paying them but don't tell me I don't.

Also these things happen because the locals' governments enabled it. Many countries even have a "digital nomad" visa, but if you allow visa-free entry and all people are doing is using the Internet, then again, that's internal immigration laws. There's no "cheating" at all.

It's not like a "digital nomad" in Lisbon got free health care, tuition, or transport and if their landlords aren't paying property tax or income tax, again, that's not really the fault of the tenants.

Locals are upset about housing policy and they probably should be. Neighbors are upset about all of their neighborhoods turning into transient AirBnB pitstops with tenants who are rude and loud and they should. But being mad at the people who just clicked online and showed up there is misdirected. It's either landlords who don't enforce rules or governments who don't limit the number of vacation rentals in historical areas.

You read these articles and act like everyone is going to look at you with side eye as you walk around. But I just spend a week in Lisbon and it was great and everyone was friendly.

Probably the AirBnB model needs to be banned in many places and only bona fide rentals of full places should be allowed, but it depends on the place.

If you're in an entire development in a tourist area, everyone's a tourist. Places like downtown Lisbon or Barcelona and other places people are upset should probably ban or limit the number allowed.

But anyway, no one is particularly mad at "digital nomads" this is a clickbait article.

t. knower

> Probably the AirBnB model needs to be banned in many places and only bona fide rentals of full places should be allowed, but it depends on the place.

So because these transient tourist / influencer types or long-term stay idiots who can't behave (i just happen to have to deal with such a "noisy & unconcerned about others type" in the adjoining room - he is Viennese so his personality is kind of self-"explaining) leave 'skidmarks' in neighboorhoods, other travellers who know how to behave and kind of blend in should suffer, i.e. paying thse huge charges for hotels that provide less value?

Never would i have had such great times if not being able to travel for a longer period or more often -because great value with local contacts- if not for Airbnb. Got invited for all kinds of events and dinner, even on Christmas.

I agree the main issues are about perceived impact of itinerant visitors (who treat a community like their amusement park) and spending disparity (paradoxically giving locals income and also driving up prices). And, those who are visibly "foreign" are easier targets to vent when frustrated.

Ignoring that, I am following the tangential topic about digital nomads, work visas, and taxes. I think the regulations are still trying to catch up. Some folks have a fantasy that when the internet is involved, they are working in cyberspace at the remote end of their network connections. But, the actual rules in most jurisdictions tend to be about your physical location while working. They usually lack any clear rules to disambiguate the spectrum from "traveler on holiday making a few phone calls" and "permanent work from home with foreign employer". This is a gray area and relies on selective enforcement.

My experience is a little dated, but I think it is still, sadly, too relevant. I was an expat in SEA about 20 years ago. I was not an itinerant nomad. My partner took a local job there and I went along for the adventure, so we tried to settle in one place. But, my best work prospects remained in the US tech market, just like a digital nomad. My US clients knew they didn't want the hassle of hiring me outside their normal tax jurisdiction, nor the legal risk of pretending I lived in a US mailbox. All the legal advice we could find led to one frustrating answer. To be totally legal, we had to start a local consulting company and take on some local staff (and local shareholders!) so that our company could sponsor my work permit. This also awarded me the right kind of extended visa and proper re-entry permits for when I needed to travel internationally.

Our company then had to engage my US "employer" via subcontract. We effectively had to have local staff on retainer even though I didn't need them to satisfy my US client's needs. We had the accounting and tax headaches of running that company, plus local personal income taxes in our host country. Then, as a US citizen, I still had to file US income taxes and try to get all the exclusions and credits to avoid double taxation. Aside from losing money to pay unnecessary local staff, it was difficult to minimize profits that would distribute to the shareholders for what was just an overly complicated solo consultancy.

At the same time, I was well aware that others were flying below the radar. They ritualized "visa runs" to cross borders and reenter on temporary tourist visas. They played games where they told a different story to each jurisdiction about where they were really domiciled. I've often wondered how many of them succeeded in this cheating game for decades since I knew them, or whether they eventually got caught up in some kind of financial disaster.

i spent a month in bali after covid, and the ones i talked to were happy to have tourists back. i heard miserable stories from selling everything, going back to farming to survive, personal businesses gone, pets dying because they couldn't take care of them. You cant make generalizations about what people want and don't want. its more complex then that.

South East Asia has been against long term tourists for many years now. They want all the "families" and richer tourists who stay for a few days in expensive hotels that hire lots of local workers.

My dad retired to Thailand 20 years ago and until he got too sick to take care of himself had no problems with any of it. (And after he got sick and before he passed, the home we managed to get him placed in helped him get a 'humanitarian exemption' to being deported for visa crimes).

They aren't going to kick out elderly tourists who have been there for years, but it is a new move to encourage wealthier tourists that contribute more to jobs and the wider economy. South East Asia also know that they can't maintain the low cost lifestyle on one hand and help their people become richer on the other hand.

Well, it's no wonder, all the taxes the nomads pay are not paid to them...

I was in Bali during COVID, got there a Oct 2019 and stayed for two years in total. The reasons for this are very much economical: COVID was pretty brutal for a lot of people who make their living off tourism, as you mentioned.

For many locals it's very much a love-hate relationship. They love the money it brings in and hate pretty much everything else. As soon as you complain about anything – no matter how justified – there's a very real chance you'll be told to fuck off to your own country.

And to be honest I don't blame them either. There really are a whole bunch of right twats in Bali and even I got pretty tired of it quickly. For example the number of white people not wearing a mask in stores etc. was just staggering.

yeah there's a lot to it. Thats why i think people who try to summarize "what the locals think" into a nice one liner should just not comment. it misses to much

Just this week I was reading the average rent in Lisbon those days is more than the local salary.

Airbnb is also another culprit. Most major cities in Europe are suffering from the strong US dollar, Airbnb and digital nomads. Portugal and Spain are usually big draws for tourists and retirees from UK and Northern Europe, so there is some understanding but the situation is ridiculous.

Digital nomads are a major problem in several countries including most of South East Asia and Portugal, and major cities in these regions are having inflated prices due to digital nomads.

every city has this same complaint about prices. at some point maybe we need to finally stop demonizing the bad group of the moment and look what is really causing problems

In Europe and much of Asia, there is usually a core area that is very historic and very exclusive/desirable to live in, and of course by virtue it's hard to expand a historic area. These areas have been turned into a mixture of tourist areas and digital nomad areas, usually for Americans due to the strong dollar, and out-priced all the locals to the point that these areas have no life or character. I read complaints from Americans about how these areas are too expensive and have no life and how there are other European/Asian cities which are better, not realising that it is they themselves who are causing the problems.

i know the complaints and stories, but its never been scientific. just blaming the outside group. but these rising prices are happening all over the world. its americans going over the entire world raising prices? or airbnb is the other culprit always. seems unlikely. its always trust me im local, its the outside group. every city ive lived and looked at lviing in, this same exact complaint about rising prices is happening. even in america too.

Tourist traps happened organically for locals before the digital nomads came. As did tourism

It seems to me that locals are the ones inflating prices.

So the local economy is thriving and people are getting rich? That kind of change really does ruin the charm of so many communities.

You are vastly overestimating how many digital nomads there are.

There aren't enough nomads anywhere except perhaps Chiang Mai to swing local real estate prices.

I heard resentment towards remote workers based on their perceived effect on rents when vacationing in Santa Teresa, Costa Rica recently.

Ah, the Daily Telegraph. In recent years, it has become more and more like a broadsheet version of the Daily Mail. They are on a long-term anti-WFH push; this is part of that narrative.

To be fair, at times their defence coverage is still surprisingly solid, though.

They might be "tired" because they are "lonely," as isolation atrophies the part of the brain that deals with social interactions and causes mental illnesses, such as depression, which contributes to malfunctions of bodily energy management.

>>Americans make up more than half of this drifting population ... the second biggest cohort come from the UK >>Americans Mindi and Daryl Hirsch...the pair eventually put down roots in Lisbon

UK and UK, two of the strongest passports in the world. It becomes really easy to be a digital nomad when you can simply board a plane and land in most of the world and walk in because you have a powerful passport. Must be so good to not have to prepare for a visa 3 months in advance and submit a whole bunch of documents to have the privilege of visiting most countries.

I absolutely disagree. I have been travelling for almost 2 years and feel more at home on the road than I ever did back "home". Here's some reflections in case it is of interest.

https://kaveh.page/lessons_solo_traveling/

In particular, #6 and 14.

One of the problems of digital nomads that come to my town is that they're introverted quiet people that would rather be on HN or reddit than be part of the community. Actually they'll never be part of the community as by definition they'll be off in a few months.

Reading some of the comments here, I think too many people (notably quite a few Americans) don't quite understand how severe cultural and philosophical differences between countries and cultures can be. It can very even between two people of the same race but different countries (say British Indian and Indian American). People in a certain country can have completely different ideas about what racism offends them compared to the same racial minority in another country.

>People in a certain country can have completely different ideas about what racism offends them compared to the same racial minority in another country.

So can different people in same country...

True. But you can also generalise that people in a certain country react differently to people in another country for the purpose of identity politics. A politician calling a person or party "racist" only makes sense if a meaningful number of people of that ethnicity believe it to be racist.

http://web.archive.org/web/20230601182301/https://www.telegr...

For Indians I doubt that there is a major difference really in how they are treated as IT workers or as digital nomads.

"I work in the IT industry"

"That is such a normal thing!"

It feels like this kind of lifestyle would combine all the stress and homesickness of being a touring musician, but without the adoring fans and parties.

It sounds like something fun to do for few month and come back.

the digital nomads will eventually drive me out of this part of town, onto a shittier part, same as I will drive out some other less wealthy sucker even farther out of the nice parts onto even shittier parts.

such is life. so this is why I am glad the dollar reign is coming to an end; I may still get fucked (too late for me) but I'll be glad to watch the mechanism by which I got fucked fall and crumble

You're talking about gentrification. This is not caused by nomads, but by transplants. I think nomads are different because they work from the road and get off on patronizing "exotic" cultures to reenforce their own privilege, a privatized form of imperialism.

I see stickers placed by locals in these spots basically telling the digital nomads to GTFO. Covid really amped up the hate.

It's unfortunate both ways.

One person can put up 100 stickers. It's the kind of thing where you go "Huh" and then never notice it again.

When I moved to Seattle, I noticed the "Fuk U Techie" stickers, but I pretty quickly tuned out NIMBY screeching.

This is from the Telegraph which looks down on folks like Digital Nomads. So take the article with a pinch of salt.

People complaining that being a nomad is lonely. Really? What an unexpected turn of events.

Yeah, no part of that lifestyle would be appealing to me. Travel has diminishing returns for me personally and I'm definitely at the point where it's more of a chore than something I look forward to, unless it's to ski.

I like traveling but I've never done it for more than a month at a time and, with some brief exceptions (mostly when I've been doing "enough" work for a few days not to take vacation when I've been mixing things up with business travel), I've mostly never traveled somewhere on my own where I'm trying to both work full-time and fully enjoy the location I'm traveling too for pleasure.

https://gitlab.com/magnolia1234/bypass-paywalls-firefox-clea...

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