Digital Nomad Life

Is being a digital nomad legal?

June 30, 2019 by David James Leave a Comment

Strictly speaking, being a digital nomad is legal only if you have the right visa that grants you the permissions to work in the country that you are travelling to.

Additionally, you need to confirm exactly what the entrance visa states and how it relates to the travel visa rights in the country.

Many visas relate to not taking away jobs from locals and that any business that is done within the territory will provide income tax to the local government if the business is operating as a resident in that country.

If this isn’t the case, then there shouldn’t be an issue.

Typically, if you reside in a country for longer than 180 days, you are obliged to register as a resident in that country for tax purposes. And you will need to inform your previous country of residence of the change in your residency and how that will affect your taxable income.

The second thing is if you are selling products or services, it cannot be done in the country/region that you are residing if you are on a travel visa. If you have the correct working or business visa, then it is fine to do so.

If you plan to get employment or income locally in a country, you must have the correct working visa to do so.

Before you plan to visit a country as a digital nomad, please check to see what the legalities are around the following.

The types of visas that you can enter into the country with, and what permissions are granted with those visas.
How your funds or external income may affect your travels.
Any specific legalities that you should be aware of when entering the country.

Do not plead ignorance!

There are many people that go to another country as a digital nomad and ignore the visa requirements and do things such as work remotely and takeaway jobs from the local talent.

There are cases where this has been clamped down on in Thailand and those nomads have been expelled from the Kingdom of Thailand and blacklisted from re-entering.

Digital Nomad Myths – (The difference between reality and fantasy!)

August 24, 2018 by David James Leave a Comment

Note – This post contains affiliate links, however, the opinions and experiences are my own.

There are some things that I see digital nomads promoting that’s something to be desired, but it isn’t actually practical or it is counterproductive to being a successful digital nomad. I don’t normally like to discuss anything that is negative. But it is important that aspiring digital nomads know the difference between reality and fantasy when it comes to working and travelling around the world.

These are some things based on my experience that digital nomads should be aware of.

The lifestyle of a digital nomad is one long holiday.

Unless you are earning all of your income passively, you will need to dedicate time to do your work. Being a digital nomad allows you to work from a remote location in a destination that you want to work in the world as long as you have access to the internet. It allows you to immerse yourself into the local lifestyle and culture, but it doesn’t give you the freedom to be on a fulltime holiday.

If you are working as a freelancer, you will need to set aside 20-40h a week to work on your projects. If you are a business owner operator or manager, you may need to dedicate 40-80h a week.

Once you have organised your working sessions, you can designate sessions to enjoy yourself, explore and experience the local area that you are based in.

Alternative solution.

You can do straight weekly working sessions such as 3 weeks on, one week off. Or if it permits, 2 weeks on and then 2 weeks off. But you will need to find a work-lifestyle balance that will allow you to still be productive and allow you to enjoy the travel experience.

Working with your laptop on the beach is not advised.

My laptop is my livelihood. It is also worth a few thousand dollars. And I won’t risk getting sand or water in it by working on the beach. It also exposes you to theft.

Additionally, it is really uncomfortable to work on the beach in the hot sun. It is difficult to see the screen with the sun’s glare. It gets really hot and your computer might actually overheat.

What should you do instead?

If you have accommodation that overlooks the beach, that would be ideal. Otherwise, you can go to a cafe or bar that has WiFi, comfortable seating and shade and just buy drinks or food and enjoy the scenery of the sea.

Working in an area exposed to rice fields will expose you to insects.

You’ve probably seen the images of a digital nomad working in or near the rice fields in Bali or somewhere in South East Asia. If you are working in the open area (especially as the sun begins to set), you will get exposed to insects (particularly mosquitos). You don’t want to risk your health by exposing yourself to mosquitos that might be carrying something. You can use DEET repellent to prevent mosquitos from biting you or use other mosquito or insect repellents. However, if the place where you are working has an internal area, then you can move inside.

Another thing to consider is the environmental elements such as the humidity and wind, which can make the working experience uncomfortable.

What is an alternative solution?

Ideally, you can work inside a room or space that overlooks the rice fields. Or if you work in another space, make sure that you work during the morning or early afternoon (before twilight). If the space has upper decks, try to work there instead of at the ground level.

Socialising and loneliness.

Travelling as a digital nomad will allow to to meet several new people. However, it won’t allow you to forge strong and lon-lasting relationships that you can sustain for the duration of your travels. Many digital nomads talk about their frustrations with having good friendships, or for those that are single, finding love.

Most people that travel do so only for a certain amount of time before they return to their home country or choose to base themselves in another location permanently.

As good as it is to meet new people, the fact that people will move on makes the experience more lonely. You will find that many of your long-lasting relationships will be virtual ones.

What solutions are available?

If you can, travel with a partner or with a group of people. That way, you will always have the social dynamic as a part f your travels.

Alternatively, you can meet people that are staying in the same place as you. There may be groups on Facebook or meetups organised by people for socialising.

You can also get to know the locals in an area. You can meet them in social areas or participate in local events, hobbies or sporting teams.

Many experiences come at a cost.

You may see many digital nomads sharing their photos or videos of themselves participating in activities such as paragliding, jetskiing or feeding the animals. The truth is, many of the experiences come at a cost. And it is something that you need to factor into your travelling budget.

Whether it is hiring a scooter or a vehicle to explore the region, or purchasing a bus ticket, or paying an entrance fee, these are costs that you need to factor into your travels. If you plan to do these activities everyday, the expenses will add up quickly.

What solution is available?

Make sure that you allocate a budget for doing the activities or the experiences that you want to have. Do your best to plan ahead so you can stick to your budget.

Frequent travelling can get tiring.

We experienced this first hand when we started travelling. We were moving on a daily basis, which was exhausting and it also makes it near impossible to get work done.

What’s an alternative solution?

I’ve found that the best pace if you want to travel is to base somewhere for 3-4 weeks. If I really liked a place, I would base myself there for 2-3 months. This would give me the opportunity to really immerse myself in the culture and with the locals. Whilst allowing me to maximise my productivity.

You are essentially “Homeless”.

This can make things tricky in terms of storage and managing your correspondence. You will either need to take your belongings with you, put them into storage, create a virtual home or minimise everything.

What solution did we use?

We minimised everything and used our parents address as our permanent virtual correspondence address. You could do this with a virtual office address as well.

The lifestyle of a digital nomad is great if you can get the lifestyle that you want. But you shouldn’t be fooled into believing that everything is perfect. Every situation presents a different type of challenge.

A couple of things I would like to leave you with is that:

You should get your ideal working environment.

This means the environment that you work in. The chair that you will sit on. The internet connection and the ability to focus. I personally prefer to be inside a room that has a view. Whether that is a hotel or inside an apartment. In your case, you might find that being in a coworking space or working from a particular cafe is ideal.

Find the work-life balance.

I know that the experiences that I enjoy while travelling are eating and seeing landmarks and nature. So I’d prefer to set aside 4-8h on a day and do my exploring and enjoy myself. Outside of those hours, I would prefer to work on my projects. At the end of the day, you need to do what is best for you.

There are several others that are living the digital nomad lifestyle. I’ve shared links to their blogs so you can also see their perspective.

I hope this helps. All the best with your digital nomad travel adventure.

Productivity challenges that you need to be aware of as a digital nomad.

May 7, 2018 by David 2 Comments

I do love the freedom of being location independent. However, there are positives and negatives to everything. There are certain things with the digital nomad lifestyle that affects the productivity with the work that you are doing. It’s good to be aware of this and to work out a work-life balance that will allow you to achieve what you want as an income, as well as with the travelling lifestyle.

From my personal experience, here are a few things that you need to keep in mind.

You need to be in a productive working environment.

There are several digital nomads who post Instagram pictures of themselves working on their laptop at a beach or in front of rice fields. As good as it sounds, it often isn’t practical. I’ve tried working at the beach and it is difficult to be productive when the sand is blowing on you or you try to look at your computer screen and the glare from the sunshine affects what you can actually read on the screen.

As for the rice fields, many of these nomads work in a cafe that overlooks the open field. They fail to tell you about the mosquitos and sometimes the patch internet or discomfort of the chairs.

Even if you decide to work in a cafe, you may experience something similar. And if you are on a public Internet network, there can be security risks or even a lag time with the internet connection.

If you really want to be productive, you will need the following type of environment.

Access to good lighting.

Natural light is best. But if you have access to LED artificial lighting that is well designed, it will also help you improve your alertness, which will directly impact your productivity level.

Access to quick internet.

Not all internet providers are created equal. I personally go for the quickest internet provider available (currently 5G), as it allows me to complete my tasks without delays. When travelling, there are places that advertise an internet connection, however it is so slow that you cannot be productive. Check the Mbps to see when you can.

Avoid working in areas with alot of distractions.

When you want to be productive, you need to minimise the distractions around you. Many digital nomads recommend working in coworking spaces. I personally find these environments very distracting. It is better to get a private room or to work in the room of your accommodation. That way, you can completely focus on the task at hand.

Minimise frequent travel.

It’s a bit of a juxtaposition. You can travel and explore, but aim to base yourself in a location for at least 5 days. This will give you time to balance your travels with your working schedule. It will also minimise the amount of time that you will lose when in transit.

Work in a clean area.

We take this for granted, but many working spaces are cluttered and are full of distractions, which will affect your productivity. This includes messy spaces, unclean areas such as tables, and non-minimalistic designs.

Take the time to find a clean and minimalistic space to boost your productivity.

Before starting your digital nomad lifestyle, make a note of the things that allow you to be productive and see how you can successfully incorporate it during your digital nomad journey.

Other useful resources

How to perform better at work.

Should you be a digital nomad in Bali?

March 24, 2018 by David James Leave a Comment

In 2016, my wife and I decided to fly to Bali and stay for 2 months as digital nomads. The opportunity would allow us to explore the country, as well as live as locals and stay in a location long enough to embrace the culture and the lifestyle. It was an interesting experience. And what was more surprising was the cost to do it.

I’m an Australian citizen. And prices to travel from Australia to Bali vary depending on where you travel from. It can cost less than $100 if you travel from Darwin, however you can pay upwards of $400+ if you travel from other Australian airports. In our case, we travelled from Brisbane.

The cost of living was much cheaper than I expected if you travelled with the Australian dollar. If you travelled with currencies such as the British Pound or the American Dollar, your purchasing power in the country would be much stronger.

How did we plan our stay in Bali?

We’d arranged to stay in 2 places. The first was in Ubud in Bali. (I’ve previously written a post about living as a digital nomad in Ubud) The second place was in Denpasar, the capital city of Bali.

The two cities offered two different types of experiences.

Ubud

We actually stayed a 30-minute motorbike journey outside of Ubud. It was in Gianyar, which is quiet and we were surrounded by several rice fields. We were able to get studio accommodation, which cost approximately $900AUD/month at the time. This was inclusive of bills.

In Australia, unfurnished accommodation will cost at least $300 a week in Brisbane and more in the other major cities. When you factor in the other lifestyle costs, you will easily spend more than $2000 each month to cover the basic living costs in the country.

Below are pictures of the Villa that we stayed at and a map of the distance from central Ubud.

Here is a video of us during our stay.

The owner of the villa installed a pool and now serves breakfast as a part of the deal. I found one deal for two people staying in one villa costs $1104 AUD.

You can click here to calculate the rough cost of a booking.

Pros

Where we stayed was quiet and tranquil. At the time, it had a pond and an oasis garden. The villa now has a pool. It was also very safe. Food in the local area was very, very inexpensive. However, we did notice that it was difficult to get fresh fruits and vegetables, which did affect our energy levels.

Cons

Unfortunately, the internet connection at the property wasn’t that great. It was a common thing that we found in Bali. We actually had to travel to the gym, where we paid a monthly fee to access a quick and reliable internet connection.

This affected the productivity for working as a digital nomad. We did work around it, but in hindsight, it would have been better to find accommodation that was closer to the centre of town (such as closer to the Monkey Forest) and have an internet connection that was much more reliable.

A the time, I was doing more writing work; so I was fairly unaffected. However, if you require an internet connection to complete the work that you are doing, then the downtime will severely impact your productivity and you may need to consider being in a place where there is good internet accessibility or even considering a co-working space in Ubud.

Denpasar

Denpasar was an interesting place to be located. It is a major city with alot of traffic and alot of noise. It’s not until you are in the city that you will start to notice some of the things that may affect you as a digital nomad.

We stayed next to one of the main roads and as soon as it was early morning or late evening, the traffic would be atrocious. The pollution in the city and the lack of infrastructure was also frustrating. The hotel that we stayed at was very nice on the inside, but was undergoing construction work from 7am until 6pm, with constant banging throughout the day.

This type of thing could happen anywhere. But it’s less likely to happen in the built-up areas.

The internet connection was very poor as well. It was almost impossible to get a signal. In the end, we had to find a coworking space and we found two that were nearby. (We ended up settling for the Sara Residence, which was nice and quiet.) The only issue was the mosquitos in the evening and they had to fumigate the area. But if you stayed in their accommodation, you could easily go upstairs.

As for food, there was an open market 5 minutes away. We were eating vegetarian meals at the time and we could eat 2 full meals a day for less than $10AUD for 2 people. It was more than enough for us. The food at Sara was also affordable, but being a hotel they obviously charged a slight premium for their meals. But it was nice and a different experience as well. Additionally, the staff were all polite and it was a great experience being there. It definitely made our stay in Denpasar more enjoyable.

It was also interesting to see that they had accommodation options in other areas in Bali, such as Canggu.

Other options

Canggu

We actually visited Canggu and the thing that stood out to us was the balance between the countryside and the beach, whilst being fairly close to the city. Canggu is surrounded by several rice fields and there are many villas, cafes and restaurants that are catered for foreigners visiting the area.

The internet connection is more stable in the area. There are also coworking spaces nearby if people want to access the internet. (Although, you should expect to pay a premium fee for the service).

Some of the great things that were appealing about Canggu included:

Access to the beach

You can head down to the beach and surf (or learn to surf). There’s also a bar that sits on the beach and street food vendors.

Drive through the rice fields

There are endless rice fields. You can jump on a bicycle or a scooter and enjoy the surroundings of the rice fields.

There is an expat community in the area.

If you would like to meet other like-minded people, then you will find them in Canggu.

Easy access to the tourist destinations.

If you do want to visit the tourist areas such as Kuta or Seminyak, it isn’t too far away. You can head into the bar and club areas and dance the night away.

There’s a more thorough guide that you can read on Goats on the road.

Thinking about heading to Bali? Start planning.

I’d recommend that you purchase the Bali Lonely Planet guide so you can experience everything that Bali has to offer. Another site that you should bookmark is TripCanvas, with its guides and activity suggestions written by locals. Then budget for $2000-$3000 a month for your stay so you can experience Bali without missing out on anything.

Should you be a digital nomad in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia?

January 31, 2017 by David James

I was fortunate to stay for 3 months in Malaysia with my wife. It was originally meant to be a 2 month stay, but we extended it to three since we enjoyed the lifestyle and how it complimented what we wanted to achieve as digital nomads.

For me personally, Kuala Lumpur had the right balance of everything. The price for accommodation and going out was affordable. We stayed in a really nice apartment. The food was delicious and there were easy transportation links both locally and internationally.

I’m sharing the insight based on my stay in Kuala Lumpur. If you are considering to go there as a digital nomad, I would consider doing something similar to what we did.

*Note – I financed this stay mainly through getting freelance writing jobs. My digital nomad ebook shows the exact process I used to create an income.

We took advantage of the exchange rate.

At the time we went, the Australian dollar was worth 3 times the amount of the Ringgit. So this gave us a huge advantage when it came to our purchasing power within the country.

So we were able to stay in nice accommodation and eating out was inexpensive.

The complex that we stayed in pretty much had everything that we needed.

I enjoyed staying at our complex because it had given us what we needed as digital nomads. Our landlord provided us with a 4G internet connection that had a speed of 300MB/second. He also gave us a 4G pocket wi-fi that we could carry around with us in Malaysia.

The complex had a rooftop pool that overlooked the Petronas Towers. There was also another pool to relax in on the lower decks.

There was a gym in one of the lower floors. Although the gym mainly had cardio equipment and a few weights, it was sufficient enough for us to do our workouts in our free time. All we had to do was catch the elevator downstairs and we would be at the gym in 2 minutes.

There was also a convenience store in the complex and other restaurants.

Next to the accommodation was a shopping mall called Sunday Putra, which had several restaurants, a cinema and shops that we could visit. It would take us about 5-7 minutes to get there.

Because of this convenience, we were able to be extremely productive during our stay.

This accommodation cost us about $1400 AUD a month for a private studio that was fully furnished. It cost more than living in Thailand, but the productivity and lifestyle trade-off was more worthwhile, as I was able to increase my monthly average earnings by 20% while I was there.

The weather is nice and warm.

You don’t need to worry about wearing warm clothes in Malaysia. The weather is always warm. So if you fancy hitting or lounging by the pool, this is definitely an option that you should consider.

There’s plenty of activities happening in the city.

We worked hard, but we made sure that we enjoyed ourselves as well. We loved going out to eat at the local food stalls or restaurants.

We would love to get roti Canai, which could cost as little as $1. We could also get fresh samosas for $0.30.

Going out to Publika shopping centre on the weekend was amazing, as there was always an event on. The restaurants that we would go to would be amazing, although they cost a lot more than the average restaurant. We would treat it as our ‘date night’ once a week.

KLCC Park.

This was always a spectacle to see, especially in the evening as the sun sets and the Petronas Tower light up.

Enjoy drinks while overlooking the city’s skyline.

We ventured out to places like Skybar, which had a DJ playing in a lounge with a swimming pool in the centre. We were overlooking the entire city as well.

You can easily do trips around Malaysia or visit other countries.

This is one of the interesting things that I liked about Malaysia. The city has a major connection airport that allows people to travel anywhere in the world. We could have bought a plane ticket to see the Maldives for $100 return. Or I bought a one way ticket to Singapore for $50.

So it was also a really good hub for us to pursue our travel goals as well. We didn’t get to travel on this occasion, but we knew that we could if we wanted that as an option.

The living costs could be kept to under $2,000 a month for two people fairly easily. If you earned that for one person, you would be very comfortable.

What do you think about being a digital nomad in Kuala Lumpur? Or have you experienced living as a digital nomad in Kuala Lumpur? Let me know in the comments.

Thanks for reading!