Digital nomad
A digital nomad is a person who travels freely while working remotely using information and communications technology such as the Internet.
[1] Such people generally have minimal material possessions and work remotely in temporary housing, hotels, cafes, public libraries, co-working spaces, or recreational vehicles, using Wi-Fi, smartphones or mobile hotspots to access the Internet.
[10] The term "digital nomad" started to be used in the early 1990s to describe a new type of high tech traveling lifestyle made possible by the growth of computer networking and popularization of mobile devices like laptops, tablets and PDAs.
In his 1992 travelogue Exploring the Internet, Carl Malamud described a "digital nomad" who "travels the world with a laptop, setting up FidoNet nodes.
"[11] In 1993, Random House published the Digital Nomad's Guide series of guidebooks by Mitch Ratcliffe and Andrew Gore.
[1] Makimoto and Manners identified an emerging "digital nomad" lifestyle freed by technology "from the constraints of geography and distance.
[19][20] People typically become digital nomads due to a desire to travel, location independence[21] and the lowered cost of living often provided by leaving expensive cities.
[22] Cost of living ranks chief among the criteria that digital nomads value when selecting a destination, followed by climate, diversity, and available leisure activities.
[23] Digital nomads also typically spend more than 35% of their income in the location in which they are staying, an injection of capital that has been shown to stimulate local economies in popular destinations, primarily promoting the service industry and the sale of consumer goods.
[24] Although digital nomads enjoy advantages in freedom and flexibility, they report loneliness as their biggest struggle, followed by burnout.
[26] The importance of developing face-to-face quality relationships has been stressed to maintain mental health in remote workers.
The problem may arise in regards to housing competition between native people and travelling workers, as well as in personal interactions and the risk of tourism over-dependency.
The primary reason for this rapid increase was office closure and the shift toward remote work due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
[34] Multiple countries were prompted to offer new visa programs and to change their policies towards foreign workers as a result of the pandemic.
This is because many traditional jobs stopped requiring their employees to physically report to an office or set location everyday, so many people were subsequently able to travel freely while still working.
Living as a digital nomad often entails travelling from high-cost areas (e.g. major cities) to cheaper regions (foreign or domestic).
[54][55] In June 2022, Indonesia announced plans to introduce a digital nomad visa that would allow remote workers to live in the country tax-free for five years.
[58][59][60] Japan allows foreign nationals to live and engage in remote work there for up to six months under a digital nomad visa.
In its first ten months, the government has granted 7,368 permits, bringing the total number of digital nomads in Spain to 753,000.
[76][77] In March 2022, South Africa announced that it would update its visa laws to be allow digital nomads to stay in the country for more than 90 days.
[78][79] In January 2024, South Korea announced that it will start conducting a pilot operation of digital nomad (workplace) visa.
[81] In October 2020, the city of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates launched a visa program that allows digital nomads and remote workers to stay in the country for one year.
