Travelogue Climate Conscious Digital Nomads

[Johatsu]

Hi folks!

My name is James Rumble and I’m a student at Cape Breton University where I’m currently studying for my masters degree in education. For my thesis I’m focusing on digital nomads and how they may be adapting their lifestyle to climate change and how their insights may be useful for educators. If you're interested I'd love to invite you to participate as one of the digital nomads in my study. Please let me know by reaching out so we can discuss further and schedule a video chat for the interview.

Kind regards,
James Rumble

 

[ali]

I hope you've reached out on a few other forums too, because this place skews more toward blue collar hobos and anti-work vagabond types than mainstream digital nomads. I hope you do find some interesting people to talk to, though, because this is a topic that i find myself pondering when i run across digital nomads in the wild.

One of the reasons why i personally never got into the digital nomad lifestyle despite loving travel and being exactly the kind of knowledge worker that could do it is because it feels exploitative to me and i can't square that with my personal politics. I feel like if i am going to live and work in a place, i should be paying income taxes there too, not min/maxing my personal quality of life at the expense of local people who don't enjoy the same privileges. Similarly, i am very conscious that air travel massively increases a person's carbon footprint, and that essentially cancels out every other aspect of trying to live a minimal lifestyle (eating vegan, not driving etc), so doing visa runs in the service of tax evasion feels like doubling down on the exploitation. That's just me, though.

My sense is that the kind of people who don't feel bothered by the idea of making money in a rich country while hopping about between different poor ones also won't be bothered by the climate impact of their travel and accommodation, but i could be wrong! It's an interesting topic of research.

 

[Johatsu]

I hope you've reached out on a few other forums too, because this place skews more toward blue collar hobos and anti-work vagabond types than mainstream digital nomads. I hope you do find some interesting people to talk to, though, because this is a topic that i find myself pondering when i run across digital nomads in the wild.

One of the reasons why i personally never got into the digital nomad lifestyle despite loving travel and being exactly the kind of knowledge worker that could do it is because it feels exploitative to me and i can't square that with my personal politics. I feel like if i am going to live and work in a place, i should be paying income taxes there too, not min/maxing my personal quality of life at the expense of local people who don't enjoy the same privileges. Similarly, i am very conscious that air travel massively increases a person's carbon footprint, and that essentially cancels out every other aspect of trying to live a minimal lifestyle (eating vegan, not driving etc), so doing visa runs in the service of tax evasion feels like doubling down on the exploitation. That's just me, though.

My sense is that the kind of people who don't feel bothered by the idea of making money in a rich country while hopping about between different poor ones also won't be bothered by the climate impact of their travel and accommodation, but i could be wrong! It's an interesting topic of research.

Thank you so much for your input Ali!

I share your thoughts on the lifestyle choices that most “mainstream” or e/acc type digital nomads follow and agree that, at least so far, I have yet to hear any response from that segment of the digital nomad population. I’ve also found that the communities of folks engaging in nomadic and semi nomadic lifestyles is diverse so I may be wrong in using the term digital momad here, again I’m relying on research to confirm the diversity of current nomads in this day and age (Anthropocene or Capitalocene). I’d be curious to hear more of your thoughts. I totally agree that the neoliberal mindset and its support of commodifying everything demands questioning. Would you be keen on interviewing? I aim to find a diverse range of folks who may be able to provide insights on this lifestyle- a lifestyle that many, especially those in the Global South, may have to consider with the growing impact of climate change.

Also, if there are any other forums where I may be able to find folks interested in this kind of research- please let me know!

Thanks again for your thoughtful response.

Kind regards,
J

 

[ali]

I am not really in the digital nomad scene, i just meet them around the place when i am traveling and also i have worked with a few as "remote work" colleagues. There used to be a paywalled site called NomadList which i think was in for a while, although there are probably more/other ones now because i get the sense that the whole scene is a bit hype-chasing. I suppose you could try Reddit, HN etc too.

There is probably a gap between the "all American" (or "all client countries") digital nomads and the ones who mostly live in low- or middle-income countries while earning in high-income countries. Some of my former colleagues did stuff like fly around the world to various countries where we had paying clients and work there for a while, kind of like a permanent traveling salesman without a fixed home address. Others did the vanlife thing around US National Parks, BLM etc and as long as they still had internet they could join meetings and whatnot. I've tried working "on location" a few times during regular business trips and it's not really for me because if i am absorbed in work then i am not enjoying the location, and if i break to enjoy where i'm at then i can't focus on work so eh, it's not for me. Plus fuck cars. But i get that some people feel they work better that way, so more power to them i guess, long as they still get the work done.

But the guys who jet off to developing countries to live in hostels, "eco resorts", short-term rentals etc... I've met some of them too, and had colleagues who took 3 months to go work from Chiang Mai or Bali or whatever. They can be friendly people but they do come across to me as exactly the kind of self-absorbed types who might perform wokeness but in practice aren't really getting it. Whatever, like, i'm not gonna tell anyone else how to live their lives, but it does feel uncomfortable to me. Perhaps exactly because i am an oldskool migrant worker who's gone through immigration and worked full-time on-site in countries where i am a visible minority, it's a bummer when people associate me with this other type of traveler whose values don't really align with my own. But that's just life as a visible minority, i suppose...

Anyway, thanks for the offer to interview, but i imagine if your research is specifically on digital nomads, it would be more valuable to find people like that, since expats/migrant workers/etc have quite different patterns of travel, especially if they are earning in local money.