For 6 years, my husband and I made the choice to pack up our lives and become digital nomads. We moved onto our sailboat and then onto our RV and traveled around the world, visiting our different offices in hotels when need be, with Skype calls and instant messenger being our communication pipeline to the team back “home.”
Having him there was helpful in some ways, but we actually had entirely different shifts, and we rarely talked out loud (we slipped into a routine of asking for things across a tiny boat cabin via Skype so as not to disturb each other.)
As a result, we have a formerly silent cat that became extremely noisy because he needed to fill the silence.
While we traveled together for most of the time, we would often be left alone in a foreign country or “lonely city” while one or the other of us had to rush off on a trip. My husband’s solution was to get the cat, which has been with us *everywhere.*
As for cutting out friends, we actually forced ourselves to be more sociable than we had ever been before. We are naturally hermits, not wanting to go out and do anything, but suddenly we found ourselves out and joining social clubs, golfing, volunteering, etc in the new places we came to – even if it was only for a limited time.
That’s actually how we came to live in Las Vegas. Whenever our energy was sapped, or we’d be feeling particularly lonely, we’d come to Vegas and hang out with the people here.
We found the community here to be filled with people just like us – friendly, welcoming, a good mix of travelers settling down for a bit before their next adventure and others who came and never left.
Tons of stuff to do, and people to do it with (or not, whatever you choose.)
Reasonable cost of living, at all levels.
Great access to travel to any part of the world.
A burgeoning tech scene.
The ability to truly get whatever we want whenever we want it – a luxury we recognize is something entirely unique to Vegas (and trust us, we’ve been like everywhere.)
For a digital nomad this is literally heaven on earth.
Eventually, after our 4th or 5th circuit back here, we just bought a house and “settled” down. I am still on the road all the time, but happy to call this home base.
Originally Posted: https://www.quora.com/If-youve-experienced-being-a-digital-nomad-how-do-you-cope-with-the-loneliness
Originally Posted On: 2015-11-06