Digital nomads living abroad facing challenges.

5 Challenges Digital Nomads Face While Living Abroad

These Are The Unique Challenges Digital Nomads Face While Living Abroad

Traveling the world and meeting deadlines simultaneously may seem challenging until you meet a digital nomad. More millennials are leading the road less taken by becoming digital nomads, traveling across the globe and posting colorful pictures on social media. It’s no doubt a great option for individuals who prefer to work with a different backdrop every week, but life on the road can be demanding. Though living abroad and working remotely may seem adventurous, the digital nomadic lifestyle is not always sunshine and fresh coconuts. Here are five challenges that digital nomads may face while living abroad.

1. Loneliness and Lack of Emotional Support

It’s never easy to bid adieu to family and friends no matter how passionate one is about travel. You start to realize your place within the society and the uncertainty of your feelings when exploring a new place. It creates room for feelings and friendships to change over time and being free from the assurance of your loved ones may cause an emotional dip for some. The lack of emotional support may pave way for a lonely road but that’s price of freedom.

It offers you plenty of opportunity to learn about your true self and doing what you actually like.

When you’re travelling to offbeat locations, connect with other digital nomads. You will soon find out digital nomads usually have a home base they’d like to spend time in. Creating a home base will help you build a community of support system, or you can simply come back to a familiar place to recuperate. Remind yourself to slow down and make time for travel and work. Yes, that means creating a routine that you want and enjoy. This will allow you to find a work-life balance and maintain a disciplined lifestyle.

Digital Nomads

2. Maintain Regular Flow of Income

It’s relatively easy for digital nomads to make themselves location independent, but making sure that money keeps flowing in becomes a massive challenge. Most nomads earn by doing freelance jobs or by being involved in various remote jobs. But no matter what, they have to constantly be looking for new clients. Some lucky few have a set of fixed clients they can rely on, but most have to keep finding new ones to support their nomadic lifestyle. An irregular workflow results in irregular money flow.

Several nomads have tried their hands at the digital lifestyle but gave up in the end due to a lack of funds. If planned well, one can go back to their normal life if the nomadic lifestyle doesn’t work for them.

3. Excessive Paperwork and Banking Formalities

The idea of country-hopping does not sound like much fun considering the amount of paperwork involved in the entire process. Visa restrictions, taxes, contract laws, work permissions, etc., are just a few things that have to be taken into account by the travelers.

They also face issues with banking and compliance. Several queries that most of them have are: how much cash can they carry, can the home debit card be used to draw money, is it possible to open a bank account as a foreigner, etc.

4. Medical Insurance

Yes, all digital nomads require international medical insurance, no matter which country they are traveling to. Though many nomads view insurance as an unnecessary expense, it is not! A medical emergency or illness in a foreign country can lead to costly consequences.

As a nomad, you’ll need the usual cover for medical emergencies, but if you’re going to be away for a while, you might also want your day-to-day medical care covered. Medical health insurance covers emergency medical care and certain routine check-ups and procedures. It’s important to make sure the claims procedure is easy and suitable for a nomad.

Every digital nomad should buy appropriate travel and international health insurance cover for themselves before taking off to their dream country. They should make sure to read all the details carefully before signing on the dotted line. Some health insurances that are popular with digital nomads and expats are GeoBlue and Cigna. All these cater to digital nomads, even while they are on the go.

5. Yes, it is life-changing

Though a digital nomad lifestyle sounds appealing, it is not for everyone. But ask some of the digital nomads who’ve been on the road for some time, and they won’t trade the world for it. No amount of difficult clients or tough work schedules can stop them from hitting the road.

There will always be challenges digital nomads face while living abroad, but when you focus on finding the solution, you gain a new perspective on your inspirational journey. An ideal solution would be to first concentrate on your savings. You should be able to save enough money to enable you to travel three to six months at a stretch even without being employed. This will not only allow you to enjoy the work that you do but also experience the true freedom of globe-trotting.

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