Becoming and/or being a Digital Nomad requires more thought and planning than living in one's native country and even more than being an expat. You need to put extra effort into planning your travels, your finances, your tax liabilities, your visa limitations, and, quite importantly, your social universe. I will deal with the social thing in a different post. Here I am thinking about travel, residency, finances and taxation.
I can spend 6 months per year in the EU. I can spend 6 months per year in Turkey. I can spend 6 months per year in Vietnam. So, those three places are quite enough. However, I do intend to engage in a modified Trifecta. To explain, Andrew Henderson suggests three residences around the world, spending 4 months in each. Since most places allow 90 days at a time and don't tax your income if you are 'in country' for less than 180 days per year, one should be fine for both visas and taxation.
I say mine will be modified because my three likely will be Alanya, Turkey, Hoi An/Danang, Vietnam and "travel". I can easily stay within guidelines with that structure. It might look like this
January through March, Hoi An
April through May, Alanya
June through August, Travel
September through November, Alanya
December Hoi An
Surprisingly, a couple can execute this with a modest income. In the seasons that I will be residing there, rents in Turkey are in the $500 per month range for one bedroom serviced (hotel style) apartments. In Hoi An, Vietnam, $500 per month can get a 2 or 3 BR furnished house on a three month lease. Of course, cost of travel destinations will vary significantly. This means that the lifestyle is supportable on $2,000 per month combined income.
However, the U.S. allows about $120K of international income to be excluded from U.S. taxation. So, a couple, both earning DN income at that maximum level will have a completely different lifestyle than the one described above. They will be able to afford luxury apartments, houses and/or villas and will be able to do a luxury 'travel' season, as well. The most luxurious homes in Hoi An rent for about $1,300 per month. In Alanya, there are some apartments in ultra luxury complexes that go for as much as $2,000 per month. Both places have about a 3X PPP ratio, so these would be pretty expensive in the West.
In such locations, both of which are premium tourist locations, a rental budget of $3,000 per month is sufficient to have a luxury home in both locations on annual leases. That means they can be used as 'base of operations' or a place where you can keep your "stuff". With a $20K per month A/T income, that leaves an excess housing budget of about $4,000 per month or about $48,000 per year or $16,000 per month for the three travel months.
This is equivalent to about a $400K annual Pretax income if one lived in EuroAmerica. In other words, this will provide a couple with a 'jet set' style lifestyle. The question then becomes, 'How realistic is a $120K DN income?' Well, it is far from easy but it is realistic if one has the talent, skills and drive.
I will focus on writing because that is what I do and what my target travel mate will do. It is a complex issue and as the saying goes, 'there are lots of ways to skin this cat'. (EWWWW!). I will look at Leonardo bloggers and book writers, mostly. For Leonardo, I direct you to Leonardo & The Polymath article on my blog. Since I have not yet written on the book writing, I will lay it out briefly here.
There is a new way to write books. It is the self-publishing of e-books. The most effective approach is to write short, low price point books and build a fan base through Internet based self-promotion. Suppose you write three novellas per year that are price pointed at $3.00 per title. You will promote it primarily through your preferred social media, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. Amazon will take 30% and will give you little in return. Therefore, it is better to use Paypal and paywall site for download. You will net about $2.80.
So, in order to earn $120K per year, you will need to sell $120,000/$2.80 = 42,857 copies. If you write three per year, that is just a little over 14,000 per title. This is similar to Kevin Kelly's '1,000 true fans' strategy. Except, you get 10% as much per fan and, consequently you need 10X as many fans. However, they really don't need to be 'True Fans' for a total of $9 per year of purchases.
14,000 fans are more difficult to get than you might imagine. Facebook allows you 5,000 'friends' and, combined with an 'author page' you can, with some effort, get a free mailchimp list of close to their 2,000 limit. But, that still leaves you 12,000 sales short and with an annual income of about $17,000. You can add to that with a popular blog and/or instagram account. Of course, word of mouth is the key to reaching 14,000 sales.
You can encourage WOM, of course. But, in the final analysis, either your work product is good enough to stimulate it or it isn't. So, simply put, launching off in this direction is a risk. However, if you are good, it isn't a big one. My model is slightly different with a higher price point but fewer books. If I write two 50K word books per year with a price point of $10, I will need to sell a total of about 12,600 copies in total or about 6,300 each. I have sufficient social media presence to make a good start at that. I think that 2,000 each is practical starting point which means an income of about 40K USD in year one. With my other income sources, I will be able to have a comfortable lifestyle.
So, that is my general plan and my goal. It has two pieces. One is to acquire a DN travelmate. I will leave that private, save to say that it likely will not be a problem. The second is to acquire and plan a an $8K per month increasing to $20K per month DN lifestyle over two years. I'm thinking in terms of the $20K per month lifestyle, since the lower income lifestyle will only be for a year or two. Since, I will spend no more than 'travel time' in the high cost regions of EuroAmerica and high income East Asia (Japan, S. Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore, etc) that will be about as relaxed a lifestyle as one might imagine.
My guess is that in Turkey and Vietnam we will set a budget at about $12,000 per month, of which $3,000 will be year around occupancy costs. So, we will save $8,000 per month for nine months and have an $17,000 current earnings per month during the travel months. That is $72,000 + $51,000 = $126,000 / 3 = $41,000 per month budget for travel. That, of course, means that very high cost travel destinations such as London, Paris, Monaco, Macau, Tokyo, etc. will be easily within reach and we can stay in premium rooms in 4 & 5 Star hotels. At $8K per month income, we will be staying at more modest hotels and rooms, but still very nice.
I repeat that this plan and goal is not easy but is achievable. Also, I want to emphasize that the 'market' for polymath writers is about 60,000,000 people in EuroAmerica alone. That is about 5% of the most intellectually sophisticated adults. So, acquiring a loyal fan base of 14,000, though not easy, is something that can be available to literally thousands of polymaths.
So, if it appeals to you, it is realistic and you should, as Nike puts it, Just Do It. I am.
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