Navigating Through Life When It Goes Upside Down With Daisy

“If you feel like you are not succeeding, look back and see what you have achieved so far.”

Daisy joined the podcast in 2022 and shared the beginning of her journey about how she became a digital nomad. She has been traveling for 12 years and wanted to continue her travels. So she bought a one-way ticket to Mexico and focused on getting a remote job. After 6 months of searching for jobs across various platforms, she landed a role as a community manager at Hackers Paradise. On the Digital Nomads Daily Podcast we often talk about remote jobs. Click here to learn more about how to find a remote job with Michelle in episode 53: Must-Know Resume Tips To Land A Remote Job with Michelle.

Meanwhile, Daisy is a creative who loves capturing her travels on social media. She started her Instagram and TikTok accounts, which took off after a while. Even though Daisy was happy in her job, her creative and entrepreneurial spirit asked for more and when she got her first brand deal offered, a dream of becoming a content creator slowly became her new reality. After gaining confidence and courage, she quit her job and started a new digital nomad journey.

The digital nomad lifestyle is an ongoing transformation. Many digital nomads start their journey with a remote job while working on a side hustle. This is only sometimes what you see but we uncover these behind-the-scenes insights for you on our podcast. We also chat about the transformations every digital nomad goes through and also Daisy’s digital nomad lifestyle has significantly shifted. The majority of her first year as a digital nomad, Daisy shared her experienced 24/7 with her partner. Her income stream was based on her remote job and her life consisted of many consistent things. Those two consistencies, relationship, and money/work, transformed into new adventures for Daisy.

Her relationship ended, and suddenly she was a single female digital nomad solo traveler. When you are alone, your habits and routines could differ from when you are with someone else. It’s also challenging to think about everything and not rely on someone else, even for the small things. So it’s a huge emotional transformation with many practical adjustments. Daisy went home for the holidays to give herself a breather and reconnect with herself. It’s important in moments of large emotional change to prioritize your own well-being and we are very grateful that she shared this delicate story with us on the podcast.

The second large shift Daisy experienced was around her career and how she makes money. Instead of one job at one company, she is currently creating multiple income streams focused on content creation contracts, social media marketing strategy and travel coaching. On the podcast, you can listen to interviews with self-employed and more entrepreneurial digital nomads, but we also interview people with remote jobs. Both are great ways to make money remotely; one is not better.

We want to share some examples of the differences between the two:
👉 Consistent income vs fluctuating income
👉 Security of a contract is not sure if you have projects
👉 Clear expectations of what needs to get done vs you are in charge of your tasks
👉 Fixed team to work with vs working alone or with lots of different people
👉 Fixed number of work hours vs you decide how much and when you work
👉 Potentially company benefits vs you are your own Admin/HR/Manager while getting work done

Anne describes her nomadic entrepreneur journey as “Entrepreneurship is a self-development journey on steroids.” in episode 22: Facing The Realities Of Online Entrepreneurship with Anne. We 100% agree with her because life could become exciting and overwhelming simultaneously when shifting from all the consistencies to the unknown. Daisy followed her passion and had to learn a lot of basic practical things while making it work simultaneously.

✨ Connect with like-minded people
✨ Remind yourself daily of what you have achieved
✨ Accept that you don’t know it all yet
✨ Connect with people who cheer for you

Connect with our Nienke Nina and our guests

Your host Nienke Nina

More digital nomad tips and life advice via instagram @digitalnomadsdaily

Connect with Nienke Nina on LinkedIn @Nienke Nina Keizer

Find Nienke Nina on Instagram @nienkeninatravels

Meet digital nomad Daisy

Find her on Instagram @daisystraveldiaries

Find her on Tiktok: @daisystraveldiaries

Check out her website: www.daisystraveldiaries.com 

Other episodes you might like:

🎧  Episode 35: Building A Successful Creative Freelance Career With Suzanne

🎧  Episode 50: Creating Your Career Around The Lifestyle You Want To Live With Natasha

🎧  Episode 51: How To Live A Balanced And Joyful Remote Life With Ali

Digital Nomad Nightmare: When All Your Work Gear Gets Stolen with Matan

“There is a reason why happened. We still don’t know it, even if I don’t know it yet, there is a reason and it will lead to a better place.”

Meet digital nomad Matan

Digital nomad Matan loves traveling and it was an essential pillar in his life before he started his digital nomad journey. He learned more about the digital nomad lifestyle in a Facebook Group called Digital Nomads Israel. The group is run by Dean Kuchel, who also joined the podcast in episode 09: How To Achieve Financial Freedom With Digital Nomad Dean.
Everyone has their own unique way of starting the travel and work-from-anywhere lifestyle and Matan learned as much as he can about this lifestyle and making money online. He is also very passionate about photography. His goal is to make this his primary source of income and transform it into passive income by, for example selling his photos online.

When digital nomads get robbed and lose all their work gear

The digital nomad community is growing and aside from traveling the world, it’s one of the most exciting elements of this lifestyle. Meeting people from all over the globe with inspiring stories is what many of us experience. This is why many of us love to visit digital nomad hubs like Bali, Mexico, and Nomad Fest in Bansko. Matan also joined Nomad Fest in 2021 as a volunteer photographer.

While he was meeting people and mingling, one of the biggest digital nomad nightmares happened to him within minutes. All his stuff got stolen, including his photography gear, laptop, and keys to his apartment.

The true power of community

At first, he was panicking but luckily he was surrounded by amazing people in our community. Now, we have to say that the organization of Nomad Fest isn’t responsible for what happened to Matan. In fact, the community helped him out tremendously, and some people even donated money so he could buy new work gear.

So how did he tap into the community? First, the moment it happened, he was surrounded by many people because he was at a party. He also shared his story in the digital nomads Israel and nomad fest community so people are aware that this could happen anytime.

How to find a remote job

The unexpected ending of Matan’s digital nomad nightmare is that he got offered a job at an insurance agent company. His current boss read the story in the nomad community and wanted to help him by providing a job. Since they were both part of the digital nomad community, Matan was interested in exploring this position.

At first, the job wasn’t remote but Matan voiced from the beginning that his goal is to be fully remote and travel the world. The remote role required one year of training and during this year, Matan frequently reminded his boss about his desire to work fully remotely from anywhere. It’s a similar story to digital nomad Julie who shared in episode 59: How To Feel At Home In Your Next Digital Nomad House that she had to slowly convince her manager that this new way of working would not harm her work results. Matan also shares in this episode that it was a slow process but because of the training, he feels confident to work from anywhere.

So for everyone looking for a remote job, kindly voice your desire to your employer that you want and can do your work remotely and they will show interest in crafting a plan with your manager. It might not happen overnight but by showing patience, you can transition into a lifestyle you desire just like Matan. And if your employer is open to this idea, Matan’s advice is to look for another job.

Transforming a side hustle into a money-making business

We speak with many digital nomads who have remote jobs while working on a project on the side. It’s also known as a side hustle. Matan’s true passion is travel photography and he sells his photos online as a side hustle.

At this point, his income is low and unstable, but he has a clear goal in mind and is learning everything he needs to know to make his dream come true. We asked him how his week looks and how he is balancing his remote job, traveling, and transforming his side hustle into a money-making business. Here are some of the things he does:

😎 Explore multiple money-making opportunities

😎 Set clear goals and create a plan

😎 Block time to focus on his project

😎 Learn something new every day

😎 Include fun and adventure because life isn’t just about work and making money.

Connect with our Nienke Nina and our guests

Your host Nienke Nina

More digital nomad tips and life advice via instagram @digitalnomadsdaily

Connect with Nienke Nina on LinkedIn @Nienke Nina Keizer

Find Nienke Nina on Instagram @nienkeninatravels

Meet digital nomad Matan

Find him on Instagram @thetravellingisraeli

Check out his website www.thetravellingisraeli.com

Other episodes you might like:

🎧  Episode 50: Creating Your Career Around The Lifestyle You Want To Live With Natasha

🎧  Episode 58: Generating Passive Income To Create Your Travel Lifestyle with Dain

🎧  Episode 61: How Creatives Can Build Multiple Online Income Streams With Bri

How Creatives Can Build Multiple Online Income Streams With Bri

“One thing I preach all the time is to have multiple income streams and diversify your work.”

Meet digital nomad Bri

Some people see the digital nomad lifestyle on Instagram and choose to live this way, but for digital nomad Bri, her journey didn’t start like this at all. Her partner is a professional hockey player and she was already living abroad in Europe. She is originally from the USA and living in Europe comes with a lot of travel and exploring and she has been a digital nomad for about 4 years now.

Bri is an entrepreneur by heart and wanted to create projects that she could take with her. Freelancing was therefore almost necessary but she soon felt the freedom and flexibility and continued to grow her career around the two values of freedom and flexibility.

Do you need to travel full-time to be a digital nomad?

Whether you are full-time nomadding or enjoy the lifestyle just a few months a year, Bri considers herself a digital nomad even though she loves having a home base. It’s important that we talk about this on the podcast since many digital nomads enjoy the lifestyle but not full-time. She isn’t the only nomad who approaches the lifestyle this way, we talk about it in Episode #57 with Kasia 5 Tips To Live A More Intentional And Balanced Life.

So if you want to work online and travel from time to time, never shy away from joining the digital nomad community. We all have our own way of living the digital nomad lifestyle and we all must respect that.

Making money online and building multiple income streams

One of the things we love about this episode is Bri’s enthusiasm for doing multiple things. Bri shares that she has a lot of different income streams all bringing her joy and of course, the freedom and flexibility she desires. Of course, it took time to build this and she is still building new income streams. She also shares that it can be stressful as an entrepreneur or freelancer, especially without a stable income. Having multiple income streams is such a game changer for her, and the important thing is that she loves doing it all. Some income streams are larger than others and her main focus is currently.

💰 Digital nomad coaching where she helps people transition to this new way of living.
💰 Freelance social media manager for other brands. She learned this by growing and managing her own account and now helps others achieve the same.
💰 Content creator with brands, companies, hotels and tourism boards. Aside from these 3 income streams she also builds other ways to make money, some of which are passive income.

She also has her own brand called the Travel Munchers offering various products and she loves writing ebooks. If you want to learn more about this, check out the episodes with digital nomads, Micaela, Dain and Dean about creating passive income. Doing many things is a blessing for Bri and she shares that the diversification of work keeps her from burning out.

How to balance your life as a multi-passionate digital nomad entrepreneur?

Even though Bri loves her work finding the right balance stays a priority. She works with guidelines for when she works and organizes her work. So she plans her months, weeks and days so all her projects and their tasks fit into a 40-hour week schedule. Like many digital nomads, she used online tools to plan and organize her work.

Bri is a solopreneur and is currently doing all of her work alone, which is very different from digital nomad Isabel works with a small team of creators and VA’s. It shows once again that everyone has their own unique journey and it’s important that you figure out what works for you. Inserted in Isabel’s journey? Click here to listen to episode 32: How To Become A Travel Blogger And Make Money Online With Isabel.

Aside from her organizational skills, Bri also is a firm believer in connecting with the things she is grateful for. She knows the travel lifestyle is a privilege so she tries to remind herself daily that she is very lucky to have what she has. At the same time, and we couldn’t agree more, she shared that she worked really hard for where she is right now. She practices her gratefulness during her daily routines and repeats her mantra focused on gratitude. We love that she does this and inspires you to do the same.

Connect with our Nienke Nina and our guests

Your host Nienke Nina

More digital nomad tips and life advice via instagram @digitalnomadsdaily

Connect with Nienke Nina on LinkedIn @Nienke Nina Keizer

Find Nienke Nina on Instagram @nienkeninatravels

Meet digital nomad Bri

Find her on Instagram @travel_munchers

Check out her website: www.travelmunchers.com

See her Youtube channel: Travelmunchers 

Other episodes you might like:

🎧  Episode 35: Building A Successful Creative Freelance Career With Suzanne

🎧 Episode 42: The Entrepreneur Story Of The Nomad Soulmates Community With Aline

🎧  Episode 58: Generating Passive Income To Create Your Travel Lifestyle with Dain

The Benefits Of A Remote Job In A Remote-First Company With Vincent

“You have to think what is the worst that can happen and what is the chance of that happening? If that’s an acceptable risk to take, just do it!”

Meet digital nomad Vincent

The benefits of a remote job

Flexible schedule

Freedom to work from anywhere

Although it depends on the company policy, Vincent can work from anywhere so he has geographical freedom. Of course, he needs to get work done but his location is free of choice. It’s an ideal work-life balance for him where he can work remotely, travel and discover the world.

Other benefits we can point out are having a steady income and being part of a team. If you want to learn more about career opportunities and to make money online as a digital nomad, check out our book Digital Nomads With Confidence. In chapter 2, we answer questions about skills, remote-part time jobs, full-time jobs, freelancing and side hustles and so much more.

Challenges of the digital nomad lifestyle

Remote work is a new way of working and, therefore, still being developed. So while companies are figuring out how it works for them, digital nomads also have their own process of making it work. Vincent shares some of the first challenges he encountered as a digital nomad while experiencing the benefits of a remote job.

Productivity

Work is an important pillar in his life. His company is fully remote but to develop remote work skills, he is always open to learning. He shares 3 things that help him become more productive:

😎 Wake up early and take a moment before jumping into meetings.

😎 Frequently take breaks after long meetings. For example, going for a walk, working out or having a coffee outside the house.

😎 Take the time to keep up with family and friends daily.

Balancing social life

We all need community and this is something he finds hard to balance. Making new connections is especially hard at the beginning but with some practice and visiting digital nomad hubs, Vincent knows he will get the hang of it.

A healthy travel pace

He loves traveling but finding the right pace is something all digital nomads struggle with. The more you travel, the less time you have to get work done, so finding a good balance is challenging. When he was in Europe, he traveled a lot and got exhausted. This could impact your performance at work so Vincent realized that it wasn’t sustainable and needed to slow down the travels a little bit so he could still thrive at work while living abroad.

Why companies should consider hiring digital nomads

Connect with our Nienke Nina and our guests

Your host Nienke Nina

More digital nomad tips and life advice via instagram @digitalnomadsdaily

Connect with Nienke Nina on LinkedIn @Nienke Nina Keizer

Find Nienke Nina on Instagram @nienkeninatravels

Meet digital nomad Vincent

Find him on LinkedIn via @Vincent Somsen

Other episodes you might like:

🎧 Episode #54: What Makes a Remote-First Company Culture with Chase

🎧 Episode #26: Digital Nomad Introverts Never Need To Be Lonely With Marcel

🎧 Episode #51: How To Live A Balanced And Joyful Remote Life With Ali

🎧 Episode #53 Must-Know Resume Tips To Land A Remote Job with Michelle

How To Feel At Home In Your Next Digital Nomad House With Julie

“Test the waters. I didn’t think I would ever feel at home in an Airbnb but now I make myself at home immediately. ”

How digital nomad Julie started her location-independent lifestyle

Meet digital nomad Julie who started her first digital nomad experience about 2 years ago. She absolutely loved the lifestyle and after a couple of months, decided to ditch her house and fully become location-independent.

During the weekdays, Julie works remotely for an American organization. She builds software and it’s easy to do her job remotely. At first, she was required to go to the office but after proving herself and slowly becoming more remote, she convinced her employer to let her work from anywhere.

‘‘Asking employers to start doing remote a little bit so it allows them to see that it’s possible. Propose to start with working from home every Friday to avoid the commute so you show them that it’s really not an issue.’’

A well-paying remote job with flexible hours sounds like the dream for many digital nomads, especially those new to the workforce or people who simply don’t want to deal with the hustle of the freelancer lifestyle.

Julie loves her job and shares that she keeps normal office hours and always ensures the company and her co-workers aren’t suffering from her lifestyle. She shares that this is important for her and she is always available during office hours. Julie also slowly transformed her office job into a remote job and this helped her to gain confidence with her boss. When she finally pushed to be fully remote, it wasn’t hard to convince her employer because Julie had already proved she could do it.

Digital nomad tips to make you feel at home?

Everyone has their own needs and ways how they feel at home. Julie shares in this episode what makes her feel comfortable and how she chooses her accommodation:

Doing your laundry at any time.

Like we said, everyone has their own little things that make them happy and for Julie it means having a laundry machine. She hates going to laundry mats so she always chooses a place where she can do her own laundry.

Enough space to workout

Working out is an important part of her day and she prefers to work out at home instead of going to the gym. She likes gyms, but she finds it annoying to search and switch gyms and figured out home workouts fit her digital nomad lifestyle better.

A handy tip she shares are the water weights shown in the image below. Of course, traveling with real weight is impractical for digital nomads and these weights are a great option. Click here to order them too!

Avoid getting annoyed about power outlets.

Find a house in the right neighborhood.

Be conscious of the Wi-Fi.

How does digital nomad Julie find community and friends?

Connect with our Nienke Nina and our guests

Your host Nienke Nina

More digital nomad tips and life advice via instagram @digitalnomadsdaily

Connect with Nienke Nina on LinkedIn @Nienke Nina Keizer

Find Nienke Nina on Instagram @nienkeninatravels

Meet digital nomad Julie

Find her on Instagram @juliebetrippin

Other episodes you might like:

🎧  Episode #01: How to Thrive in your Digital Nomad Relationship with Anat & Orr

🎧  Episode #05: Dealing with High Anxiety While Building a Successful Online Business with The Remote Yogi

🎧  Episode #07: Overcoming Fears and Building Community with Digital Nomad Magali

🎧 Episode #21: 10 Years Of Traveling The World With Daisy

Generating Passive Income To Create Your Travel Lifestyle with Dain

“Travel isn’t always rainbows and sunshine.”

Meet part-time digital nomad Dain

He recently moved to Australia and lives there while traveling in Southeast Asia and working online. Dain is from the UK and is passionate about traveling. So he is designing and building his dream lifestyle, including digital nomadism and travel. He shares in this episode why he chooses to live the digital nomad lifestyle part-time and how he is working on multiple income streams.

Slowmadding and part-time nomadding

Many digital nomads these days, including the host Nienke Nina, enjoy the slower-paced lifestyle. Dain shares that travel can be exhausting, but this is not what you always see online but and he also learned this during his own travels. So constantly keeping his own well-being a priority means for Dain to take it easier and slow down his travels. He also enjoys staying longer in a place so he can fully enjoy it without rushing things.

Dain is a solo traveler and doesn’t shy away from going on trips on his own. He loves it and the biggest perk of solo travel is that you’re on your own time and schedule. So you can plan easier when you work and when you have fun.

How to travel and earn money at the same time

While it looks easy these days to just pack your bag and start working Dain is very conscious about how he designs his life.

He fell in love with the travel lifestyle and doing more of that is his goal. To reach his goals, the first year was to learn how to make money online. Currently, Dain makes money via:

💰 Ads in his Youtube videos

💰 Branded deals in his videos

💰 Freelancing video editing and photo editing via Fiver

💰 E-commerce via Etsy shop with prints

💰 Affiliate marketing

The second year is about doing that while working online. So after getting some ideas and is now focused on building passive income streams. Like creative freelancer digital nomad Micaela shares on the podcast, this takes a lot of work and time, so he is currently finetuning his processes so his passive income streams are actually passive and it can run on their own. While these income streams are relatively small, he remains focused on his end goal, so while building it, he keeps in mind to make all streams easily scaleable.

Typical travel misconceptions digital nomads experience

Many people think and say that traveling and living the digital nomad lifestyle, full-time and part-time like Dain, is stress-free but Dain disagrees. He shares some personal experiences definitely worth tuning in for and some typical travel misconceptions. We listed a couple below but make sure to listen to the full episode.

😵 Bad accommodation

😵 Long airport lines

😵 Visa and immigration issues

😵 You could get scammed

😵 Bad internet, so how Nina likes to call it Wi-Fi anxiety

😵 Not meeting like-minded people

Community is essential and Dain shares that he finds friends by doing activities he likes doing. So he is into yoga and working out, so he will join the yoga class and usually finds like-minded people immediately.

Digital nomad marcel also shared this advice and more community-building tips in episode #26: Digital Nomad Introverts Never Need To Be Lonely With Marcel

Connect with our Nienke Nina and our guests

Your host Nienke Nina

More digital nomad tips and life advice via instagram @digitalnomadsdaily

Connect with Nienke Nina on LinkedIn @Nienke Nina Keizer

Find Nienke Nina on Instagram @nienkeninatravels

Meet the digital nomad Dain

Find him on Instagram @dainluka

Check out his videos on YouTube via @Chasing Dain

Other episodes you might like:

🎧  50: Creating Your Career Around The Lifestyle You Want To Live With Natasha

🎧  18: Selling Sheep To Start A Travel Lifestyle with Micaela

🎧  49: 8 Freelancer Mindset Challenges to Overcome For Success With Steve

🎧  35: Building A Successful Creative Freelance Career With Suzanne

🎧  32: How To Become A Travel Blogger And Make Money Online With Isabel

🎧  09: How To Achieve Financial Freedom With Digital Nomad Dean