Packing Tips for Full-Time Digital Nomad Life with Nienke

“The more stuff you have or own, the more stress it could give you.”

How the digital nomad lifestyle can boost your life too

Are you tired of overpacking and feeling stressed out every time you travel as a digital nomad? Nina, the host of the Digital Nomads Daily podcast, has got you covered with some practical packing tips. In this episode, she shares her personal experience and advice on how to declutter, invest in good-quality luggage, and pack light. She recommends multipurpose clothing, being practical about what you need, and not traveling to drastically different climates in a short period of time. Nina also emphasizes the importance of being insured for all your belongings and being aware of airline baggage policies.

Top tips for digital nomads who travel and work from anywhere full-time

As a digital nomad, traveling can be both exciting and stressful. One of the biggest challenges is packing. Overpacking can lead to unnecessary stress and inconvenience during your travels. However, with some practical packing tips, you can make your travels stress-free and enjoyable. Your Nienke Nina, the host of the Digital Nomads Daily podcast, has shared some of her personal experiences and advice on how to pack light and efficiently. Read a few of her top digital nomad packing tips below.

Invest in your travel luggage

This might is not on top of your list but once you start traveling or living the digital nomad lifestyle full-time it’s best to travel with luggage that is not going to annoy you. Nienke Nina learned this the hard way and her luggage was so shitty that it would make her travel uneasy. After frustration and struggles she decided to invest in a proper suitcase set (one medium check-in, one carry-on a small backpack for her laptop) her travels became almost hassle-free.

‘‘If you are gonna travel and your travel itself is annoying because of the items that you’re carrying with you, you’re not gonna enjoy it so much.’’

Don’t put all eggs in one basket – or suitcase

A common mistake travelers make is to have all their items in their check-in luggage. Nienke Nina’s recommendation is to have a few basic items in your carry-on too in case your suitcase is delayed. It happened to her that the airline lost her suitcase for a few days and she packed all her clothes in the main check-in bag so she was without fresh clothes in the hotel, including underwear!! Pack a few items in your carry-on so you have at least clothing and your basic needs covered.

Don’t take more than international travel allows you

Limit yourself to not more than 20 KG in your check-in suitcase so you’re always safe when traveling. These days airlines have their own rules and regulations so it really sucks if you have to pay extra at the airport.

Keep in mind you are not on a holiday

Pack light and don’t take everything you would bring on a holiday. Bring clothing that is easy to combine so you can switch looks effortlessly and use fabrics that are easy to fold. Digital nomads need to pack for everyday life so that includes workout clothes, location-specific wear like beach clothes, slippers and training shoes but also normal clothes when you have online meetings. So packing for a holiday is a whole different mindset but you get used to this.

Bring things that you really need

‘‘I simply cannot buy a lot of stuff. This doesn’t fit in my suitcase. When I do go shopping, it’s very intentional.’’

This might be more of an issue for digital nomad girls, but your shopping life drastically changes if you were a big shopper in your normal life. The reason is pretty simple digital nomads cannot buy and bring everything they feel like. Nienke Nina shares that whenever she goes shopping it’s often to replace an item so she always makes sure everything fits in her suitcases and she isn’t up for a surprise.

If you want to learn more about packing as a digital nomad, Nina has written a book called “Digital Nomads with Confidence” and also has a Digital Nomads Daily newsletter. These resources can provide you with more tips and advice on how to pack efficiently and travel stress-free.

Packing can be a time-consuming and frustrating task for digital nomads. However, with some practical tips and advice, you can make your travels stress-free and enjoyable. By decluttering, investing in good quality luggage, packing multipurpose clothing, and being aware of airline baggage policies, you can pack like a pro and enjoy your travels as a digital nomad.

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

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

The Future of Work by Embracing Corporate Nomadism with Q (Ex-Airbnb)

“Spreading humanity and learning from each other is a win-win for everyone.”

What is corporate nomadism?

The idea of working remotely from anywhere in the world has been around for a while, we see digital nomad freelancers and solopreneurs, traveling business owners and people who move around slowly call themselves slowmads. Since the pandemic, we see more companies embracing remote work and pioneer remote-first companies like Airbnb showing a new concept that former Airbnb Global People Ops Leader, Q, calls Corporate Nomadism.

While many companies have realized that remote work can offer many benefits, including increased productivity, reduced overhead costs, and access to a wider pool of talent, there is still a long way to make the digital nomad the new normal though He shares that leaders need to understand that it’s not just about sipping coconuts on the beach, but about intentional and effective remote work.

The benefits of corporate nomadism

One of the benefits of corporate nomadism is the ability for employees to experience different cultures. By empowering individuals with the choice to work from different parts of the world, they can learn from each other and spread humanity. This can lead to a more diverse and inclusive workplace, which can ultimately benefit the organization.

Risks companies face when employees work from anywhere

There are risks and challenges that come with supporting employees who want to work remotely from different countries. Employers need to invest heavily in supporting their employees and assessing the risks involved, such as payroll implications, tax, legal, and compliance issues. Additionally, there is a risk to the company’s brand if they do not handle the transition to remote work properly.

The Live and Work Anywhere program by Airbnb

Airbnb, a company all digital nomads use to find accommodation, is also known for its innovation. Since they launched the Live and Work Anywhere program designed to support employees and provide them with a unique remote work experience, they received a flood of job applications and it has become a top remote-first company.

Q lead the ideating and incubating of the program, which eventually became Airbnb’s formal Live & Work Anywhere program in 2022. You might have read online about the 1 million hits on their careers page which wasn’t anticipated at first. Read further to learn more about the key features of the Live and Work Anywhere program.

Flexibility and choice to work from home or the office

So the first one was, you know, employees can work from home or the office. It is purely their choice. They recognized that each individual knows what’s best for them to our initial topic of empowering employees to choose what they want versus telling them what they want to do. So this could mean I could go into an office five days a week, I could never go into an office. It all depends on what works best for me at a given time. So flexibility and choice.

The ability to move anywhere in the country without a change in compensation

One of the key features of the program was that employees could move anywhere in the country where they worked in and their compensation would not change. This was a big shift from the normal way of running compensation philosophies, especially in the US and Canada where location-based compensation is the norm. This allowed individuals to choose where they wanted to be and helped shift the paradigm from being forced to work in a certain location to have the freedom to choose.

The flexibility to travel and work around the world

The third feature of Airbnb’s Live & Work Anywhere program is the flexibility for employees to travel and work around the world, which Q calls “corporate nomadism” and is on a mission to make it mainstream. The fourth feature is organized gatherings to maintain in-person connections, where the company meets to work on one roadmap in a highly coordinated way. During the pandemic, Airbnb’s offices were closed, so they had a running experiment for two years with remote work.

Organized gatherings to maintain in-person connections

Q discusses the importance of strengthening relationships and in-person connections, even in a remote work setting. He explains that while remote work can be productive, it’s essential to recharge and have moments of connection. This is especially important for the digital nomad community, who may not have a consistent physical workplace to connect with colleagues. Q emphasizes the need to find ways to build relationships and maintain connections, whether it’s through organized gatherings or other means.

This program created an extraordinary opportunity for Airbnb to become industry leaders in the future of work by leveraging their existing business model to enable their employees to live and work anywhere.

The future of work is Corporate Nomadism it can be a win-win

Q believes that corporate nomadism can be a win-win situation for both employers and employees and he is on a mission to make it mainstream, not just for freelancers but for remote workers too. More and more companies are adopting remote work policies, and many are embracing the idea of corporate nomadism. By allowing their employees to work remotely from different parts of the world, companies can create a more diverse and inclusive workplace, and provide their employees with a unique and rewarding experience.

If you’re interested in learning more about corporate nomadism, check out the full podcast episode with Q.

Connect with our 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

Connect with Q

Learn more about his journey www.corporatenomadism.com

Find him on LinkedIn @Hamirani

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

93: Why The Digital Nomad Lifestyle Is A Growth Booster with Digital Nomad Nienke Nina

“I believe that the digital nomad lifestyle had made me a better human”

How the digital nomad lifestyle can boost your life too

Are digital nomads really thriving? And what is it that makes this abroad lifestyle so life-changing? In this episode, your host Nienke Nina shares 3 ways on how the digital nomad lifestyle is boosting her daily life and making her a better human. All digital nomads experience this and we talked about it in almost every episode.

Nienke Nina also shares real-life examples and takes you behind the scenes of some daily digital nomad learnings. She wraps up the episode with top digital nomad tips on how to start your digital nomad lifestyle without selling all your stuff.

Electrifies my curiosity

Digital nomads have one personality trait in common which is curiosity. Nienke Nina shares in this episode that the digital nomad lifestyle really helped her to keep up with her curiosity. Living abroad, traveling and learning about other cultures and new ideas about life truly electrifies her curiosity. This has helped her to become more open-minded and have less judgment.

Conscious living

Another great benefit of living the digital nomad lifestyle Nienke Nina sees is that she has become more conscious about her surroundings, the planet and herself. Conscious living is a popular topic among digital nomads and Nienke Nina shares personal experiences in this episode. For example, using her birthday for a Donation Day to help the local community. This lifestyle and more specifically the community, taught her a lot about herself like her purpose and who she wants to become. Connecting with like-minded people that understand her from the get-go and have similar goals in life helped her connect with herself and explore other paths.

Constant Growth

Personal development, career growth and mindset are pillars of the digital nomad lifestyle and often conversation topics inside communities. In fact, inside the global digital nomad communities, you find many groups and sub-communities focused on growth. Other growth opportunities come from the daily stuff keeping digital nomads busy like packing, moving, arranging travels and trips and finding new like-minded people to hang out with. Autopilot often doesn’t work as a digital nomad so you become more conscious and in that mindset, there are constant growth opportunities for digital nomads.

Top tips for becoming a digital nomad

A strong misconception about how to become a digital nomad is to sell all your stuff and buy a one-way ticket. Many digital nomads didn’t start their lifestyle like that and we talk about this in every digital nomad interview. Nienke Nina shares 5 top tips about the digital nomad lifestyle.

💙 Be intentional about your goal and what you want to achieve.
💙 Try it out by joining travel or nomad communities for a shorter time first
💙 Join online communities and connect with other digital nomads
💙 When you go for it, make sure to have financial security so you can try this experiment without money worries.

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

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

How Co-Living Communities Can Enrich Your Life with Digital Nomad Marc

“Community can be the source of inspiration and transformation.”

Meet digital nomad entrepreneur Marc

Finding the right accommodation is one of the many things that keep digital nomads busy. Imagine that every time you shift locations you got to find a new house and everything around it. In the 92nd episode, we asked digital nomad Marc who owns a co-living space in Barcelona called Karima, how co-living communities can enrich your digital nomad life. Marc had a successful round in Crypto and quit his job to travel the world. Then, he lost everything but not his entrepreneurial spirit. He built a new business focused on community building – his co-living space in Barcelona. Listen to the episode for the full story and keep reading to discover the 3 key benefits of staying at a co-living place.

What is a co-living space?

Let’s first talk about what a co-living space really is. While there are various kinds of co-living accommodations, generally it’s a flexible accommodation for a medium period of time. In hostels, you would most likely not stay a whole month but in an apartment, you might well. Co-living spaces often have duration options from 1 week to multiple months.

Community-based living and connecting with like-minded people

When you are a digital nomad or live abroad, you probably want to meet other digital nomads or internationals. Co-living spaces around the world are built and attract travelers and digital nomads from all over the world. Co-living spaces also attract entrepreneurs and creative people which can be even more reason to stay at a co-living instead of renting a short-term apartment or Airbnb.

Many co-living spaces have a strong focus on community building and aside from accommodation, you can also join community events. The accommodation becomes an experience where new friendships and sometimes even partnerships blossom.

Comfortable and flexible accommodation

Another advantage of co-living spaces is that you can expect everything you need in a house on a daily basis to be taken care of. Co-living accommodations focused on traveling entrepreneurs and digital nomads often have good WiFi, proper workspaces, a fully equipped kitchen and a place to meet and mingle. Depending on the location, you might have a beautiful view, a garden, a pool, or a nice location in the city.

Don’t expect a hostel budget but instead good value for money

While the third benefit depends on the quality of the co-living space, you often get good value for money. Co-living is on the rise and the most well-known in the digital nomad world are Selina and Outsite. Don’t expect hostel pricing when you look for a co-living space, but think about the overall experience and that everything in the house is well taken care of, it’s can be a good value for money. Since it’s also easier to meet with people you will less lonely during your stay.

We wrote another article with helpful tips for digital nomads about how to find accommodation. Of course, if you are going to Barcelona Spain, make sure to check out Karisma and you might see Marc too!

Co-living is do much more than accommodation and the community itself can be a source of inspiration, new friendships and growth opportunities.

Connect with our 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 Marc

Find Karisma CoLiving on Instagram @karismaliving

Find him on LinkedIn @Marc Forster Algas

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

Tips For Finding Clients For Your Online Freelance Business with Digital Nomad Nienke Nina

“You don’t have to be online everywhere all the time to find clients.”

How to find clients for your online business

One of the biggest challenges for business owners is finding clients, especially when you are a freelancer or solopreneur and you are solely responsible but everything in your business. Running an online business isn’t easy and even more so when you are constantly on the move so it’s extra challenging for digital nomads but not impossible. So how do other digital nomad entrepreneurs do this? Interviewing successful digital nomad entrepreneurs has taught us already a lot about entrepreneurship and also finding clients. Before you think about all the amazing creative Instagram reels you can record, you want to follow the key steps to build a solid marketing and client-winning strategy.

Create one short-term and one long-term marketing strategy

Instead of being online everywhere on all channels and feeling extremely overwhelmed, create one short-term marketing strategy and one long-term marketing strategy. This will help you to get clients faster and build the foundation for more compressive strategies so you can become a successful digital nomad freelancer or solopreneur.

Know who your ideal client is

Be super clear on who your ideal clients are and write it down as detailed as possible. Once you know who they are, where you can find them and you fully understand their needs and desires you can start showing your marketing content.

Genuinely connect your ideal client

Use language that resonates with your audience so that when they see your Instagram reels, read your post or listen to your podcast episode, they know that you understand them and that you might be able to help them reach their goals. Sleeky generic sales marketing sentences won’t help you, focus on genuine conversations throughout your marketing.

Offer value in communities

Join the online communities and groups where your audience is hanging out. This is helpful for a number of reasons and the first one is that you can observe what people are asking or talking about. Instead of sending private messages you can create value by helping them openly using comments. Doing this constantly over time you become the go-to person about that topic.

Choose a channel that you can show up easily

Being online everywhere is impossible for solopreneurs due to a lack of recourses. Seriously, think about your time, energy and just the headspace to do everything from designing to promoting your services to selling services and even your admin. Many successful digital nomad website designers aren’t online everywhere, especially in the first years of business. Paige choose blogging as her go-to channel and this is how she got #1 searched Squarespace designer on Google for years and this brought her so many high-paying clients.

Get really valuable strong testimonials

A testimonial is so much more than just words of appreciation. You can strategically use your testimonials to showcase not only your work but also create promotional content way faster. So if you are just starting out, do a portfolio project or offer your services for a lower rate and get a super strong testimonial and truly milk it to the max.

You can become a successful digital nomad freelancer and travel the world and work from anywhere!

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

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

How to Create A Profitable Creative Online Business

“When you start your business you quickly realize that you cannot be online everywhere. You can’t be consistent when you try to be online in 10 different places.”

Meet Squarespace website designer and course creator Paige

Digital nomad Paige is an entrepreneur from Canada She has been nomadding for 6 years and started her online business because her (now) husband is from Germany. After graduating she moved to Germany and because of the language barrier, she figured that an online business would be the best way to make a living instead of looking for a local job. Travel has always been a big passion in her life and she used to blog about her travels. Doing this, she learned how to build a website in Squarespace. Paige decided to leverage her self-taught website design and building skills and started offering Squarespace website design services.

Paige’s business has pivoted over the years and grew her Squarespace website design business into a fully booked-out gig. Even though she didn’t have professional experience or a degree in design or marketing, she build everything from scratch and even ranked for years at number one in Google Search when someone would look for a Squarespace website designer. So once she received a boatload of inquiries, something had to change in her business because she simply hit the max of her capacity.

Once you get into a scalable business model, the sky is literally the limit. – Paige

From successful website design business to course creation

Paige considered different business models that would fit her skills, personality and financial goals. Starting an agency meant managing people something she doesn’t enjoy so that was a had no. Selling templates was an option too but people would still end up having questions so it wouldn’t fit her service and quality style. However, teaching others how to become successful website designers and run an online business felt closer to her heart. This is how Paige’s thriving Squarespace website design business pivoted into a course creation model.

Aside from passion, Paige also decided to go into this model because it was far more scaleable. This would give her the financial freedom she desired simply because in a scaleable business model where you are not bound to time or people limitations, the sky is the limit.

Her income today is about 75% from her courses and the other 25% is earned from her monetized youtube channel, private coaching and affiliate income.

A profitable course creator business isn’t just about publishing a course and drinking cocktails while the money comes in. The same goes for the digital nomad lifestyle because, at the end of the day, you got to do the actual work to make it work and keep things running. We asked Paige what a typical day for her looks like:
👉 Creating marketing content like blogs and videos
👉 Writing sales content like emails
👉 Figure out all the tech
👉 The admin side of the business
👉 Coordinate a small team
👉 Update the course materials

Her business doesn’t require many meetings and she has a lot of flexibility and freedom in how to organize her day-to-day life. This a perk many digital nomad entrepreneurs like too and enough reason to start your own online business you can run from anywhere.
Just like website design, Paige didn’t know much about marketing, yet she was very successful. We asked her how she made it work and we absolutely love her tips!

Many solopreneurs, creators and freelancers deal with the same challenge, how to be online everywhere all the time and get your work done in time without going crazy. Paige shares that she experimented with many different things to understand what she like and doesn’t like doing. For example, she doesn’t like to be on Instagram and even though her ideal clients hang out on Instagram, she knew this wasn’t a good strategy for her and she shares:

Choose one 1 marketing strategy that you enjoy doing, where you can show up consistently and that matches your offering.

Paige chose a content creation marketing strategy solely focused on blogging and youtube. She also tried podcasting and while she loves it, it was too hard to talk about website design on an audio-only platform.

Today she expanded to 3 strategies, but only because she had team members and she still isn’t active on Instagram because it’s really not her vibe.

Tips for finding clients for your creative online business

Pick a niche that is specific and not broad

A niche is not vital but extremely helpful for finding clients quicker. If you focus on a broad audience, like creative small business owners, it could take longer to land clients. When you pick a small group who have one thing in common, so a niche, for example, authors in a country or state, it will be easier to find them online and showcase how you can help them. So without a niche, you can still be successful it just might take longer.

Pick one marketing strategy and be very consistent with whatever your marketing strategy is.

You already know the way but she emphasizes this one more time. Paige’s blogged her way up and published twice a week no matter what. She also shares that in her process she always works 2 weeks in advance so there is a good amount of time between the moment you create it and the time it has to go out.

Join the 3-day Profitable & Productive Web Designer Bootcamp

Paige has more to share about running an online creative business. You are in luck because she is hosting a 3-day Profitable & Productive Web Designer Bootcamp. Join her live on April 17th, 18th & 19th for three jam-packed days of educational trainings & Q+A sessions with designers who have successfully built booked-out web design businesses!

We learned from this entrepreneurial podcast episode that becoming a designer is possible for you, even if you don’t have “the right degree” and maybe also a serve allergy to coding too. So this event is for you if you are a brand designer, copywriter, virtual assistant or digital marketer dreaming of landing projects 10X the price and want to explore other services. click here to register for free

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 enter Samara

Find her on Instagram @betterbecurly

Find her on LinkedIn @Samara Ruighaver

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