As I’ve been living nomadically since late June 2020, I get many of the same questions, which I hoped to dissolve by explaining the full story back in May 2021. Those questions kept coming (understandably, as that article is quite lengthy), so I decided to write this Q&A in Dec 2021 along with some updates!
I am not trying to maximize the number of states or countries I go to (why not?). I couldn’t care less about that, because it doesn’t induce growth or learning. I enjoy staying longer in one location in order to dive deeper into the places I go to by meeting people and understanding culture and perspectives. That’s why I live nomadically and explore new places — not to count places nor check off bucket-list items.
As a side note, I don’t have Instagram but here are photos I’ve taken, and I also have a travel blog which has more or less turned into a daily journal.
Here we go with a table of contents and a tl;dr answer to questions:
Intro
- What does living nomadically mean? (First two years: spend most of my time living in a place for about a month, and then other times I’m road-tripping to go from one month-long spot to another or traveling for work. After first two years: staying in one place for 4–5 days up to ~2 weeks before moving.) Are you traveling around? (“travel” usually conjures relaxation, vacation, and not working, but that is not what I’m doing; I am living a life I would otherwise be living if I were stationary, just doing so in different places)
- How long have you been living like this? (Since beginning of July 2020, please math)
- How are you liking the nomadic lifestyle? (Love it)
- How did you get into this lifestyle?
- What about covid?
Logistics
- Do you live in a van? (No) Have you thought about it? (Yes)
- Where do you stay? (Monthlong spots: short-term furnished sublets found through Facebook housing groups and Craigslist, not Airbnb. Road-trips / work / less than 1 month: hotels, Couchsurfing)
- How long will you continue living like this? (No end date)
- What do you eat? (Cook for monthlong stays, eat in office or out otherwise)
- What do you bring with you? (In the states with a car: not much — a few pairs of clothes and shoes, toiletries, monitor, and cardboard boxes for my makeshift standing desk. Overseas: clothes and toiletries)
- Is living like this expensive? (Not more expensive than living stationary)
- Do you drive or fly? (Drive in the US until May 2022, after which I started to fly, take public transit, and walk)
- Do you have a home base? (No)
- How often do you go home? (Depends) What about holidays? (Don’t go home for them)
Places
- Where have you been? (Mostly western / southwest US, roadtripped in the south and midwest. Went to Europe in June 2022, Asia in mid-Dec 2022, back to US in May 2023)
- Where’s next? (Currently in US)
- Are you going to do this internationally? (I went to Europe and Asia, so yes!)
- How do you pick where to go? (Chasing mountains and good weather, proximity to current location, and work)
- What’s your favorite place? (Colorado, Washington state, Banff)
People
- Are you going around by yourself? (Yes, although parents joined for a bit)
- Do you get lonely? (No)
- How do you meet people and make friends? (Facebook groups for hiking, running, finding friends, nomads)
- What do your parents think about your lifestyle? (Used to it, have joined me)
Work
- How do you fund this? (Working remotely)
- What do you do for work? (Unimportant aside from it’s remote and I love it)
- Do you freelance? (No, work in corporate)
- Do you have set hours? (Not really aside from meetings, otherwise flexible)
- Where do you do work? (Usually wherever I’m staying or at the office if there is one nearby. Otherwise, at libraries / cafes)
- Do you have to go back to the office? (No)
- How do you feel about remote work? (Has its pros and cons)
Introspection
- What’s your favorite aspect of living nomadically?
- What’s the most challenging part?
- Are you scared? (No)
- Do you miss anything from not being nomadic?
- Do you have any tips for anyone who wants this lifestyle?
- Conclusion
What does living nomadically mean? Are you traveling around?
A nomad is “a person who does not stay long in the same place; a wanderer” according to the Webster dictionary, and that describes me pretty accurately! I’ve been moving around since the beginning of July 2020, living in different spots for usually one month at a time although winters seem to have me road-tripping. Since summer 2022, I’ve also been traveling more for work.
Is this traveling? I suppose so, but when I get to a spot, I’m living normal life, like work and hobbies that I’d be doing even if I weren’t moving around. I think the word “traveling” is misleading though because that usually conjures an image of not working, “vacationing”, and just constantly roaming around, which is not what I’m doing.
My life was described to me as “life stays constant while the world underneath is turning”, which I thought was incredibly accurate. I have more or less a routine —weekdays look something like: hike or run or be outside, then work, eat lunch, work some more, then go hike or run or be outside in the afternoon, eat dinner, mentor or teach or talk to friends, and weekdays are pretty much the same aside from not working — and I just switch up the location every so often for where I do this routine, maybe throw in some fun that a city is known for if I’m near / in a big city.
How long have you been living like this?
Despite the first sentence of this article being “I’ve been living nomadically since beginning of July 2020”, people still keep asking me this question. I’m not sure whether people don’t want to do the math or didn’t realize the information is there to figure out the answer to this question. Regardless, I don’t really want to answer this question, because that means I’m going to have to keep updating it. So please just do the math: I’ve been living nomadically since the beginning of July 2020.
What do you eat?
If I’m renting a place for at least a month, there’s a kitchen and I’ll cook food. I don’t cook very complicated food, mostly just quick, tasty food like salad, baked fish, roasted vegetables, and omelets. If I’m road-tripping or staying in a place for shorter, then I’ll usually just eat out or if I’m near an office, I’ll eat at work.
How are you liking the nomadic lifestyle?
I love living this way, which is why I do it. I’m always slightly confused by this question, because unlike a lot of other aspects of life, living nomadically isn’t typically a forced activity. So, why would anyone choose this lifestyle if it wasn’t enjoyable? (I understand some people may be forced to live out of their car, which is not what I’m doing). I’m not sure whether people ask this as an opening lead for a conversation and then proceed to ask what they actually care about, but if you’re reading this and you’ve either asked this or was about to ask, I’m curious on why you asked / wanted to ask.
How did you get into this lifestyle?
Accidentally, really. Before the pandemic, I was based in NYC and when the pandemic hit, I left because I figured there’s no point of living in an extremely expensive city just to stay inside. My initial reaction was to go bum around ski resorts because I had an Ikon pass (ski pass with about 40 ski resorts, mostly in the US but a few international ones as well). I flew to Montana, but the first day I was on the slopes there (at Big Sky), the resort announced it would be their last open day due to the pandemic. I somewhat saw that coming as other ski resorts were already closing too. I briefly considered going to Banff to continue snowboarding, but I thought with so much uncertainty, what if I got stuck in Canada? In the end, I went back to my parents’ place in California.
I got restless really quickly. In May 2020, work said we wouldn’t have to go back to the office until Sept 2020, and as I had for a while already wanted to live in Colorado for a short amount of time, I decided to live there for the summer! So I found a sublet apartment, headed out at the beginning of July, and had a wonderful time in Colorado. Evidently, we did not go back to the office in Sept 2020, so when winter hit Colorado, I moved. And then I kept on moving, and here I am today!
I don’t remember when I realized this is nomadic living and started calling it that as opposed to describing to people that “I move around a lot”.
I’ve actually had the thought of living in a different European city for a month throughout one year, and I believe thought came to me back in 2015 because I was traveling in Europe a lot and loved it. I’m not sure where I got the idea from as I don’t think I even knew the term “digital nomad” at the time. But, living in different places for a short period of time, especially in Europe, sounded like fun, and I started meeting a lot of people (through Couchsurfing) who have actually lived nomadically, normalizing the idea for me.
I never thought I’d actually have the chance to live this way. I’m the type of person to work for what I want to eventually get it, but it was never a priority, just an idea, a thought, perhaps a pipe dream. I did end up accidentally living a bit nomadically during my first year in NYC, but that’s a separate story.
Work eventually had return to office in April 2022, but if we wanted to be remote, we could apply to be remote. I did so, and so I luckily get to continue with this lifestyle!
I realized recently (Mar 2022) that a lot of what I’ve done in life enabled me to seamlessly transition into this lifestyle:
- Having a job that can be done remotely, although the pandemic is what set it off to be actually fully remote.
- I have had significant experience looking for short-term furnished sublets as I did so in NYC during the first year I lived there.
- A lot of vanlifers and nomads talk about loneliness and challenges in making friends, but I very rarely feel this as I have a solid group of close friends who I can talk to at any time. I am also very comfortable with and know how to efficiently meet strangers, as I’ve done so a lot even before living this way, and I’m quite happy with alone time as well. I have a good balance of time spent with actual friends (virtually), new people in-person, and solo time.
- Minimalism is another aspect of this that has been part of me since I was young, so moving constantly is easy and I have everything I need in my car or backpack.
- My mindset of being go-with-the-flow wasn’t always this way, but in the last few years (I’d say probably since 2018), it has transformed into being this way. I don’t plan too much ahead and am fluid, and I’m perfectly comfortable without knowing where I’ll be in a month.
What about covid?
When the pandemic first started, all I cared about was being outside and hiking. I went alone and covid can’t be caught outside for the most part. I still spend most of my time outside, and I was very adamant about not getting covid because my mentality pre-vaccine was: I don’t have to be living like this, and if I get covid as a result, living nomadically is not worth it. Initially, I wasn’t actually afraid of covid because I believed my respiratory / cardio system was strong, but then I heard of stories where perfectly healthy and exercising young people died from covid. I also didn’t want long covid, nothing is worth that.
Post-vaccine and given how much I’ve gotten to explore, I think I would believe living nomadically would be worth it even if I got covid, but I am still more cautious than most people around me as of June 2022— still always wearing (two) masks indoors, trying to not eat indoors as much as possible, and mostly doing outdoor activities. I keep my mask on the entire time at airports, on the plane, and on public transit. I’m still determined to not get covid, and I hope I never have to update this answer. Knock on wood.
Where have you been?
See this post.
Where’s next?
Nashville until early Dec.
This and the above question is going to probably be outdated depending on when you read it (this question was updated Aug 2023, I’ll keep updating this question as time goes on).
Are you going to do this internationally?
[Original answer]
I’ve traveled a lot internationally pre-pandemic (been to most of Europe, eastern Asia, half of Southeast Asia, and Oceania), but I haven’t lived abroad yet aside from the one month in Canada during my nomadic living. I have wanted to live abroad in Europe for a few years now, but with the pandemic going on, I really don’t want to deal with restrictions and having to keep up with them. The way I see it, countries that don’t have restrictions probably mean covid is bad there, and countries that do have restrictions mean I don’t want to deal with it. So, I haven’t really left the US. Plus, the US is so big that there’s plenty to learn and do here, and I’ve gotten a deeper understanding of the US as a result of spending more time and meeting people in different areas.
[Edit: June 2022]
I have now left the US and in Europe, but as part of my job is to give talks at and attend conferences, I’m not sure how long I’ll stay in Europe. I’d like to stay for a while but we’ll see where work takes me!
How do you pick where to go?
For a few years before I set out mid-2020, I had the desire to live in Colorado, Washington state, and Chicago for a short amount of time, desires in that order. Colorado and Washington for the hiking and nature, Chicago for the city fun. I haven’t made it to Chicago yet to live, and I’m not convinced I will.
Initially, that’s how I picked — Colorado and Washington state were places I knew I wanted to live. Everything in between and beyond that was basically a combination of weather and outdoors up until fall 2021, which is when I went back to NYC to pick up all of my belongings which I shoved under my desk at work when the pandemic first started. I was approved to work remotely indefinitely, so I had to get my belongings back. Afterward, I went to the south out of curiosity and the desire to go to Nashville, then the midwest because I wanted to head back west. After hitting New Mexico, I started going to places for work.
What’s your favorite place?
Colorado, Washington state, and Banff are by far the most beautiful places on this journey so far. The hiking there is amazing — so many big mountains, greenery, trees, and lakes. Arizona and Utah were both quite pretty too in a different way as they were both more desert and red rock, and I’m partial to greenery over desert.
That being said, the hardest places to leave have been Leadville in Colorado and DC, not because either location was amazing (in fact, quite the opposite; they both rank a bit low on my list of favorite places to live) but thanks to the people I met in both.
Do you live in a van? Have you thought about it?
No, I don’t live in a van, I haven’t, and I won’t long-term. A few days before I left for what became nomad life, one of my close friends suggested living out of a car. If he had mentioned it earlier, I might have given it more serious of a consideration, but my initial reaction was there’s no time to do set it up now because everything going forward — mainly housing — was already figured out and paid for. I think living in a camper van would be super cool, but I also need good wifi and since covid was just starting, cafes where I would go otherwise for internet weren’t open.
As time has gone on though, I’ve realized I get the benefits of living in a van as well as…well, not. I pick towns and cities very close to the mountains, and I can get there before work and/or after work for a hike or run. This way, I have both the conveniences of having a home with space, a real kitchen and bathroom, and stable internet as well as what I’d imagine the van-life would be, waking up next to the mountains. I’d probably be a bit more integrated into van-life communities as well, but I’ve been able to find a lot of like-minded people as I’ve been going around. I no longer think about doing vanlife because I have everything I want the way I live now.
Where do you stay?
I typically find places where I want to spend at least a month, and wherever that is, I’ll find short-term one-month furnished sublets through Facebook Marketplace / housing groups or Craigslist. I don’t carry furniture with me, so I find places that come with basically everything I need like a bed, desk, pots and pans, and I just bring my clothes and monitor!
When I’m road-tripping, I’ll stay in motels or go Couchsurfing (or since Dec 2021, I’ll go stay with people I find on Host A Sister which is a Facebook group for hospitality exchange but for females only). If I’m traveling for work, I’ll stay in hotels.
A ton of people ask about Airbnb, and I don’t use it because it plays into causing housing inequity. Because people are putting their rooms onto Airbnb to generate more income compared to long-term rentals, those who actually need to live in the city can’t or have to pay higher rent due to less supply. If Airbnb didn’t exist, people would likely be renting rooms long-term, which is always cheaper than short-term stays on Airbnb, and renters can actually afford it. Also, people are buying places purely so they can rent it on Airbnb. This causes more housing demand, less supply, and people who need to live in a place can’t afford it.
How long will you continue living like this?
Honestly, I have no idea. I’m going to keep going unless I get bored of it, although I can’t see the alternative of staying in one place making me less bored than moving around. Other life events might stop me from moving around or maybe one day I’ll just not “feel like” moving anymore. F̶o̶r̶ ̶n̶o̶w̶,̶ ̶I̶’̶l̶l̶ ̶h̶a̶v̶e̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶c̶o̶n̶t̶i̶n̶u̶e̶ ̶o̶n̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶U̶S̶ ̶s̶i̶n̶c̶e̶ ̶I̶’̶m̶ ̶s̶t̶i̶l̶l̶ ̶b̶a̶s̶e̶d̶ ̶h̶e̶r̶e̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶ ̶w̶o̶r̶k̶,̶ ̶b̶u̶t̶ ̶h̶o̶p̶e̶f̶u̶l̶l̶y̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶f̶u̶t̶u̶r̶e̶,̶ ̶I̶’̶l̶l̶ ̶f̶i̶n̶a̶l̶l̶y̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶a̶b̶l̶e̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶m̶o̶v̶e̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶E̶u̶r̶o̶p̶e̶.̶
How do you fund this?
I’m working! Before the pandemic, I was based in our NYC office and went to the office every day, but due to the pandemic, everything became virtual so I left NYC, went back home in California for a bit, got bored, and decided to leave home!
For a long time, work said we’d have to return back to the office after covid, but early summer 2021, the company finally changed the policy and let people apply to work remotely indefinitely, otherwise people are going to the office post-covid at least 3 times a week. My indefinite remoteness was approved in Sept 2021, and I’ve been officially remote on paper since Jan 2022!
What do you do for work?
What I do doesn’t matter, because my identity doesn’t revolve around work and it’s unimportant what I do. What does matter with regards to work: I love my job, wouldn’t be doing anything else, and it became remote due to the pandemic.
Do you freelance?
Nope, I work in corporate for a global company. It used to be office-based (I was in the NYC office) but became remote due to the pandemic. Since April 2022, the company’s default is a hybrid model where people go in at least 3 days a week, but we can apply to be remote indefinitely which is what I did and have.
Do you have set hours?
Not really. I make sure I go to meetings, which I thankfully don’t have very many of, probably average about three or so hours each week. My team is spread across West Coast, East Coast, and Europe, so team meetings are always at a reasonable time and 1:1’s that I have with teammates often are on the East Coast.
Outside of meetings, I just make sure I get work done. Nobody’s really relying on me to get questions answered, so I’ll often go running or hiking in the morning, do work, and then go outside again mid/late afternoon to get some energy back, then work afterward in the evening. I’m really grateful for this flexibility because it means I can maximize my time in the sun and do work when it’s not ideal to be in nature.
Where do you do work?
I almost always do work wherever I’m staying, whether at my rented spot (the internet has always been great for every place I’ve rented), my Couchsurfing host’s home, or the motel. If I’m on the road moving from one month-long place to next, sometimes I’ll work out of a library or cafe since I like driving a few hours before work and a few hours after if I’m doing a lot of driving. Rarely, I’m near an office, and when that’s the case, I very happily go to the office!
Do you have to go back to the office?
Nope! Mid-2021, work finally came out with a policy to allow remote work indefinitely, sort of. Anyone who wants to do so has to apply to do so, and I did. I knew I would get what I wanted because my managers have always been super supportive of what I want to do, and the team I was on at the time was already spread across the US. Where I am wouldn’t have mattered, and my performance continues to be excellent.
Since then, I’ve changed to another (related) team, and this team is even more spread out as I have teammates across the US and now in Europe too.
Whenever I tell people that I’m working remotely indefinitely and I’m the only one I know who is doing so, they often say they don’t know why anyone would want to go back to the office. I know why (at least for myself): socializing, amenities, separation of work and home. The company’s doing a hybrid model where the default is people go into the office at least three days a week, and if I weren’t moving around, I’d also go back to the office, probably every day.
I see work as doing work but also hanging out, and the NYC team is really tight-nit. Pre-pandemic, we would eat lunch together every day. As a side story: we have a NYC team chat which I’m still part of, and when we were all still in the office, someone would always ping the chat to get everyone to go eat lunch. I still get those messages pretty much every day, and I really wish I could go! We would also have random shenanigans: for a while, we had a mini-golf grass strip that my coworker built because he likes going around the company’s “dumpsters” (aka bins filled with items people don’t need), a whiteboard tallying how we think gif and other words should be pronounced, debates about the best pizza (actually, this still continues on chat), gatherings of the entire team around one desk to help with work, and of course the hallway and break-room conversations. I miss all of that, and it’s not possible to reproduce that environment virtually.
Going to the office was also great because the office is also quite big. I can walk around, and I have a bigger desk, multiple monitors, and all that jazz. It’s just comfortable, and I like the change of scenery between home and work. I like being in a different place, otherwise being at home all day is a bit boring (although nowadays, I’m outdoors a lot so I don’t mind).
I definitely miss the office, but I wouldn’t trade my lifestyle for permanently being located in an office. The way I see it, I can visit whenever I want, but I have the freedom to be where I want to be otherwise.
How do you feel about remote work?
When I first moved home due to covid, I really hated remote work. I really missed not going to the office and hanging out with my coworkers, the in-person human interaction. I think I was also going a bit stir-crazy at home again in an extremely familiar and comfortable (and boring) environment.
I did very early on start appreciating more control over my time, as I no longer had to commute anymore and I could go for longer runs in the morning or afternoon or both. This expanded to doing hikes every day after I started living in mountain towns, and for a while, I couldn’t imagine going back to a life where I can’t continuously hike every day. I can only imagine it now because at the time I’m writing this post, I’m living in a big city again (in Washington, DC), and it’s not terrible.
I like being around people, and because I was living with other people, teaching and thus having interactions there, and gradually starting to meet people again when the world started opening back up, I got my social interaction fix quite consistently. I think some of my coworkers were really looking forward to returning to the office due to small apartments in NYC and really just not seeing anyone to get that social interaction.
From being back in the office, I realized I do miss going, despite my thinking I didn’t. During the days I was in NYC, I went to the office every day, and although not every day was super exciting as not all of my coworkers go in daily since we’re still in a phase of optional going in, I enjoyed being in a different space, a bigger space. Having a huge desk and two monitors instead of one is convenient too, and also food. When my coworkers are in, it just feels like hanging out with people while doing my job. It’s pretty great.
So actually, sometimes I’m not entirely sure about my decision to be permanently remote. I do miss the team environment, and I know my NYC team is more tight-knit compared to other teams. We’ve been having mostly weekly socials where people actually show up to chat or play games, verses my California team where we have this scheduled on the calendar every week but we really meet up maybe once a month if that. Other friends who work at the company also don’t have these weekly socials, so ironically, through covid, I’ve come to appreciate my team’s tightness a lot more. I also woke up one day and the first thought was: for now, everyone’s still remote so we have these virtual hangouts, but once the offices open up again and my coworkers go back into the office, I’m not going to get those interactions anymore. This realization wasn’t pleasing at all, but I’ll figure out what to do then.
Are you going around by yourself?
Yep! I’m very much accustomed to solo moving about, as I’ve solo traveled extensively in the past. I make friends along the way, and I have so much freedom and flexibility in what I want to do.
That being said, both of my parents have individually stayed with me (timing didn’t match up for them to stay with me at the same time). My dad stayed with me for two months while I was in Washington state during summer 2021, and that was a new experience. The biggest change was I didn’t have to cook dinner anymore (even though I’ve gotten progressively lazier as time went on and started cooking simpler and simpler meals), and I always had one of my weekends hiking with him.
My mom then came out at the end of August when I was still in Washington state, and I think her original plan was to just go to Canada for a month with me. It’s been three months and she’s still here, but she has a plane ticket for mid-December to go back home. While we were in Banff, she went hiking pretty much every day, and sometimes I’d go with her and sometimes not due to work or wanting to do a longer and more difficult hike. In NYC and DC, she has been finding places to explore and sometimes taking it chill but mostly will still go walking around outside for at least a bit for exercise.
As a side bonus, I got to spend both my parents’ 60th birthday with them!
Do you get lonely?
Nope! I meet new people almost on a daily basis, and even before living nomadically, I’ve been pretty good at meeting people. I’ve also gotten a lot better at figuring out where to meet people as I’ve been on this journey. Connections are fleeting and momentary sometimes, but if I live in a place for longer, I’ll actually have friends and I’m pretty good at keeping in touch.
Whenever I want to talk to a familiar face, I have a really solid group of close friends who I talk to and video chat with very regularly. They’re my steady-state support system, friends who I can talk about anything with at really almost any time since they’re all spread out across the world, and I video chat with them pretty consistently, as I had been even before covid.
I also enjoy solo time, so sometimes I’ll consciously choose to go hike or walk around by myself, just so I can think more deeply and freely, reflect on life, and let my brain take a break from the nitty-gritty details of life.
How do you meet people and make friends?
Facebook groups! I’m in a bunch of nomadic and vanlife groups (even though I don’t do vanlife). Also, in places where I stay for at least a month, I’ll join a ton of hiking groups and running groups. In these groups, I’ll write a message introducing myself and ask if people want to hike, run, or hang out, and they’ll usually reach out or comment and I’ll make plans with them.
I’ve used Meetup quite extensively in the past, but due to the pandemic, it wasn’t super active for a long time, especially in 2020. I also didn’t want to go in big groups although the outdoors is fine with respect to covid. Nowadays, it’s a bit more active but I just haven’t gotten around to it yet. I also find Meetup to be hit or miss, and with Facebook groups, it’s a bit more personal so often times, making plans is easier. Meetup events are made at the discrepancy of the organizer, and the time or location may not always work for me whereas making plans with people from Facebook groups is more flexible.
The people I meet are often fleeting, but because of my five really close friends who I talk to on a regular basis, I have a lot of faith in long-distance friendships, as I believe friendships that can be maintained and continue growing despite not being in the same physical location. Knowing this has made leaving less difficult, and honestly, I have kept in touch with more people than I thought I would have from the past year.
What do your parents think about your lifestyle?
They’re probably pretty used to it by now. Growing up, I’ve always been disciplined and able to take care of myself — never needed anyone to tell me to go study or do homework or practice piano, and this probably led to my parents not worrying too much about me. After college, I lived at home since work was nearby, and I started traveling a lot more and for a lot of those trips, I would email them every day per their request.
I then moved to NYC a few years later, and I remember for probably the first trip I took after moving, my mom emailed me three days after not hearing from me to tell me I had to let them know I’m alive every three days. I was slightly confused by this since I didn’t email them every day when I was away from home living in NYC, but I did so for their peace of mind.
This is all to say, they’re used to my traveling around and I have a proven track record of being safe and fine on all of my travels. I’ll let them know I’m alive here and there, but they don’t outwardly show worry or ask me too much about my travels. I do share with them the document of where I’m living so they at least know where I am if they need to know.
Are you scared?
Nope! I’m very used to moving around, finding housing, and meeting people as I solo traveled a lot before this lifestyle and accidentally ended up living nomadically when I was living in NYC. I also realized that a lot of what I did in the past enabled me to seamlessly transition into this lifestyle, as described in the last paragraph under How did you get into this lifestyle?.
Fear of the unknown or uncertainty is typically people’s concern behind this question, but the unknown becomes known, if that makes any sense. Not knowing what’s next becomes a constant in life, and that’s okay because with the confidence of knowing how to figure out any problem, uncertainty is just fine.
In fact, I’d consider uncertainty being great because it comes with a lot of freedom and high adaptability to change. This being said, I’ve only lived nomadically in North America, where I don’t have to make too big of an adjustment every time I move somewhere as the language, currency, and general systems are the same. I’ve traveled abroad a lot so I don’t foresee fear in moving abroad either, but there would probably be more annoyances and adaptations I’d have to make.
Also, quite opposite to perhaps normalized societal thought, I fear commitment to a location. The thought of committing to a year, half a year, or even two or three months living in the same place makes me uneasy, which is why I do monthly leases. I view it as a lockdown away from freedom, and while I have no problem committing to friends and people, my job, hobbies, and everything else in my life, committing to a location makes me more uncomfortable than anything else. I value freedom from location.
What do you bring with you?
I’ve always been minimalistic, even as a kid, so being able to fit all of my belongings into a car wasn’t a big deal nor an adjustment at all. To illustrate that, I lived in NYC for 2.5 years with belongings that could fit into about three boxes. In any case, when I left home, I packed some flour, rolling pins, and measuring cups so I could continue making pierogi and gnocchi but all of that is either eaten or returned back to my parents’ house.
I also packed two sets of hiking clothes, my rain jacket, and a thicker sports jacket, along with two normal shirts, a pair of basketball shorts, and a pair of jeans. Toiletries were also thrown into the duffel bag with all of that, and my laptop backpack held my laptop. The biggest items taking up the most space in my car’s trunk were cardboard boxes so I could make a makeshift standing desk wherever I went since I had the long-standing habit of standing during work. I also took my monitor and a box of electronic wires for laptop chargers, camera chargers, external mouse, and such.
I have a bit more now than I did when I first left, although all my cookware is mostly gone. When covid first hit, I was living in NYC, and I decided to leave at the start of the pandemic. I didn’t know I’d be gone for so long, so I stuffed everything I had in NYC, which was really just a bunch of clothes and toiletries, under my desk at work. I recently (Nov 2021) returned to NYC to retrieve my belongings, and while I’ve opted to keep some, my mom is bringing the rest of it home with her.
[Edit June 2022]
I left the US in June 2022 with my laptop backpack, a North Face Surge that’s 31L. I only go to warm weather, so I don’t have any puffy jackets or pants or many layers, and I basically wear the same clothes every day. These are my absolute essentials, where I would be miserable / need to buy them if I didn’t have them with me:
- tops: 1 shirt, 1 tank top, 1 PJ’s shirt, 1 rainjacket, 1 denim jacket, 1 thicker cotton jacket, 1 thin exercise jacket
- bottoms: 1 jeans, 1 exercise shorts, 1 normal shorts, 1 PJ’s shorts, 1 exercise long pants
- inners: 10 underwear, 10 pairs of socks, 1 exercise bra, 1 normal bra
- shoes: 1 everyday walking shoes, 1 flip flops
- electronics: laptop (need it for work), iPad, camera (I don’t use a phone), chargers for the above
- toiletries: toothbrush, toothpaste, contact lens solutions, one small container of shampoo, one of conditioner (I’ve been thinking of getting rid of these last two because I barely use them), pads
- nailclipper, ibuprofen, masks, 2L Camelbak (I hang this outside my laptop backpack)
Most of the time, I’m wearing my shirt, jeans, at least one jacket, everyday walking shoes, and inners of course, so those aren’t being carried. My shirt that I wear almost every day (and my tank top) are both dryfit so if needed, I can wash tonight and it’ll be dry by tomorrow morning.
Basically, I asked myself: what do I need every day? Aside from things like nailclipper, my camera battery, ibuprofen, etc, which I need at least once every 2–4 weeks, the rest are touched almost daily, depending on weather.
Is living like this expensive?
It’s not more expensive than staying in one place, especially when that place was NYC for me before. I’m not paying for storage or mortgage anywhere, so perhaps this answer may be different if I were. I’m paying for everything I would be regardless: housing, transportation, food. Housing is expensive or not depending on where I’m going, and subletting short-term furnished places isn’t more expensive than renting long-term unfurnished places. Whenever I look for housing, I inevitably come across the latter, and the prices are about the same. I also tend to negotiate the price if I can.
I might spend a bit more on transportation since I’m probably driving more than I otherwise would be if I were staying somewhere long-term, especially with covid being present and not being able to really go anywhere in the past year. I’d imagine if I weren’t living nomadically currently though with more opening back up, I’d likely be commuting to the office if I were living in a city where I could go to an office and/or be going out an equal amount that I do now, so transportation costs are probably about the same now.
For food, again it depends on where I’m living, but I mostly eat and cook at home nowadays. Eating out is expensive but my food costs would be the same relative to wherever I live if I weren’t living nomadically. Unless I was living in a city where I’m going to the office and don’t really have to care about food.
What’s the most challenging part?
Everything is fleeting. I know the friendships I’ve made could potentially be a lot stronger if I stick around, and when I’ve made genuine connections with people, I leave with a twinge of sadness. This is the life I’ve chosen, and I know it is, but sometimes, I miss having a stable community, one I didn’t have to continuously find and grow.
Of course, not everyone I meet is a person I want to continue being in touch with. Some people are single serving in the moment, whether for a conversation, a fun day, a new idea or perspective, or some information. People flit in and out of my life, and that part of my life, whether an hour, a day, a week, a month, or longer, would’ve been different without them. Most people are fleeting, and that’s okay.
On the flip side, because I move around, I get to meet people from all over the place and thus have acquaintances and friends from a lot of different places. Since I’ve had ample practice, I’m also pretty good at figuring out who I’d want to be friends with, building communities, making actual friends versus just acquaintances, and keeping in touch with people. Meeting people doesn’t seem to be a natural part of life and it does require conscious and intentional effort as an adult, but I meet strangers almost on a daily basis and have quite normalized doing so in my life.
Do you drive or fly?
I’ve been mostly driving, as a car is necessary to access hikes. Flying would mean I can’t bring my monitor, which I highly would prefer to have for work, and I also don’t want to rent cars as that would become extremely pricey. More importantly, flying in 2020 wasn’t super safe and I continue to not want to fly in 2021 either due to covid.
I took my parents’ Honda Accord, one that used to be my grandparents’ car during their yearly 6-month summer visits. We got the car almost two decades ago but it had just passed 110k miles when I drove off with it. New but not new. I drove this until the end of July, during which I mentioned to my parents about driving across the country to NYC. Due to the Accord’s old age, my parents didn’t feel confident in its abilities, so my mom drove our Prius (which was originally mine but had left at home when I moved to NYC a few years ago) to Washington state. I’ve been driving that since the beginning of August, and I feel a lot better since it’s much more environmentally friendly!
As of May 2022, I started traveling for work and going to Europe, so I left my car behind and have been taking flights and trains to get to cities, and within cities, I’ll take public transit and walk.
Do you have a home base?
Nope! Everything I need is in my car, although I consider home to be the house I grew up in back in the Bay Area, since my parents are still there and I’ve lived there the longest. I get my mail sent there, and all of my accounts use it as the address. I considered NYC home when I lived there for 2.5 years, but it’s not a permanent home, no longer home for me. All of the places I’ve been to for the last one and a half years have been temporary homes, “home” colloquially meaning “the place I’m living at the moment” under most contexts (ie “I’m going home”) but never a permanent home.
What’s your favorite aspect of living nomadically?
Freedom. Freedom to go wherever I want, whenever I want, and not being tied to a location. I get bored easily, so moving around solves that issue with being in a new place with new areas to explore and new people to meet.
Other aspects I enjoy are getting to learn and dive deeper into places I otherwise probably wouldn’t spend much time in, and that enables me to actually understand culture a bit and get to know the place.
Do you miss anything from not being nomadic?
I’ve only been asked this question once, and I had to think about it. It has also been a while since I haven’t been moving around, so I had to think back to when I was living in NYC, which seemed a bit foreign to me. Thinking in that way made me realize how far away and distant living non-nomadically seemed to be, almost as if I have forgotten about living that way. Although I talk about this lifestyle all the time, nobody ever led me to reflect on the non-nomadic lifestyle I used to have in comparison.
The immediate response I gave to this question was community. I touched upon this a little bit earlier, about friendships being fleeting. People I meet all understand I’m leaving, but when push comes to shove, especially for places I’ve been around for a bit longer and have actually made connections with people, I have a small twinge of some emotion I can’t quite put a name to, perhaps a combination of wistfulness, sadness, curiosity, and “it’s unfortunate that I’m leaving because this could be a great friendship”. By the time I’ve made solid connections and am at the point where I could introduce people to each other and form a community around me, I’m leaving. Those connections are fleeting, and I get a glimpse into the community I could have and build here. But then I leave. As of late (in Jan 2022), I’ve been mentioning this pretty often to different people, and sometimes I do wonder. I actually have a lot of faith and experience in staying connected even if we’re not in the same location, but most people don’t share my viewpoint on this.
On the other hand, there’s always a reason to come back, and I know with many, our paths will cross again in the future. People I meet generally travel quite a bit, so I’m confident that this is probably not going to be the last time I see them. It’s just not the same hanging out with them in person on a regular basis, although video-chatting has done an alright job as a replacement. I care most about the conversation anyway, but doing activities together is still a bit less pressure and more fun because there’s not always so much to say.
Another obvious answer came to mind: going to the office. I didn’t realize how much I missed this until I went back to visit NYC in fall 2021, and I love hanging out with my coworkers and the work environment at the office. I have for a long time seen work as doing work but also just hanging out with people I like. But even if they’re not in the office as was the case for most of the days I was around, I still really enjoyed going to the office and enjoying the amenities. There’s so much more space, my desk is bigger and I have more monitors, and I appreciate being able to walk around the office.
I also realized volleyball and piano are two “stable-only” activities I miss, as both have been in my life for so long but I can’t consistently do either. Volleyball leagues require a season of commitment, and I’m always a bit skeptical in attending open gyms because I want to play with people who are actually good, otherwise playing is not fun. Aligned with hobbies, not moving around would also allow me to have more outdoor toys — not something I miss because I’ve never had that many outdoor toys to begin with, but definitely a collection I would grow. I already have a snowboard, and depending on where I’m living, I’d probably get a pair of skis, a bike, longboard, kayak, canyoneering gear, and possibly some other fun items. I would also love to get more into canyoneering and actually learn the skills properly, a motorcycle license, and a pilot’s license. Maybe eventually, but I guess not now.
This seems like I miss a lot, but the fact that I had to think pretty hard beyond community and transientness indicates to me that I actually don’t miss all too much.
How often do you go home? What about holidays?
We did holidays when I was younger, and in college, I don’t remember doing much but I was home for winter break. After graduating college, I lived at home for roughly two and a half years and saw my parents every day, so holidays weren’t special; in fact, I saw holidays as time to travel because I got days off. After moving to NYC, I went home pretty often for work, so I didn’t feel like going back home for holidays since I had just gone. During the pandemic, I was away from home for the longest time I had ever been, which was a little over nine months and isn’t even that long. Soon after, my dad came with me for two months and mom later for three and a half months, so I don’t see the need to go home for the holidays. I spent almost half of 2021 with at least one parent.
This is just a long story about how and why I don’t go home often nor for holidays.
Do you have any tips for anyone who wants this lifestyle?
Giving general tips is difficult and I have found a system for work, what to bring, housing, and making friends that I’m not sure what I can say beyond everything I’ve said above about having this lifestyle. I’d say going solo and meeting people along the way is probably the most important tip I can give, because I feel many people might not be comfortable going alone.
I’ve written some articles in the past on solo traveling and meaningful traveling that might help, as well as a document with information about traveling around Europe although the tips on there could probably be generalized for travel anywhere.
If you have specific questions, I’d love to answer them (and possibly add them to this article)!
Conclusion
I’m extremely lucky and grateful at how my life has turned out, and although there are days when I’m a bit bored or the weather is a tad miserable, most days bring me a lot of genuine happiness. The exploration of places and meeting new people to feed my continuous boredom has kept me physically and mentally alive, and a lot of the days, I still can’t believe the life I get to live and how fulfilled I feel living my life this way.
