Quote: (11-11-2017 06:36 AM)Vladimir Poontang Wrote:
I used to find the digital nomad idea quite exciting. Now when I think about it, it's not so interesting. It's not the general concept that I don't like, it's the attitude. People bounce around rootlessly from here to there, creating a scene that's only going to become more crowded over time, doing the same typical things, and it's just another type of tourism because I doubt many of them are making that much money, and even the ones that are, the point still stands that they're not really living in whatever country, they're just tourists. All I ever hear about is coffee shops, gyms, apartments, coworking spaces, coffee shops, gyms, apartments, coworking spaces.
These aren't real expats. They'll all be back home in a few years, or remain rootless. It seems that for all the talk of how bad the west is, very few people are actually interested in putting down roots elsewhere. That goes for the sexpats and overseas seducers too.
Nomadlist is a good concept, but they way they've done it, I don't think it's as useful as it could be. Interesting to look through for sure, but not a resource that I'd trust that much.
I haven't been abroad for more than two months at a time, but being a pretty young guy traveling for less time, I thought I did deeper traveling than some of the other tourists/expats I met. I've debated the digital nomad concept in my head forever as a means to get my life in the adult world started. I look at it with two options. Either work in an office job or physical job I hate for 40 hours a week and have little flexibility, or go the nomad route and maybe sacrifice salary, but have flexibility and enjoy what I'm doing in my life.
On my first big solo trip, I met some RVF expats, some redpill corporate expats, hostel tourists/nomads, party/spring break tourists, local tourists, shady expats/immigrants with solid roots, and Asian tourists. My favorites to interact with by far were obviously the redpill corporates and RVF guys because they were the people I most felt like myself around and had no filter. I can absolutely say they were memorable and made my experience better. I met local tourists in Boracay as they attract a lot of Manila residents and OFW guys. They were incredibly welcoming and honestly just great people to spend time with as well as an alternative, plus other Asian tourists were very open to me.
Then, I met the nomads and budget travelers you were talking about. I consider myself a semi-budget traveler, but my god I realized real quick I wouldn't like spending all my time with these guys. I think you guys hit the nail on the head where they just seem like too much of normies to me. You can argue we're not much different because we mainly talk about bars, clubs, malls, and dating apps to meet girls in, but I do feel like we do a better job of immersing ourselves into the culture.
Perfect example, I'm in Palawan in a budget hostel. This place is great, owner was a chill local Filipino who married a cute Polish girl. At the last minute, I decide to bring my mini-LTR with me. She's a local Filipina who grew up in a similar province. We get there first day, everyone else was either European girls traveling solo or young European couples. I could kind of tell they thought it was weird that I was such a young American choosing a Filipina girlfriend over a westerner. We had our introductions, sat down for coffee and stuff, but I could tell immediately that I was being ostracized because they weren't used to young white guys dating poor local girls in their clique. My girl even shied up around them a lot. But, I'm convinced I had the benefit of getting closer to the locals because of it. I was the main guy talking to them, I played their games because of my girl, and got to learn more about them and the culture than I ever could've on my own.
That's what I feel is missing from the nomads and budget travelers group. I won't fault them for lack of roots, because that's a big decision which is made more difficult because visa policies pretty much force you to move around at least a couple times a year and they don't want the western life like us. What I feel we do better is balance out our familiarity with home and establishing roots with the locals. Others see it as taking advantage of the girls (the normie nomads) but I see it as a good balancing act. We have trust and we have our girls to learn a new culture and get closer.
As for moving permanently abroad, I don't know what I would do but I had this discussion with the RVF Phils group. Some of them firmly have roots there and have been in the country for several years with no plans to return to the West. A couple of others prefer to balance out their time and spend perhaps a season in that country, a season in their home country, and a season for new travel. As for me, I don't know.
In some Asian countries, we'll always be looked at as outsiders, I think we all know that when we sign up for it. At the end of the day, travel has become so big that I think it's nearly impossible to be completely unique about it these days and not get put in some kind of group.
