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Digital Nomads Are Broke, Burnt Out, and Still Posting #Blessed
The truth behind remote work glamour
During the last two decades, digital nomads have made their mark on both their workplaces and the greater culture.
Ever since Tim Ferriss published his landmark bestseller The 4-Hour Work Week and Instagram became everyone’s favorite app, more and more people have aggressively sought ways to combine remote work with social media-worthy travel journeys.
There may be trouble in paradise, however, as more digital nomads start to admit (even as they continue to tag their experiences as #blessed) that they are broke and burnt out.
The evolution of digital nomadism
According to University of Sydney researcher Daniel Schlagwein, digital nomadism “became recognised as a mainstream phenomenon in 2014–15,” when online communities dedicated to the practice became widespread.
Writing in a 2018 article titled “The History of Digital Nomadism,” Schlagwein defines digital nomadism as what happened when information technology (IT) gave us a world in which “the place to live and the place to work are not spatially restricted.”
Noting that digital nomads “can, and do, move freely about the globe,” Schlagwein also provides…
