Beach Commute - Digital Nomad Experts

Our teachers and our parents hammered it into our heads since we were kids: "You cannot have a gap in your resume!" and "You cannot quit your job without having another job lined up!" And these beliefs have created deep-seated fears in people and many times prevents them from making career changes in their lives. And that, in turn, prevents them from becoming a digital nomad.  But are those f...

Becoming a digital nomad MIGHT not be for everyone.  Or...perhaps there are certain "blockers" that make you THINK that the digital nomad life is inaccessible to you, but in reality, those blockers are very easy to overcome.  The Beach Commute community is very active, and people regularly write into the show with their concerns about why they might not be able to hack it as a digital no...

Meet Laurie LeDuc, an original digital nomad who got her start back in 2008 when she worked in Australia for Catster, a social network for cats. From there, Laurie joined Khan Academy (but the role wasn’t fully remote yet). She then convinced her employers to let her start traveling domestically in the United States to start. (You’ll have to listen in for tips on how Laurie convinced her company t...

Life as a digital nomad can be extremely awesome, but forgetting or overlooking a few (seemingly small) details can result in a dream trip turning into a disaster. And that holds true from the perspective of productivity, comfort, fun and respecting the culture! Jeff, Marisa and Diego have seen and made plenty of mistakes as digital nomads. With these “learnings” they managed to come up with a lis...

Do you have the desire to travel the world as a digital nomad, but maybe you have no idea what type of career you’re actually qualified for (or want to do) remotely? If so, the Salesforce industry may be just the career path you didn’t even know you were meant for, just like our podcast guest this week. In this episode, we interviewed Alex Warneke, a marine scientist and park ranger who was statio...

Hollie and Rusty have taken digital nomad life to a completely different place: The wilderness.  Quite literally, they work from the most remote national forests in the United States, all while working online in digital marketing and IT security.  Hollie used to work with Jeff Baker as a content marketing strategist for Brafton. But late into her tenure she (using her own words) "strong...

Join us as we take a look back at the best and worst moments of our 2022 travels On Instagram, life as a digital nomad looks perfect…the epic destinations, the freedom, the adventures. However, while digital nomad life is filled with some of the most amazing “pinch me” moments, it doesn’t come without its drawbacks. On the Digital Nomad Experts podcast, we like to share both the highs AND the true...

Jeff and Marisa decided to come up with six personal questions to ask each other about being a digital nomad.  Neither person had any preparation beforehand to see or think about the answers to these questions.  So basically, you get raw, unfiltered perspectives about all the highs and lows about being a digital nomad.  These questions ranged from funny and lighthearted to deeply pe...

Being a digital nomad has an insane amount of positive aspects. You’ll get an amazing amount of culture, adventures, language skills, food experiences, etc. But if you don’t find a community of likeminded people, it can get vey lonely. And one of the potential best positive aspects of being a digital nomad is finding community and making lifelong friends to share your experiences with. Fortunately...

Becoming a digital nomad can feel like an absolute black box of "should I do this?" and "what's the best way to do that?" with extremely important personal decisions.   Fortunately, Marisa, Jeff and Diego are able to tease out all of the "good" advice from the noise, and even possibly "bad" advice.   Marisa in particular has worked with over 1,000 people as a career coach and a...

Announcement alert! Are you trying to land a remote travel job so that you can become a digital nomad? We have a master class designed specifically for you. On December 6th and December 7th we will be hosting a webinar called “The 5 crucial steps to get your first remote travel job.” In this webinar you will hear from Marisa, who has over ten years of experience coaching over 1,000 people during h...

Our listeners have awesome questions about being a digital nomad.  And we have the answers! In this episode we respond to your questions on the fly, with no preparation!  Seriously, this is a FUN episode, all thanks to our listeners. Without seeing the questions beforehand, Jeff and Diego ask and answer 6 real questions about being a digital nomad. Here are the questions they covered in...

Ihor Bauman was inspired to create a software company for a very unusual reason.  In 2020 at the beginning of the pandemic Ihor's mother lost her job as a therapist. As a matter of fact, a ton of freelancers  So Ihor created a platform for freelancers to create a website, take bookings, collect payments, and manage accounting all on one platform.  As a result of having lots of freel...

We are again joined by Rob Bone, a digital nomad who has been testing productivity hacks for years. The early days of turning into a digital nomad can be a rush: People are always going out to cafes, restaurants, dancing, etc. It can become very difficult to be productive with all the distractions. Rob and Jeff have spent quite a bit of time learning various productivity hacks that have helped kee...

Julio Monzon began his journey as a digital nomad 9 years ago, making him on of the most experienced digital nomads we have interviewed.  Julio took a very strange path to becoming a digital nomad... Rather than asking his boss to work and travel, or becoming a freelancer, he actually CREATED a company with the purpose of travel. This was a very rare mindset for someone to take back in 2013,...

Meet Danielle Lee, an ex-accountant for Xerox from the United Kingdom. Back in 2019, Xerox gave her three weeks off for her to travel (and work a tiny bit) from Peru. She left the trip loving life, and asked if she could do this “digital nomad thing” more often, but they told her that it was only going to be a one-off type of allowance. Bummer, but Danielle didn’t give up her dream. She then doubl...

Have questions about being a digital nomad?  We have answers, and in this episode we answer them on the fly, with no preparation! Seriously, this is a FUN episode, all thanks to our listeners.  Without seeing the questions beforehand, Jeff and Marisa ask and answer 7 real questions about being a digital nomad.  Here are the questions they covered in this episode: What are some of th...

Are megacities good places to live as a digital nomad?  It's a really tough question, and the true answer is: "It depends on the city."  So, in order to put together a halfway intelligent method, we created a set of 6 criteria points to determine how well a megacity qualifies. They are:  Community - How easy it it to find and build community?  Safety - Is the location physicall...

Becoming a digital nomad will be one of the most impactful decisions you will ever make in your life.  Without. A. Doubt. We talk about the five most obvious reasons to us that you'll LOVE being a digital nomad. Mind you, there are many, many more, but we will leave some of the surprises to you and your experiences.  You can't see as much on normal vacation: When the only time you can us...

Interested in visiting Africa as a digital nomad? You're not alone! While Latin America, Bali, and Thailand get the most press for top digital nomad destinations, Africa has quietly been turning into a digital nomad powerhouse.  Without giving away the specific cities (you'll have to listen to find out!) we talk about:  South Africa: Our destination boasts: A massive digital nomad commun...

We've come up with a list of the 7 questions you're most likely going to be asked when applying for, or asking your boss to become a digital nomad.  After interviewing and working with over 1,000 digital nomads, Diego exactly how to approach these questions.  Hint: Yes, there is a right way and wrong way to approach these questions.  Here are the seven questions:  What does “wo...

We found 52,581 current remote job listings for 5 different types of jobs, currently accepting applications. Are these US-based jobs? NOPE, anyone around the world can apply for these.  In this episode we talk through five different types of remote jobs along with:  Their average hourly pay The number of jobs listed on LinkedIn alone A specific job listing - who the company is, job requi...

This episode is going to help you slingshot past years , and potentially hundreds of mistakes   Using years of data and experience, we have outlined the fastest path possible to working and traveling.  Marisa has worked with thousands of clients over the past ten years (professionally) to figure out exactly where people are going wrong when trying to become a digital nomad.  She saw...

You may have heard many episodes of Marisa and Jeff talking about travel and remote careers, but you haven’t heard their full stories, failures and triumphs on their own journey to digital nomad life. Until today… In this episode, Marisa interviews Jeff on his story from college dropout to getting paid a remote salary as a marketer who got out of a deep depression by traveling the world. Throughou...

Danny Burton had a plane ticket to Japan where he intended to live permanently with his then-girlfriend.  His new life was literally DAYS away.  Then Covid hit, and an alternate life path unfolded.  He got stock (literally STUCK) in Lisbon where he was forced to lock down.  Out of necessity, he found a few other digital nomads to room with while the early days of Covid raged on...