How to Become a Digital Nomad for Beginners (Full Tutorial)

hey guys so in today's video I'll be teaching you how to become a digital Nomad I Enlisted the help of some very successful digital Nomads to help me figure out what the blueprint is because if they can do it why shouldn't you be able to anyways recently I just got back from a trip to Bali Indonesia and basically everyone there was a digital Nomad and that got me thinking this lifestyle is super cool and more people should do it I mean it's always been my personal dream to live in an affordable country live off of

like $20 per day while of course still living like a king and making internet money I think a lot of you watching this video also have some type of similar inclination my goal is to sort of encourage you guys give you guys some resources that might help you and really push you guys over the edge so let's started with step one which is to meet other digital Nomads so not a lot of people actually start with this step but I think it's pretty crucial because if you are going to go all in on something it

really really helps to meet other people that have done the same so before you yourself becoming a digital Nomad you should meet other people online that are currently digital Nomads the reason is one they are going to encourage you to do it two you'll see actual people doing it and that's going to make it more of a reality for you and three you're just going to learn so much from them now in terms of where to actually meet people that are digital Nomads there are a ton of different ways to actually do this if you

don't want to actually meet someone one onone you can't absorb a lot of Knowledge from people that are making videos on YouTube so for example videos like this there are tons of other creators that share their digital nomading story and yeah maybe start with that but I really encourage you guys go and make real connections with digital Nomads there's so many communities online I highly recommend checking out a bunch of different subreddits and yeah message people don't be afraid to actually connect with them and talk to them and you never know you might meet someone

that completely changes the course of your life yeah let's hear what actual digital Nomads have to say about this so first of all can you introduce yourself and sort of give like a under 30 second intro of like who you are what you do and where you currently live and stuff yo what's up I am Paul I am a korean-american I currently live here in Bangkok Thailand I was living in the states pretty much my entire life and I had grown up in these suburbs moved all the way to New York New York and I

essentially found myself becoming burnt out and becoming a kind of stuck in this like rat race stuck in this like consumerist materialist uh lifestyle so I decided to pretty much reject all of that and move a very Nomad lifestyle here in Thailand my name is Kristen Wilson I am the host of traveling with Kristen on YouTube the host of the badass digital Nomads podcast and the author of digital Nomads for dummies I have been living or traveling abroad or working remotely since the early 2000s it's been about 20 years now so I've been to more

than 63 countries now and I've had a lot of different jobs along the way from selling real estate to teaching surf lessons to finally starting my own relocation company and now being a content creator before you actually move how do you meet other digital Nomads cuz I feel like that's useful there are a lot of ways to meet digital Nomads before you move you can meet them online or in person one of the best ways is through Facebook groups for digital Nomads and this can be in the city that you're living in or the place

that you want to go so in your destination you can also check apps like meetup.com to find other like-minded people in your area who are enthusiastic about the digital Nomad lifestyle and there's actually a really cool Forum called Nomad list where you can connect with other digital Nomads in cities around the world so essentially the more digital Nomads you guys know the more likely you are to actually become one step two is to figure out how you're going to make money now maybe some of you guys have already figured this out maybe you already have

an online business or something like that but of course if you want to sustain your life you need to have some sort of income coming in now this does not need to be your own business there are a lot of people out there that are know freelancing there are a lot of people out there that just have remote jobs so I think there's only one certain way you guys can go out there and make money that's not true there are hundreds even thousands of ways you guys can make a living while working from your laptop

what types of businesses work well for digital Nomads e-commerce recently I think Airbnb is actually quite a good one but it might be a little bit more trickier social media marketing agencies are also a very good one anything to do with like freelance work or like content creation or any kind of Digital Services or digital products I think those are excellent so yeah I think those are like the top ones right now but also you don't have to be like this entrepreneur and start your own business you could also just do like I said freelancing

or just do work from remote there are five main types of business models that work really well for digital Nomads the first one being remote jobs and this is the largest category for digital Nomad jobs at the moment so any traditional or online company that is paying you as a salaried remote employee that's the first one then the next one is freelancing which before the pandemic was the biggest category of digital Nomad jobs and this is just being any sort of independent contractor or freelancer whatever you want to do that will work as well as

long as you can do your job from anywhere then there's an online business category which is is very broad but it can be anywhere from owning a store on Etsy to being an affiliate marketer to being a startup founder and then there's what people like we do which is content creation or being an influencer so you can have a YouTube channel you can monetize a podcast or a Blog and this is a type of income stream that can grow with you and you can also combine a lot of different income streams together whether it's from

ad revenue or Affiliates or sponsorships or things like that uh then we come to the fifth category which is being a passive income Nomad or investment entrepreneur and in this category we have people who are maybe doing Airbnb Arbitrage or they have recurring revenue streams from all sorts of different Investments and even roving retirees so people who are retired and want to be digital Nomads as well and then there's also this sixth Wild Card category which is just whatever you want it to be so any job that you can invent that you can create if

you can pay your bills by doing it then that can be your path to becoming a digital Nomad so as you guys can see there are a lot of creative ways you guys can earn money without having to go to a physical office if you guys have seen any of my videos you know that I really encourage people to become entrepreneurs if that's something that you want to do so while you can work a remote job for a company I think eventually everyone should at least try to start their own business do freelance and of

just be their own boss that's when you can really have 100% time and location Freedom by the way if you guys are watching and you want to start making money online through a side hustle I highly recommend checking out Sophie Howard's Kindle publishing income which is the sponsor of today's video in this free webinar Sophie will teach you everything you need to know to start a passive income business selling digital products specifically ebooks on Amazon and if you guys didn't know ebook sales have grown by 60% ever since 2020 and yeah this industry generates billions

every year in sales you don't need a ton of money to get started there's no need for inventory since you're selling eBooks right like it's the perfect product and you don't even have to be a writer to have a Kindle publishing business you can sell no content books like journals and the great thing is that once you finish setting up your Amazon store you only have to spend about 5 hours per month working on it as it's mostly automated so if you guys are interested you can check out the link below to watch her free

trading and now back to the video so step three is to pick a place you want to go to every time I look at a map I literally think there are so many really cool spots in the world that I probably will never get to explore and it kind of makes me sad and if you're watching this video anywhere in the world that has a high cost of living just know that there are so many places in the world that have a super low cost of living Kristen and Paul had some really amazing insights on

where to actually choose to move to there's so many cool places in the world to travel and work from what would you say are some of your top places Bangkok or anywhere in Thailand really Vietnam Philippines Indonesia and maybe Colombia I've always thought that Eastern Europe was really underrated especially countries throughout the Balkans you don't hear much about Serbia Bulgaria is becoming a popular destination as well because there is a digital Nomad Hub in a tiny village called bco yeah just make sure the hours work make sure it's a place that you actually want to

visit and you know actually stay in and just know that you don't have to go to a really popular digital Nomad place that's the beauty of it right you guys can choose literally anywhere in the world to go to as long as the finances make sense step four are the logistics so obviously when you move to a new country or somewhere across the world there going to be a lot of logistics that you guys need to handle and figure out right like probably right now you have a ton of stuff in your apartment or home

you'll need to figure out how to pack it and store it or of course you can sell it if you want to embrace minimalism you'll have to figure out what you want to do with your car how to get out of your lease for your apartment or rent out your home whatever it is your Visa your passport all the legal stuff health insurance Banking and really the list goes on yeah since I've never actually become a digital Nomad myself I'll let the pros do the talking when moving across the world there's so many Logistics what

are some Logistics that people should be aware of do you have any tips on that I'd say do a lot of research on the Visa stuff like that's stuff can be a nightmare if you get it wrong you can essentially get like deported you can get fines um you know if you do it wrong if you work with the wrong Visa agent it can be a true nightmare that's what I experienced I almost got deported cuz I overstayed another one is like try to live like a local like don't come here living every single day

as a vacation try to have as much structure and predictability and uh you can do that by networking your way to other expats who also live in that country and then also trying to befriend the locals and maybe even pick up the language relocating has a lot of different moving Parts but my advice is always to start really simply and not to change too much about your lifestyle your bank accounts things like that your taxes at the very beginning just really start with the basics which is having a place to stay and a way to

get there and then how you're going to do your job once you get there another thing is to be careful with traveling too fast at the beginning that's a mistake that I see a lot of digital Nomads making where they just want to see everything and go everywhere at the same time and they're changing locations every day or every week so just remember that you are working while you're traveling so you're not just on vacation and if you're working a full-time job then you might want to stay in places longer to give yourself time to

go sightseeing and also have a regular personal life while you're also traveling around so yeah hopefully that's not too overwhelming I know there is a lot to sort of take in with this there's not that can take all this on step by step I know that's always possible to over prepare so step five is to actually move I know this is the most scary part it's actually buying that plane ticket that oneway plane ticket securing some type of place to say and actually physically moving you and your life from wherever you live to this new

spot some of you guys might want to move somewhere that's pretty close where you can drive to some of you guys probably want to move somewhere completely different that requires like a 10 to 20 hour plane flight but wherever you go I think this is the scariest part because once you actually move yourself that's a big commitment you actually took action you have to be super proud of yourself but after that you sort of need to figure out you know your entire life step six is to actually find your community now obviously I've never had

to do this myself but Paul and Kristen sure have how do you find your community once you get into your destination you should meet people naturally through daily life but then you can also go to digital Nomad oriented events and different conferences so just search on Google for events in your area or go to something like Nomad Cruise which happens at least once per year and there you can meet 200 to 500 like-minded people either current or aspiring digital Nomads on one cruise ship and so you get to travel learn from workshops and talks and

also meet people at the same time and then another app or website that I use a lot is called internations and this is developed for people who are living outside of their home countries as expats or immigrants and I just went to an inter inter Nations meet up in Manchester in the UK and I met people from 20 different countries so don't be afraid to meet the locals and other local long-term immigrants or expats as well as digital Nomads and remote workers overall you guys I don't want you guys to feel lonely at wherever place

you choose to move to I really do think that everyone needs some sort of home base to feel secure and even if your home base is still in the US or whatever country you currently live in it is important to feel like you have some type a home based wherever you are living at so your community your friends having your family visit you I think this is going to have a huge impact on how happy you are as a digital Nomad step seven is to just enjoy your new life know that wherever you move to

it can be temporary you don't need to stay there for the rest of your life if you guys want a more nomadic lifestyle you can of course hop from country to Country although I will say based on what I've heard from other people if you want to be really productive and if you actually want to work on yourself it is going to be important for you to stay in one spot longer than you know just a few weeks when you can actually live like a local that means you're going to be partying less going out

less and you'll actually have time to work on yourself or your business everyone's journey is going to be different and it's such a personal choice so really feel it out trust your instincts and just know that whatever you do you are in charge of your life and just the fact that you guys are taking that leap of faith and moving to a different country I have so much respect for that that's something that I've wanted to do for a long time and never had the actual opportunity to do so and so yeah hats off to

you guys now of course I had a bunch of other questions for Kristen and Paul and so for the rest of the video I'm going to spend that actually asking them questions that I was curious about what's like your day-to-day life so I don't have a huge structure it's pretty much I wake up do intermittent fasting I might do some workout and then I just pretty much sit down on the computer for however long as I feel like it and then maybe 5 6 hours and then after that I'll probably just hang out with some

my friends or just hang out with my dog and um yeah just a pretty chill like lifestyle yeah so you've met a lot of other digital Nomads on your Journeys what are some of the more common jobs that people have there's a lot of different digital Nomad jobs jobs out there but I would say that most of the people that I meet are working as remote employees doing something like software development social media marketing online sales is a big one I've met sales people all around the world and a lot of Freelancers as well so

people that are doing web design any type of consulting or coaching is a really big one and uh more recently I've met people that really don't even have a job title or a job description they've just learned how to make money online in a lot of different ways and they're kind of piecing those forms of income together and what made you choose Bangkok I wanted to go somewhere that was affordable but still quite modern and still have like access to like Adventure and like very International Community so I feel like Bangkok was the perfect place

cuz it's quite modern it's very affordable and has some of the best locals and yeah just has a little bit of everything how much does your lifestyle cost the digital Nomad lifestyle can cost whatever you want it to cost depending on where you go around the world you can find a cost of living of less than $1,000 per month and can I ask how much money do you spend per month living in Bangkok I spend about $2,000 a month can you sort of break down your expenses like in different categories so I spent about $600

on rents and utilities and then probably about $500 on eating out every single day I don't buy any groceries I don't do any cooking I pretty much just buy food delivery or just eating out and then maybe another 500 on going out drinking hanging out with friends like socializing stuff and then the other money is just like on miscellaneous maybe Insurance maybe just buying something but it's a very like full access to like a lot of things for just under $2,000 and I could never access like any of this kind of stuff for $2,000 in

the states I feel like how much would a comparable lifestyle be in let's say Los Angeles man the lifestyle I live here for $2,000 it'd probably be about $112,000 in Los Angeles what percentage of the people that you know would you say work a normal job just remotely versus actual entrepreneurs and business owners maybe about 15% not that much I say the biggest challenge is that you have to work like Asia and us there are completely 12-hour differences so you're going to have to work during the night so that is one downside but I think

it's manageable can you tell us a story about like anything during your travels that could inspire people to take action and go and do it yeah I think the secret to becomeing being a digital Nomad is that you don't need permission and that can hold a lot of people back so when I first moved to Costa Rica I was 21 or 22 years old I had a lot of student loans and almost no savings I think my mom gave me a couple hundred doar I had a place to stay the guy I was working with

gave me a four-wheeler to ride around on and I was good to go and I really just bootstrapped those first couple of months hustling working waiting tables teaching surf lessons and as long as you can make enough money to cover your cost of living you can sustain this lifestyle who do you recommend the digital nomading lifestyle who should try it I'd say anybody that's kind of living financially very well and very secure if you're making like $10,000 a month I think you have the ability to just live a very much higher quality of life living

abroad you know in the states I don't want to get too political but I think that the quality of life and what you can access is a lot limiting than what you can ACC in these beautiful countries that have the best locals have the best culture have the best foods and it's just a totally different lifestyle you can experience and it's just a flight away you know it's not this big scary thing that you have to have a lot of Courage for it's like if you're making enough money and if you make money online you're

in the perfect position to just pack up your bags and go ahead and see what it's about and I know you run some pretty cool businesses how do you stay productive with all the cool stuff around you I mean I've lived here for so long so I don't really live like here on a vacation mode anymore so I just have a good balance of like going out a couple times a week socializing but most of my time is just spending focused on myself on my work on my health and I've built that kind of routine

is there like any last thing you want to tell the audience so to anybody who's thinking about it I would say analyze your life and analyze your environment and pick out what you don't like like is there anywhere else that you could go to where you wouldn't experience these kinds of obstacles or these kinds of problems for example if your rent is extremely expensive say let's say it's $2,000 a month you can easily move to some that's like $300 a month which would be like a nice rooftop view like you know so that's one example

you could fix another thing would be like if you're tired of like all the political division or like tired of people just hating on each other you could go to a country like Thailand or southeast Asia where everybody is just so kind you know so I'd say like analyze the parts of your culture your lifestyle your environment that you do not like see where else has those things improved and you know take the courage and do some research and I say try it out see anyways I really hope you guys learn a lot from this

video this is a topic that I'm really really passionate about and even though I have yet to actually do the digital nomading lifestyle myself something that I do want to do sometime in the future and it's something that I think so many people strive to do but don't actually take action on so if this video gives you like a 5 10% boost in the possibility that you actually go out there and become a digital Nomad then it will all have been worth it yeah really the whole point of my channel the whole point of everything

that I say is to help you guys live more non-traditional lives I don't want you guys to do something just because everyone else is doing it I truly think that the best lives out there are non-traditional they're different and they're not just dictated by what society says is normal or right you don't need to have a 9 of five you don't need to build a career you don't need to go to an office 5 days a week you can be in charge of your time you can work solely online and you can go out there

and do all this while exploring the beautiful Earth I know a lot of you will actually take action after watching this video and actually pumps me up a ton I do want to give a shout out to Kristen and Paul for hopping on those interviews with me they're definitely a huge inspiration to me and I hope you guys learn a lot from them as well so that about wraps it up for this video thank you guys so much for your time if you guys enjoyed the video make sure to hit that like button and also

subscribe for more content just like this I do a ton of videos about personal finance entrepreneurship and investing thank you so much for your time and I'll see you in the next video [Music] peace