OK, I’ll admit it. Not every single aspect of being a digital nomad is like unicorns and rainbows. There are some minor downsides to this lifestyle.
Here are a few challenges you may have along the way.
1. Romantic Relationships
If you have a life partner and they are not able to join you on these adventures, well, that sucks. If you’re in this situation you can either continue as a long-distance relationship or break up now to safe heartache down the road. If you have a partner and children, find a way to bring them along!
If you’re single, you’ll probably have some intense connections along the way, and they will be highly emotional and very short. While it can be fun for a while, building a truly deep connection with someone new is really hard.
2. Personal Relationships
Similarly to building romantic relationships, it’s really challenging to make friends if you’re constantly picking up and moving from one city to another. Usually you gravitate towards other travelers, and may even travel in the same direction for a while. But depending on how long you stay or they stay in a spot will dictate how close you can truly get.
One way to reduce this pain is to periodically keep in touch with your friends back at home through apps like Zoom.
3. FOMO Is Real
When I travelled the world alone for 1.5 years, I dropped all social media and most news. I wanted to be in the moment and didn’t feel the need to know daily activities in the world. What I did, however, was write a travel blog, so I could practice writing, share my adventures with family and friends, and have a journal I could look back at and relive the moments.
4. Road Fatigue
Constant travel can be tiring. There are only so many new places you can visit in a period of time before they blend together. Some ways to cope are:
- Take a short break from globetrotting
- Meditate to refresh your mind and body
- Power through it
- Slow down
5. Financial Hurdles
Obviously it takes money to move around, and most of the time, flights are not cheap. Unless you’re in an inexpensive country, you also cannot eat out for every meal. Keep your finances in check by keeping regular costs low, and then splurge on yourself once in a while. For example, I often stayed in private rooms within hostels, which provides the privacy I wanted balanced with the social element of being around others.
The takeaway
Being aware of these travel challenges allows you to prepare them before they happen. You can build tactics to mitigate them so they don’t burden you too much.