The everyday life of a digital nomad

Digital Nomad Lifestyle at its best!

“A digital nomad is an entrepreneur or even an employee who uses digital technologies almost exclusively to do his or her work and at the same time leads a rather location-independent or multi-local life.”

By that definition, I guess Marc and I qualify as digital nomads. With the ability to earn money online and remotely, we have the chance to work from anywhere in the world. We can choose where we want to live.

The world is so big and there are still so many places I would like to travel. The lifestyle of a digital nomad is made for traveling. So it is possible to discover new countries and places again and again and also to have enough time to get to know the everyday local life.

If you take a vacation, the time is usually limited to about 2 weeks. And to get to know a new country, let alone the culture, in two weeks seems impossible to me. Of course we would like to visit certain sights, enjoy the time at the pool or also at the sea and make trips to interesting spots. But since we are not on vacation, but also working, we need a certain daily routine.

Cafés and malls offer space for digital nomads

During the week — Monday through Friday — we always try to find a daily routine. It’s easy to forget that yes, there’s work to do when you’re in a vacation destination. You want to explore a lot and quickly fall into “chiller mode”. To avoid this, we usually have a consistent daily routine.

Due to the time difference (so far we have always been a few hours later than Germany) we can sleep in and still be awake before our friends, families and colleagues. As a result, the day always begins in a calm and relaxed manner. Depending on where we are/were, we then worked out from home in the morning.

If we don’t feel like being in the apartment, we just go to a nearby café or even to one of the malls. There are also numerous cafés that offer enough opportunities for working on the notebook. Most of the time, there are also places with sockets there, so that you can charge your notebook or cell phone without any problems. The free wifi is actually always very good and stable.
Depending on the mall, there are even so-called co-working spaces. These are specially designed for digital nomads or people who want to work from there or also want to/must do something on the notebook. There are power outlets everywhere, tables to work at and a counter where various drinks or snacks can be ordered.

Unlike in Germany, the malls here are not just a pure shopping mall. They are much more adapted to the everyday life of the people. I suspect that many people prefer to spend their day in air-conditioned rooms rather than walking around outside in the heat. After all, there is a reason for the siesta in Spain.
I’m sure there are some other reasons why malls and cities in general have adapted to people’s working lives here. In Asian countries, for example, but also in Dubai, there is a large food court in every shopping center. Here you can get food at any time cheap or a little more expensive. No matter whether you want to take something quickly, sit down at one of the tables on the spot or choose a restaurant with its own area. There is something for everyone here.

Lunch Break at the Gym & Pool

After spending the morning on the laptop — be it at home, in a cafe or in a mall — we usually head to the gym. AirBnBs are mostly in large buildings that provide their own gym and pool for residents, in addition to modern condominiums. Often there are also their own restaurants, cafes or even small supermarkets in the buildings, so you have everything you need there.
In my opinion, the lunch break is an excellent time to get a little workout in. In Germany, going to the gym usually involves a lot of effort.

You have to pack your bag with your sports clothes, sports shoes, your own towel and possibly shower stuff, then get dressed and walk to the gym or save money if necessary. There you first change your clothes, lock your valuables in a locker and go to train. After the workout, you either still go there to shower or you change again, go home and jump in the shower there. On the whole, you have to plan about 2 hours of time for about 1 hour of training. Therefore, it is not easy to go to the gym during the lunch break, and if you do, you are usually pressed for time.

It is different in these condominiums or in the hotels. You can put on your sports clothes in the apartment — we usually put on our bathing suits (bikini and swim trunks) — take the elevator a few floors up to the gym and train directly. Mostly there are towels in the gyms themselves and sometimes also free water. So you can go to the workout quite relaxed and theoretically also shower in your own bathroom in peace directly after the workout.

As I said, we almost always have our pool outfit with us. After the workout, we take a quick dip in the pool to cool off. Out of the sweaty sports clothes and into the refreshing pool. Since the pools in the warm countries like Thailand, Malaysia or in this case currently Dubai are also always outside, you can refuel at the same time some sun.

Full of energy into the afternoon

After relaxing a bit in the pool and recharging your batteries, it’s first back to the apartment. Most of the time we have a snack or a refreshing shake. Either way, we try to eat only a little something at lunchtime so that we can sample the many delicious delicacies in the evening.

Similar to the morning we are in the afternoon sometimes in the apartment, again in a cafe or even a mall. But we always decide spontaneously. If we have something “bigger” planned for the evening, we spend the day completely at home — except for the lunch break in the gym and then in the pool. But if we want to go to the movies or eat something in the food court of the mall in the evening anyway, we already go there in the afternoon.

At the moment we have the problem that the internet connection in our hotel is very bad. Sometimes it just takes a long time until a page or even an app has loaded and sometimes the connection is completely gone. Although we then inform the reception directly, it still often does not work. That’s why we currently prefer to go to the mall to have a stable Internet connection. Especially for meetings, this is a prerequisite.

A culinary conclusion

The evening, or rather the late afternoon, is spent in different ways. Sometimes we order something to eat at home and edit photos or videos of the past days, other times we go for a walk outside and look for a nice place to end the day with culinary delights.

Other afternoons we use to take photos in the golden hour. In this case, however, we usually have thought about where we want to go beforehand. There are also days when we spontaneously go to take pictures, but since it is always expensive to take the cameras with us, this has diminished somewhat. Since we stay at least a month in one place — usually even longer — we finally have enough time to go back to the places where we really want to take pictures.

Depending on the different places, we have also visited sights in the evening or made an excursion. Also a common evening with friends or the visit of a market are perfect to let the working day end.

The difference to our life in Germany is that we spend less time with Netflix and Co. We are on the road much more. Both during the day and in the evening. There are so many opportunities to spend the entire day and into the night outside the home. This is also one of the reasons why we chose the life of a digital nomad.

Every day offers many new opportunities and experiences and yet, over time, a certain daily routine has developed. Even if this differs from a “normal” working day in the office or at work in general, it is still a working day.

That’s just the everyday life of a digital nomad.