Why I chose not to become a digital nomad 🤭🔥

Hello 👋

My name is Julien. I am 25yo, born in a wealthy country 🇫🇷 with a fresh computer science degree. I build web stuff as a freelance developer well enough to be decently paid for it.

“Awesome! You can work from anywhere and travel the world at the same time. I wish I could do the same, but I am stuck with XYZ”
― Most of people I introduce myself to

By the generally accepted 2018 standards, I should be a digital nomad.

We are in a world extolling personal liberalism — Tinder finds us a partner and Uber moves us. Young digital people are living their life as a service. And I am actually okay with this trend — According to me, it’s a smarter way to live than what we used to do.

For example, calling an Uber instead of owning a car which will be driven 0.1% of its lifetime is in a rational way smarter. In addition, it also seems to make people happier — No maintenance fees for a car, no need for a driver license, no time spent time finding a parking slot etc. Overall users happiness is improved. 👍

Within our society of super-personal-freedom, Digital Nomading is perceived as the ultimate step only reached by the most accomplished and inspiring people. No more home — the whole earth becomes your home.

How cool does that sound? 😎

So why the heck am I still living in Paris? 🤔

I can’t help but being rational when it comes to making important choices.

One can argue that what motivates every human action is its very own happiness. Sometimes it consists in helping strangers, taking care of one’s family or getting rich… I believe the values that determine someone’s degree of happiness are very different from one to another though. They depend on the culture, social environment and many other hard to qualify factors.

Still, it’s easy to find likewise people who share a set of values similar to mine. The web is full of inspiring people that one can identify with. It seems like a reasonable strategy to reflect on other’s values to determine my own set.

One day Pieter Levels, someone I admire for his work and who inspires me, tweeted that his recipe for happiness was :

I meditated quite a lot on this list and I am now convinced it is very close to my own. Maybe I would just break “💪Exercise + eat healthy in two different categories as they are both very important to me and deserve to be treated separately.

Cool, but what’s the connection with digital nomadism?

My point is:

Becoming a digital nomad does not actively help me with any item on my happiness list

I experimented digital nomadism for only three months last year, and maybe I am too severe with my judgment. Being a nomad is actually a good way to reflect on thoughts and to feel real, fulfilling freedom.

But I have to make two objections: First, keeping a home and traveling often willing to discover other countries and cultures is already a great way to experience freedom and stimulate thoughts.

The second point is that as an introvert, I would not say friendly people I met on the road really qualify as friends. Don’t get me wrong, I loved traveling with the people I met. I just say that’s not the same type of relationship compared to childhood friends I share years of memories with. It’s not the same as living in a community long enough to grow roots and become committed to it. Hanging out with freshly met people, while very fun, do not fulfill the same deep needs.

To conclude this point, being a digital nomad will not increase my overall happiness for sure, and not fulfill actual deep social needs. That’s enough for me to not go all-in with it.

I am not saying no one should do it! But I strongly believe it’s a personal choice that should be meditated. This choice should not be influenced by the cool hype society credits to nomads right now.

Other concerns besides personal happiness

There is a point not frequently discussed in the nomads’ community, and it bothers me. In a century where humanity starts to envision its downfall, what’s the actual impact of being a digital nomad?

A very simple measure that helps to figure it out is the carbon footprint. The only rough estimate I could find online says a digital nomad emits 8 tons of CO2 per year for traveling only.

Okay, I actually have no idea what 8 tons really represent so I looked for comparisons: This article says every individual should reduce its emissions to only 3 tons per year to live sustainably.

I know sustainability is not a value shared by everybody, but to me, it increasingly matters. Definitely, from a sustainable point of view, the numbers do not make it reasonable to travel that much for leisure. 🤷‍

I think there is another point to take into account before traveling, especially for people having a critical thinking about their lifestyle — Tourism is a problem in many places on earth.

In this time of growing nationalism, traveling is actually necessary and people should travel often. Discovering countries and cultures, being confronted with misery, meeting diverse people and the ideas they spread bring a lot to a human being. It is a very effective way to open minds and develop someone’s sense of humanity.

But it should be done with a deep understanding of the consequences. Some simple questions have to find an answer before taking the plane. For example, whose pocket is the money you are going to spend ending in? Is this money going to actively help the local populations? I have been to Myanmar is 2017 and clearly, I don’t feel comfortable thinking about this question’s answer today.

Coming back to digital nomadism, intense traveling should require lots of research and think about the destinations. I fear digital nomadism often overlook this.

Philosophical conclusion

According to me, this digital nomadism trend is mainly fueled by the growing fear of commitment that we experience in western culture. I plead guilty myself. As we are given an increasing number of opportunities, any commitment looks like a settlement which will prevent us from living life fully. No wonder why people change their job more frequently than ever before.

As living in France, I can witness this trend in other parts of society — companies tend to prefer hiring disposable workers instead of full-time employees and political parties have fewer party members than they used to.

Yet, personal commitment often looks like the only way to make significant changes. Sure local communities and initiatives need crowd approval to survive, but they need committed members to exist in the first place.

Maybe it’s time to swim against the current and start committing again. 🌊✊

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