Last month, the Guardian published an article about digital nomads that made the rounds on Bluesky. It was so full of stereotypes and sensationalist quotes that it reads more like a parody than an actual news article.
The gist is basically: Some people had some bad experiences while traveling, felt lonely, and came home. How is that even a story? And how is it unique to digital nomads and not just the age-old dilemma that all travelers face?
Emily Bratt
Let’s be clear: I have as many complaints about the digital nomad community as anyone. I’m not opposed to calling out digital nomads who abuse their privileges and travel around with a sense of entitlement to other parts of the world.
But articles like this — that focus on a narrow segment of the population and fail to present any alternative viewpoints — do us all a disservice. They further the notion that being a digital nomad is a lifestyle reserved for a certain kind of person.
That’s one of the reasons I’m so passionate about running this site. To show that there are many kinds of digital nomads — including LGBTQ+ nomads — who fly under the radar and don’t get mentioned in articles like this one.
Here are just a few of the quotes that don’t ring true to me:
“[M]any digital nomads end up doing a global tour of Starbucks.”
Citation needed. If this is the case, then who’s frequenting all of the co-working spaces and third-wave coffeeshops in every digital nomads hotspot? The digital nomads I know are coffee snobs who wouldn’t be caught dead in a Starbucks.
“At some point, the difficulty of it all exhausted me…. Taxi drivers relied on spoken directions and I only had elementary Spanish.”
It’s true: it can be hard to get by in another country if you don’t speak the local language. How is this noteworthy? Language lessons will go a long way toward making travel easier, whether you’re a digital nomad or not.
“There was no currency. You had to pay for things … in US dollars, which required finding someone you trusted to trade with.”
Yes, most of the world uses currencies other than the British pound. Navigating finances abroad can be challenging, but it’s par for the course.
“I began to suspect that much of digital nomad life was performative.”
What does this even mean? The writer goes on to cite a handful of incidents that could be construed as hypocritical, but are mostly innocuous. A man who looks stressed on a video call serves as evidence of what, exactly? If you form instant impressions of digital nomads based on the ones who are most “performative,” that impression is bound to be skewed.
To make matters worse, The Guardian published another article about “digital nomads,” this time focused on economic inequality in Lisbon:
Alex Holder
Except … the article wasn’t about digital nomads at all! The author of the article moved to Lisbon from the U.K. before the pandemic, and has owned a bookstore there since 2023! Most of the complaints are about remote workers who are now Lisbon residents — not digital nomads in any sense of the term.
To be sure, I think gentrification and income inequality are serious issues in many digital nomad destinations — but we have to talk about the problem as it really is, and not conflate all types of remote workers under a single umbrella.
I don’t want to spend too much time responding to these articles, but I know that these impressions can be widespread. So let’s take a look at some of the most common misconceptions about digital nomads, backed up by hard facts:
They’re all rich and work in tech.
One of the most common stereotypes about digital nomads is that they all make their money working in tech or trading cryptocurrency. The reality is a lot more nuanced. According to a recent survey, “6% earn less than $25,000, 15% make $25,000-$50,000, and 11% surpass $250,000 annually.”
You’ll find digital nomads everywhere on the spectrum from broke backpackers staying in hostel dorms to real estate gurus on luxury cruises.
In my experience, being rich is the exception, not the norm. Many digital nomads move abroad precisely because they feel priced out of the cities they live in.
They exploit tax and visa loopholes.
Another misconception is that digital nomads move abroad to avoid paying taxes back home, and are working illegally in the countries they move to. The reality is that many countries welcome DNs with digital nomad visas, and even some that don’t, such as Canada and New Zealand, allow tourists to work remotely.
Many digital nomads I’ve spoken with were unfamiliar with the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion (FEIE) and other tax breaks for Americans abroad. It wasn’t their primary concern when deciding when and where to travel.
And while it’s true that a small subset of DNs call themselves “prior taxpayers,” as many as third of millennial and Gen Z nomads consider themselves immigrants to the countries they move to — with all of the tax implications that entails.
They’re all Americans.
Digital nomads are often depicted as white Americans moving abroad to re-create their own lives back home without blending in or learning the language. While it’s true that many remote work and travel programs cater to Americans, a growing percentage of digital nomads hail from Asia and Latin America.
I recently spent a month in South America with Noma Tribe, and roughly half of the group came from Latin America and spoke Spanish as their first language. In Japan, Colive Fukuoka is bridging the gap between nomads and locals.
While many Americans — especially queer and Black Americans — have strong and valid reasons for moving abroad, as many as 30% of DNs “worry about gentrifying or pricing out locals in their target country” in the process.
They’re fully nomadic.
Another myth is that digital nomads are all fully-nomadic and travel continuously year-round. This is what gives rise to the notion that a digital nomad has “failed” or “given up” if they decide to move back home for any length of time.
The truth is that many remote workers are seasonal or part-time nomads, some of whom have a home base. Personally, I spend part of the year with my partner in Australia, part of the year petsitting in the U.S., and only a small portion of the year in typical digital nomad destinations.
I’m not the only one who prefers to take it slow: a study by Fiverr found that the vast majority of digital nomads visit fewer than 5 countries a year.
They’re all straight.
It’s easy to walk into a group of digital nomads and assume that everyone there is straight, single, and looking for their digital nomads soulmate.
But one study by the Serviap Group found that “5% of digital nomads self-identify as gay or lesbian, while 8% identify as bisexual,” and a growing number of digital nomads groups offer LGBTQ-specific events, programs, and coliving spaces.
You might be surprised at how many LGBTQ digital nomads are in unconventional relationships that cross borders. Here’s Hannah Dixon of Rainbow Remote talking about dating as a queer digital nomad in an open relationship:
These are just some of the myths about digital nomads that I’ve encountered — but I’m sure there are more. Do you have a unique experience as a queer digital nomad that you’d like us to feature on the blog? Send us your pitch in an email!
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