My Anti-Vacation: Prototyping The Lifestyle of a Digital Nomad

What is a Digital Nomad?

After living a highly structured life for the past 3 months going through an intense data science boot camp, I’m spending the next 1.5 doing the exact opposite — roaming around Europe and doing whatever the heck I want! Is this a vacation? Certain parts of the trip will feel like it for sure, but I consider this trip to be more of a location independent, self-guided internship… with epic-fun-time sprinkled generously throughout.

Most people don’t want to think about work when they’re on a trip, but I’d get antsy if I were to go this long without doing anything productive. When I went on my graduation trip to Fiji, Australia, and New Zealand, I had no school and no work to keep me occupied for those seven weeks, so I eventually started feeling like a useless pile of flesh. I need to be thinking, creating, and learning every day or else I can’t go to sleep satisfied.

Which is why for this Europe trip, I am prototyping the life of a digital nomad. A digital nomad is one who works a fully remote job and travels the world, staying in different locations for several weeks to months at a time. Common jobs that are conducive to this lifestyle include entrepreneurship, programming, and blogging.

For the next seven weeks, I’m seeing how far I can push myself in the directions of both work and pleasure. I bought a train pass that will allow me to visit nearly any city I want in Europe, so I’m landing in Amsterdam and figuring out the rest as I go, depending on which events are happening and what my friends/locals suggest I experience. I have several hypotheses about this lifestyle I’d like to test and ultimately decide if I can sustain a life of long term travel while making meaningful contributions in my field of work.

Some of the productivity related items I’m looking forward to:

• Working on my blog, both personal and paid (as a writer for Dataquest)
• Attending futuristic technology conferences and social entrepreneurship hackathons
• E-learning and self study (the next skill on my list is neural networks with TensorFlow)
• Connecting with various entrepreneurs, artists, engineers, humanitarians, and technologists I’ve met throughout my career
• Picking up interesting freelance projects

And for pleasure:

• Attending massive electronic music festivals like Tomorrowland and Defqon.1
• Hiking the mountains of Switzerland
• Visiting galleries with some of my favorite artists like Banksy and Salvador Dali
• Wandering around cities to discover unique foods, make new friends, and create spontaneous adventures

Purpose

At the top of my goals list are three intermingled items:

1. Solving meaningful problems
2. Maintaining a balanced life
3. Experiencing more of what this world has to offer

I am laser focused on solving important problems which will create value for the world. I don’t want to do work that merely mitigates symptoms of a problem, I want to do the deep strategic and technical work which solves issues at the systemic level, making the symptoms irrelevant. I’m constantly seeking opportunities to unravel a business challenge, answer a complex question, or design a more efficient way of doing things. In terms of maximizing emotional fulfillment, income, and autonomy, this has been the best way to direct my energy.

I want to break the cycle of intense nonstop work followed by indulgence to relieve the pent up tension. I experienced plenty of this as a management consultant, where the culture is known for spending the majority of the hours in a day toiling on nuanced business analysis and then eating & drinking away the stress in the evening. I believe problems are more easily dealt with when all of a person’s physiological needs are consistently met. It’s no secret that productivity sharply declines as one works more overtime hours and exercises less.

At the same time, long periods of leisure are equally insidious. I believe relaxation and hobbies are important parts of life, but should be used as a complement to one’s primary work. Anything in excess is self-indulgent. I’m aiming to maintain my homeostasis by working hard during productive times and using frequent travel and leisure in between to stave off burnout. A look into how the mind works convinces me that the leisure time is a critical component for constructing original ideas.

There are two main types of thinking: focused and diffuse. Focused thinking is what I’ve spent 80 hours per week doing — writing code, analyzing datasets, implementing machine learning algorithms, etc. It’s what you’d think of when you hear the terms “work” or “study”. On the other hand, diffuse thinking is more related to words like “brainstorm” and “ideate” and most often occurs when doing non work related tasks. An example we can all relate with is when you’re in the shower and suddenly have an epiphany about a problem you’ve been grappling with.

These two types of thinking cannot be done simultaneously. This is mainly because of the mindset and environment required for each type of thinking. A typical office/classroom setting is great for focused thinking, when you need to consume a large amount of information or work diligently to complete an assignment. However, diffuse thinking requires a change of scenery, absence from restriction, and an open mind.

Traveling around the world as a nomad seems like the ultimate vehicle for diffuse thinking. Adjusting to new environments, witnessing beautiful sights, attending paradigm shifting events, having thought provoking conversations, and internalizing new perspectives. This is where creativity stems from. Granted, I won’t get as much productive work done, but an extended period of reflection will allow me to explore the inner workings of my mind. I’m hoping it will make me more aware of my strengths and passions, allowing me to develop new strategies to surmount purposeful challenges in the future. I think experiencing more of this beautiful world will allow me the openness and freedom needed to achieve goal #1 to my maximum potential.

This is why I mentioned my three goals are intermingled. I can’t discover new meaningful problems if I’m stuck in a routine, I can’t solve these challenges unless I’m firing in all pistons by living a balanced life, and I can’t afford to travel and do awesome stuff unless I’m generating income by solving challenging problems. I expect there to be major synergy between these three elements.

Hypotheses

1. Immersing myself in completely new environments with no schedules, limitations, or routines will provide me with the empty space and freedom of thought needed to discover the most important unsolved problems and, using a fresh pair of eyes, explore innovative ways to solve them.
2. Travel does not mean you have to save up for months and spend hundreds per day while you’re abroad. By living below my means and working remotely on my free time, I believe my travel can be self-funding and sustainable. I plan to minimize costs by shopping for groceries, only eating one restaurant meal per day, staying in low cost Airbnbs or hostels, camping at festivals, using credit card points instead of paying for hotels, avoiding tourist traps, and working on blogging or freelance projects for side income.
3. My physical condition doesn’t need to deteriorate just because I’m traveling. In the past, I’d exercise and diet excessively before a trip to try and get my “vacation body” ready…and then proceed to destroy it afterwards by overeating and not working out while I’m away from home. As part of living a balanced life, I plan on working out at CrossFit gyms or yoga studios near the places I stay, shopping for whole foods, and staying away from gluttonous local cuisine (like Dutch Frites). It’s also helpful that I won’t be visiting any family members who insist on forcing massive quantities of home cooked food (as delicious as it may be) down my esophagus.

This is my anti-vacation, my plan to have no plans, my liberation from “normal life”… and I’m pretty excited! Check back in a few weeks for a follow up post where I’ll elaborate on how well these hypotheses hold up during my experience as a digital nomad in Europe.