By 2030 half of the population will be freelancers or self-employed. In the same year, as estimated, 1 billion people will be living the digital nomad lifestyle. Digital nomads are the people who are location independent, so they live out of their bags, jumping from country to country. Cool, right? Well, besides all the traveling, there are challenges. The world needs to adjust, and it is. So here are some of biggest challenges of digital nomads, and its solutions.
Living
Even when you live in a country for years, it’s usually hard to get a place to live. It’s a complicated process. When it comes to digital nomads, it’s a bit easier as the rent is usually short term. Right now a lot of digital nomads go to Airbnb to find their new place to live. Which works fine, but other solutions are coming along. Roam is one of them. The coliving allows you to pay a fixed rent and live in the locations in Miami, Bali, Tokyo, London and coming soon, San Francisco.
Health
As the typical 20-year-old until recently I though I would never die, so health insurance was something for the poor mortals of this world. Well, think again. This year I had to go to the hospital and run some exams, and I have never been so thankful for the Dutch enforcing you to have health insurance. For digital nomads, the struggle is real, as changing your health insurance from time to time it’s a hard job, and they usually ask for documents.
The best option for digital nomads is expat insurances, as they are between traveling insurance and local insurances. Integra Global is UK based, and there you can buy a 6-month package for $500, covering whichever places you plan to go in the next months. Just a note, because of the not-great health system in the US, if you want coverage there the price doubles. You can read more about health insurance for digital nomads here.
Banking
Remember a while back when opening a together account with your boyfriend was a huge step? Well, banking it’s easier than ever now, and so it’s transferring money across countries. To move money from Brasil to the Netherlands, and vice-versa, I use transferwise. The company has Sir Richard Branson as one of the investors, and it’s making transfers easy and fast. For you to have an idea, three years ago I got a transfer from Japan to Brasil. It took a month, and I had to go physically to the Brasil Bank to get the money and put it in my account. Now I transfer money to Brasil online, and it’s in my bank account in less than a week.
Now that I’ve learned my lesson, instead of going with the traditional big, honestly dumb, banks, I am using a new one: bunq. For now, it is only in the Netherlands, but to use it while traveling it’s incredibly practical, you don’t need to bother setting up the account before. You can do it in the app, and it will immediately work.
Getting paid
Most of the digital nomads are freelancers. Although the offer of remote jobs is increasing, the primary source of incoming is by creative working. Those jobs are designing, writing, coding and so on. A lot of people find the via Upwork and lately I’ve been seeing a lot of people who end up not getting paid. Filepurch is a solution for that. The creative workers post their job, and the client only has access to it once they pay, avoiding trouble.
Do you know any other problems digital nomads face and their solutions? Send us a word in the comments!
