- Don't trust all the
people that are telling you that it's too risky that you can't do it. - Yeah, just do it. Just jump into it. I sold everything I owned in a week. - How much money were you
making online when you started? Uh I'm on a cruise ship in the
middle of the Atlantic Ocean with 400 digital nomads. So I'm gonna walk around this boat and ask them what they
do to make money online. I have found some digital nomads, I think. Where are you guys from? - I was born in Russia, and for the last 11 years I've been
living in the United States. Today I am resident of Florida
and Miami, and I'm a nomad. - How long have you been a nomad for? - Uh, two months.
Interesting journey. <laugh>, - Were you working remotely
before you went nomadic? - Yes. Uh, I've been solutions architect for the last nine years and since I started my journey,
I always work remotely, but I've been always
working from United States and today allowing or creating opportunity to work anywhere I want because I can. - Is that your company policy
or did you have to ask them - Regularly, in United States, they're only allowed to work in United States and in the area and what I choose today to,
to create my own company and work as being individual contributor. Okay. Work from anywhere. I prefer to work and find opportunities
to, to help the world and create, uh, the business as it goes. I've been working in tech
for last, uh, nine years. I've been working, um, not
only working, study hard, grinding, like all in on nothing. And today I'm 30 years
old. I, I, I know a lot. I know how to code <laugh>. I, I went to UC, Berkeley, studying computer science
and cognitive science. And today being a woman, uh,
living in the United States for so long, I realize that
okay, I can do so much and I don't want to compete with man. Um, yes, uh, equal
opportunities need to be given, but at the same time, what I noticed, uh, being the only girl always in
the jobs that I've been doing and all my clients, always
male, uh, I decided to choose for myself not to be a man, but feminine woman, uh, continue, uh, contributing in the tech world and yet to, to create a better life, uh, experience for myself. - Being a digital nomad as a woman
can actually be beneficial because you don't have to play as many politics in the office. You don't have to deal with any harassment or any kind of favoritism. You can actually create your own network and your own bubble and community of clients, of
partners that you work with and of remote employers. Yes, and I love it, <laugh>. Yes. Where are you from and what
do you do to work remotely that allows you to be on this boat in the middle of the ocean? Today - I'm from Dublin, Ireland
and I built sales funnels. So sales funnel is, is basically a process that allows people, allows
you to sell your stuff, allows you to sell your
services a lot easier. It allows you to sell,
uh, without chasing it. It enables people to come to you. So I set these process, process these systems up for clients. I started off as a web
designer back in 2012. I left my corporate job and the first problem I ran
into was how to get clients. And you think that this
is gonna be something that's gonna be easy that, you know, they'll fall into your lap. But it turned out that wasn't be the case. So I had to learn marketing,
I had to learn sales, and it was organic to go from web design, really into funnels. 'cause I just found that a lot
of clients were coming to me to get funnels built. So that's really how it happened. Uh, just working with people who were already in the marketing space. And from there it was a, a
natural transition really. - And did you have a traditional job before you got into this? Uh, what sparked this in Dublin? - I just wanted to do my own
thing. Um, that was really it. Uh, I just, it was really,
when you are self-employed, you're, you're restricted in terms of how far you can go in terms
of how high you can go. And yeah, I just wanted more,
I just wanted more freedom. - How long have you been
location independent now? - Uh, it's actually just my 10 year. 10--10 year anniversary. 2013. - Now that you've been doing
this for 10 years, what, how do you see your next 10
years as a digital nomad? -Well, It's not gonna be as, um, frenetic. It's not gonna be as crazy as it has been 'cause I'm getting old. Uh, and that's not to say I won't travel, but I think really when you
get to a certain stage, you, you still wanna travel,
but you wanna be based more or less, you know, have
your quote unquote base, um, and then kind of do trips from there. So that's what I'm, I'll be hoping, hoping to get my base established
properly next year. Still choosing as to
where I should, you know, spend most of my time in Spain. I'm, I'm probably Barcelona,
but I could go to the Canaries. I'm not really sure. So
that's where I've been for the last few years mostly. And that, that to me is where I like spending mostly of my time. - Is there anything particular
that draws you to Spain? - Well, Spain to me, is the
best country in the world. Um, I don't think that anywhere
else has the, the same kind of climate, um, cost of living, food, um, way of life, culture. Uh, I like the language, I like
Latin countries in general. Um, everything about it is
you just feel alive in Spain, you know, you walk the streets and everyone seems to be happy. Everyone seems to be in a good mood. Uh, the weather's always good and it's a star contrast to where I come from, where
it's complete opposite. Like Spain where I, when I first started spending significant time there, one thing I liked about
it was it's an outdoor alfresco, um, country. People are outside,
even in January, they're outside in cafes bars. Whereas where I come from,
that's not the case at all. Uh, Ireland is, is an
indoor, um, in, you know, people spend when they're
out there in pubs indoors, they don't go outdoors. Yeah. And the weather weather's miserable. Where I from, it's depressing. It always rains and it's,
we get like maybe four weeks of sun if we're lucky. So it's a complete stark contrast
to, to where I come from. So it's, that's what I really
love about it, you know. - I'm sure the housing prices
are quite a bit lower in Spain compared to Dublin as well. - <laugh>, absolutely. Yeah. Um, although it's, that's changing too, but it's, you can still get
great value in Spain both from, um, a renting point of view and, and, and, uh, buying, um, yeah, Ireland has a serious problem.. With, um, with housing and it's, it doesn't
seem to be getting better any, anytime soon. Well, it is tricky as well in
Spain, but it's, it's doable. There's Málaga, Valencia,
um, Seville. Yeah, exactly. A Coruña, we're, it's,
it's relatively easy. Verano for example, is a great little tar, great little city, and you
can get a nice little studio power for like 500 euros a month. Um, so there's great
valley to be had in Spain. The lifestyle is incredible. It's second to none in my
opinion. So, yeah. Great. - Yeah. Thank you guys so much
for sharing your experience. Where are you going next? - The whole world is open. - What a great conversation. I'm so glad that they
were up here on the deck, but let's go find some more nomads. Are you on Nomad Cruise? Yeah. Can I ask you a few questions? Where are you guys from? - Berlin, Germany. - And how long have you
been Digital Nomads? - Three and a half years now. Same company. So <laugh>, - Did, did the company
that you work for allow you to work remotely before the pandemic? or is it something that
happened recently? - My, My company before, it didn't
allow me to work remotely, so we both quit our jobs
and started our own company. So it was very important
for me to start a company where everybody was remote. So all of our employees are remote as well. What kind of jobs were you
doing before you worked remotely and did you change your jobs or did you do the same thing
as independent contractors? - Uh, I started out in the event
industry, which has nothing to do with what we're doing now, but it gave me confidence on
using other people's money. Uh, and then I moved on to working for Facebook at that time. Yeah. So that was the
marketing start, I guess. - And now what you do - Now, we have a company where we help people
do their Facebook ads. <laugh> Yeah. - Uh, I started in the fashion
industry, so also nothing to do with online marketing. And then I started
working in a social media agency, uh, for a year. And then we founded our company and that's been going ever since. - Did you have any concerns
about going nomadic? - For me it was, I, I knew that we were gonna be fully
remote and have no doubts. - Agree.
- Okay.
-Do you plan on moving back to Germany full-time someday? Or how do you see your
future in this location independent lifestyle? - For me, for sure. I like, we still have a base
in Germany, which I like having and I'm not ready to give that up. Um, but I think for the rest of my life I will skip European winters. Uh, one way or another, I'm
not sure if for the rest of my life I'll be traveling
around every winter or if it'll be one place where,
you know, we buy something or rent something full time so we can always go to that one place. That's, that's what I have in
mind, but I'm, I'm very open to our possibility. - Yeah, same. I want to
keep Berlin as a base, but I don't see myself moving
anywhere full time ever again. - I've done the same, I really like having a home base somewhere that I
can go to a few months, a year, but also being able to travel full time. Um, do you have any advice or tips for people that are
just finding out about this lifestyle and thinking about jumping in? - Uh, the biggest advice for me would be don't trust all the people
that are telling you that it's too risky and that
it, that you can't do it and it's impossible and
it's not sustainable. It is, it is a lifestyle and
you can make money online and you don't have to
believe in doubtful people. We had so many people
telling us it's not possible. We should stick, stick
with something safe. And it yeah, hasn't turned
out like that at all. - One, get over imposter
syndrome very, very early because you'll have it. And for me, that's still
something that I struggle with. But it's, if you help
people, you're helping people and that's something
you can't obviously do. Yeah. And two, which really help me, but that's not the same for everyone. But the fact that we started
doing it together made it a lot easier because maybe I was a
bit afraid in the beginning that what if I don't
find people I like, uh, everywhere I travel and the
fact that I have a, a partner to travel with definitely helps get over that anxiety, so for sure. - Well, thank you so much. Thank you. - What is your name?
- Elmar. How long have you been
a digital nomad? - For 12 years. Something like that. Yeah. - How did you get the idea
for this 12 years ago? - Kind of, uh, didn't
like to uh, be in the city that I lived and at the
same time wanted to really explore a little bit more travel. So yeah, I, uh, started traveling. I, at the time I could combine
it with my current, uh, or at the time work. And from there it kind of grew and then I never looked back. So - What were you doing for work at that time and where were you living? - Um, at the time I was
living in Utrecht in Holland and I, um, uh, was freelancing, uh, in online marketing. I had one, uh, customer that
I kind of had continuous work for and that kind of in the
beginning allowed me to do it because, uh, yeah, that
gave me continuity in terms of income, uh, but not a lot, but enough to just get by in the cheaper spots, uh, on earth. - I love that you could
just start with one customer and make this lifestyle work. Yeah. And are you still doing
online marketing now? Yeah, - I'm, uh, I developed it. Uh, I've went many directions, but now I have, uh, an agency that, uh, provides online platforms
for, uh, bigger companies and uh, coaches that want to
sell their courses online. And uh, so I built it up while traveling. It's, uh, yeah, it's been,
uh, it's been real fun. I now have a semi-base in Hungary and um, kind of seven, eight
months a year I still, uh, catch up with you guys on the stuff like this Nomad cruise and stuff. - What are some of the other countries that you find yourself going back to? - Uh, Hungary is now a big part of my life 'cause my girlfriend, um, south
of Spain, there is always, uh, a place where I went to and still like to go
to, uh, for kite surfing and a lot of nomads being there as well. So, uh, yeah, a lot of fun. - Any words of advice for people that are just getting
started in this lifestyle? - Yeah, I would, I would say, uh, if you can have one continuous client, if you're a freelancer, try to
get that one client that kind of is continuous. You will meet a lot of people that, uh, give you opportunities and,
um, try to niche down on yeah, if you're a free, depends of course where everybody's different,
but if you are a freelancer and, uh, yeah, not sure which
way direction you want to go and how to get the income,
try to niche down on a tool that is a little bit more premium because there are also more
premium clients in that, around that tool that really are
looking for someone like you that can help them solving
stuff with that tool. Alright, - So quality clients over quantity. Exactly, yes. Okay. Thank you so much Elmar, and enjoy the rest of
your day. - Thanks, you too. - Are you a digital nomad?
- Hi, my name is Jussi. - And how long have you
been a digital nomad? - Yeah, like, almost eight,
nine years. Wow. Yeah. - How did you get started
in this lifestyle? - Yeah, it's a bit funny.
I, I was kind of running out of money to be honest
when I was in university. Uh, so I literally typed in Google how to make money online, <laugh>. And then I, uh, got started
with, um, simple things online, like translations and writing block content
for other companies. And then it's gonna
grew and grew and grew. Now I'm, I'm part of a team. We're running like a big
personal finance brand right now. We have about like 50 or
60 people in the team. So it's been, you know,
growing quite a lot. Yeah. - Yeah. How much money were you
making at the beginning when you were just doing some random
freelance jobs to get by? And where were you living at that time? - At the time, yeah. This was, yeah, around like nine years ago I was still studying in Finland and I think like probably in the first few months
I was making like 200 euros a month and then slowly
grew from there. Yeah. - When did you actually leave Finland and where did you go first? - So that was, uh, I think it was 2016. I moved to Malta for, for one year because the company was based there that I, that I was working with. - And where, what are some
of the other countries that you've spent a lot of time in - Recently? Uh, a lot of time in, in
Bulgaria and also like Bali. Um, I go to Cyprus quite a lot because I have some
friends who live there. Yeah, yeah. Different
places every now and then. - Do you see yourself ever
moving back to Finland full time? - Oh, Oh, we will. We'll see. I guess <laugh>, yeah, maybe. I mean, there's, there's so
many nice places in Finland, like, uh, Lakeside maybe, maybe one day I'll get
like a house on the, on the lake in Finland
or something like that. But that's, that's in the future - When you're living in
these other countries, do you also spend time with local
people or learning the language, or is it more just kind
of working from home and hanging out with other foreigners? - It's, it's, it's mostly
living in the nomad bubble to be honest, but it depends a little bit on different country. Like I, I spent a few months in Mexico and then I try to learn some Spanish and, you know, interact with
the, with the local people. Yeah, it, it, it really
depends on the place. Like I, I lived also quite
a long time in Estonia and I learned the language there and that made the
experience so much nicer. But yeah, it, it depends so
much on the, on, on the country and, and how long I'm gonna
be there and, and so on. - Do you feel like as digital
nomads we're well received in these places by the locals? Or is there more
controversy over the impact that nomads are having? - Yeah, personally, I, I didn't
get any like, bad vibes or, or, or negative comments
from, from the local people. I, I guess like, yeah, maybe, maybe sometimes like taxi drivers
have been saying like, oh, there's so many people here, or, or the prices are getting more expensive or something like that. But I I I, I really don't have personal experience more than that, so. Okay. - Well thank you so much for
sharing your nomad experience with us and enjoy your
rest of your cruise. - Thank you so much. - Hey guys, how long have you guys
been Digital Nomads? - Uh, for me it was 2010,
uh, three years. Yeah. - And how did you get
started with being able to make money from anywhere? - I was essentially, yeah, living the nomadic life
in my own city, uh, doing affiliate marketing online and a friend of mine told me, you should read the book,
the 4-Hour Work Week. I read it and I'm like, okay, maybe I should just start traveling and do this from somewhere else. So I moved to Malta, uh, sold
everything I owned in a week and moved to Malta and that
was the beginning for me. - Wow. How was your experience in Malta? - It was great. I mean, that
was my first like really big international travel destination. Uh, great weather, just
a new culture to explore. Everybody spoke English
there, so it wasn't too hard to really get going. And I went with a friend who I met at a marketing conference, so that helps. Yeah. - About how much money were you making online when you started? - Uh, it was probably about
like 80K, I think. Okay. - Yeah,
- Mostly from like SEO my own websites and affiliate marketing. - And are you still working
in the same industry as before or have you changed? - I've transitioned a bit. I still do marketing, um, but I also run a clothing brand now, and the marketing is more so for clients. - About how often do you change locations? Do you just keep moving around or do you have a few places
that you rotate between? - In the beginning it was,
it was quite frequent. Uh, now I slow travel a little more. There's definitely places that
I go back to that I revisit. Um, I would say a mix of both. Yeah. - What are some of the places
that are a really good, have good conditions for you to work remotely and be productive? - I really enjoyed my time
in Ukraine when I was there. Uh, over the years, spent
quite a bit of time there. Um, Poland also was, was
really good, uh, infrastructure and good quality of life for the value. I've tried it all.
Yeah, Europe is, is kind of my, my spot though. Yeah. And how many nomad cruises
have you been on? - This is my fifth. - Okay. What
keeps bringing you back? - Just the people of the community. It's, it's a great bunch
of people, um, you know, good weather, good times on a boat. And then because we all nomadic, we continue the travels once
we arrive at our destination. It's just a great experience. Yeah, - It's my third one, so I like it as well. And where are you from again? Remind me. - Uh, I was born in Alaska USA
and, uh, I lived in Hawaii before I went, uh, nomadic,
I was in the military. I was, uh, active duty navy. I was a officer and um, I
was in a high paying job and I had this idea of
traveling and maybe working or traveling and just having money to, to just enjoy myself, uh, perpetually. I had this idea back in 2002 and so like I feel that
there wasn't a whole lot of people talking about the kind of the lifestyle, um, back then. But over the years, especially
like, you know, mid, uh, 2010s through the use of
YouTube, Instagram influencers, this whole lifestyle started blowing up and I was thinking like, wow, that's exactly what I want to do. You know, like these other people just came up with a name for it. Yeah. So I, I've been nomadic for three years now and, and it's great. - So you stayed in your
military job for a while. Were you trying to work out your plan for how you could go nomadic and
what did you come up with? - Sure. So, um, I, I knew I was gonna do 20
years in the military, so I had a nice, nice long
amount of time to plan and save money and invest. And that actually became my, kind of, my main thing now is like the
hobby portfolio that I built, kind of building this, this nomad dream. Um, that's kind of my main thing now. Yeah, I kind of just built
like a crew into it as well. - What are your different revenue streams? - Uh, I've got, uh, capital
gains from stocks, sales stocks, uh, pensions from stocks,
shareholder distributions from, you know, weird <laugh>, weird MLPs. Uh, I've got a pension from the military. I've got disability from the military. Um, yeah, I guess I'm
kind of retired early. - So you're basically a
passive income nomad? Yeah, - A hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. - How do you think that
there's, there's a lot of people that, you know, have traditional jobs and they think, oh, maybe I'm
too old to do it, or whatever. How do you think that having
that stable job for 20 years prepared you for this lifestyle and do you think it would've
been different if you would've just quit a couple years in and hopped straight
into the traveling life? - It definitely made
me appreciate it more. The military, it's a lot of fun and it, it's a nomadic
existence in and of itself. Like you move every one to three years. But it really made me
appreciate the freedom aspect of this lifestyle. And, you know, I could travel before, but I had to get 10
different people's permission and it was very difficult
to get that permission now, and I had to get it before I even left. A lot of times now I can go
wherever I want, I can go to a conference if, if I meet somebody or there's another group
going to another area sailing or something, we can just
hop on a plane and do it. We don't have to ask anybody's permission and we know that we're gonna
be fine when we get there because we got all these
great tools like Airbnb and uh, great websites to help us out. - Well, I could definitely say that you've earned this
freedom you put in a lot of years of service. And so do you call
anywhere home right now? Do you still have a home base in Hawaii or are you fully nomadic? - Well, thank you. Appreciate it. Um, I, I don't have a home base right now. I'm fully nomadic. Uh, and it's been awesome, but it's, it's crazy.
It's not for everybody. - Yeah. What are some of the
downsides of this lifestyle? - Um, it's very difficult
to keep a social circle, like a coherent social circle. So you know, a lot of
people all over the world, but from very different scenes. Um, basically your friends
change every week or two weeks or a month, and that's fine. You just need to know a lot of people and you just have to be open to just being friendly
wherever you go, I guess. - And are either of you
guys in a relationship? - Uh, I, I was in something like that, but that ended recently. - Was it with another nomad? - Yes, but I can't say any more than that. Yeah, that's okay. - <laugh>, what about you? - Yeah, no, I'm single. Yeah,
yeah, for a while. <laugh>, - Do you find that that
is difficult dating as a digital nomad? - Yeah, definitely. Um, I mean, we do have
the ability to stay put, but if you already have some
plans that are prearranged and everything and you gotta go, you know, we always get like the Tinder matches just as you're leaving a place. <laugh>. Yeah. So it's like, - Yeah. Any ideas about what we do about this? How do we solve dating for nomadic people? - Excellent question. Excellent question. Whoever does this is
gonna be very, very rich with whatever app or
service, uh, that they offer. But I would say in the meantime,
uh, better communication, um, just talking about boundaries,
what everybody's looking for, maybe even like the
terms, you know, like, like we're gonna do this for a period of time, see how it works out. But I would just say better
communication in general and, um, just people opening up their
hearts a little bit more to maybe travel with somebody
instead of just traveling by themself all the time. - Yeah, I I think the
hardest part about dating as a nomad is that when you meet somebody, you only have a short amount of time to explain these things, you
know, if it's a casual date, you don't necessarily wanna
go into detail about your lifestyle and, and all
of these conditions. So I'm still figuring it out myself, but we'll report back if
we have any solutions. <laugh>. Thank you guys so much. Any final words of advice
for people watching that are curious about
the lifestyle? - Yeah, Just do it. Just jump into it. Uh, like I said, I sold everything I owned in a week. Just start traveling and
just see how it works and kind of make your way as you go. - I'd say just do it also. Yeah. The freedom is is undescribable actually. It's amazing. I think it's the best part. - Is there anything that you miss that you can't carry with you? - Family and other friends. - It's all about people here. Well, thank you guys. And if
you wanna see more videos about asking people what they
do to make money online and travel, then click on
these thumbnails right here. I think that's a wrap.
