The pandemic has upended the way of working for millions of people that are fortunate enough to be able to work from home. For some people that's meant a full transition to WFH, for others it may mean a few days out of the office per week.
The rise of digital nomads
The more extreme version of working from home, is working from anywhere. The pandemic accelerated a trend that had been gaining popularity as early as 2018 — the idea of being a "digital nomad" — that is someone who can work fully remotely thanks to the internet, and often moves about frequently, either from city to city or even country to country (COVID permitting).
The term digital nomad was first coined back in 1997, but it's taken a lot longer to gain significant traction. There are now more than 1.1 million members to the forum r/digitalnomad on social media site Reddit — which is home to many communities including, most notably, r/wallstreetbets.
For tech-savvy workers able to work remotely, the pandemic has removed even more barriers to becoming a digital nomad. It's now fully acceptable to take Zoom calls from odd locations, and as internet connectivity continues to improve it seems inevitable that more people will decide to keep working as they travel if they can — rather than having a hard stop or reset in their career — even if it's only temporary. Any digital nomads reading this? Let us know!
