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Black Digital Nomads: no home, no problem

Published

June 26, 2018

For many, the idea of home is one fixed place – Nicole Vassell speaks to black women who’ve given up a permanent base in place of travelling all over the world, while working

For many, the plan for life looks pretty much like this: work hard at school, find a good job, find a home (and partner), settle down in one place… continue until retirement. And though a perfectly solid guideline for many, there are plenty whose life stages differ quite a bit from this model – particularly the settling down part. While the general expectation is for working adults to get onto the property ladder or rent long-term, there are a growing number of people who have done away with the concept of building a life in one stationary location – and have instead made their home ever-changing, and anywhere in the world.

But we’re not talking about gap year travellers on a global jaunt before university, or the wealthy children of aristocrats who can sustain endless travel without having to worry about where their next meal is coming from. We’re talking everyday, normal people who earn their living from their laptops – but instead of commuting every day, they are logging on and working hard from anywhere in the world.

Introducing the Digital Nomad movement: a force of internet-savvy travellers who have given up their stationary lives in order to live in different locations, week by week, month by month – and sustaining themselves through digital work.

With the internet being an essential part of all modern businesses, the concept of working remotely isn’t so alien; in fact, research suggests that half of the UK workforce will be working remotely by 2020 (OddsMonkey, 2017), while 43 per cent of adults in the USA are thought to have spent time working outside of the office (Gallup, New York Times, 2017). Through the use of team information sharing services like Slack, and Google Hangouts keeping people connected through the working day, a 2018 boardroom meeting can take place anywhere with a strong Wi-Fi connection. And, if you’re smart about it, this doesn’t just mean days spent at home in your pyjamas – as long as your deadlines are met, you can essentially work from wherever you are in the world.

Do a simple search for ‘Digital Nomads’, however, and you may believe that the only people doing this are affluent and white. Though not often represented in mainstream reports about this work trend, black people, and black women in particular make up an increasing number of these working adventurers.

In a series of cross-country calls, I spoke to three trailblazing black women who firmly consider themselves digital nomads, to find out how they got into this ‘homeless’ existence, the pros and pitfalls of not having a permanent base, and to gauge whether it’s something that more black girls worldwide should consider.

Annette Richmond in Tokyo

Out into the world

Though there are plenty of careers that require employees to be on time and physically present every day, as stated before, there are some that will allow you to experience the joys of travelling while still maintaining your steady flow of income. Annette Richmond, 33, is a senior fashion stylist for an online brand, and has lived nomadically since Spring 2017, after realising that there was no true reason to stay grounded in one place, when she’d rather be seeing the world.

‘Before I transitioned to living nomadically, I was already travelling for up to nine months out of the year,’ she told me over the phone – she in Quebec City, Canada, myself in South London. ‘I realised that I was using my apartment as more of a storage unit than a home – so I decided to give away most of my stuff to friends and family, sell the rest, and then give up Atlanta life for good.’

An experienced traveller even before her leap of faith, Annette concluding to give up her home base was financially, and logically the sensible choice. If the remote nature of her job meant that she was spending most of her time travelling, what use was paying for rent and utilities for a place that she never stayed in?

But while some are instantly able to take their jobs wherever they go, others are faced with the choice of going in another career direction in order to make their nomadic dreams a reality. Jakiya Brown, 29, started her life as a digital nomad after she realised that her dream job – working on New York’s Fifth Avenue at a major beauty company – was no longer such a dream.

‘I wanted ownership of my time,’ she told me from Mexico City. ‘My vacation days were few and far between, so I was doing crazy things like weekends in Dubai, because I didn’t have time to use! I eventually realised that I wanted to do something that allowed me to travel more. The jobs I was finding was just more of the same thing, and I wasn’t passionate about it anymore, so I thought: I’m a marketer, I’m a creator… how about I create my own job?’

So, after a year of saving, planning, and intense Google searching, Jakiya quit her job in November 2016 and has been living without a permanent base ever since, her travels taking her from Senegal, to Mexico, to France – even to the UK.

‘I’d been to a lot of different countries before, but that was short term – I didn’t know how to make it sustainable and continuous. But when I started to see more about people with online jobs who were making constant travelling work, I thought that if they could do it, why couldn’t I?’

Jakiya Brown

Blogging and bills

Though it’s not essential by any means, many DNs track their experiences with their own websites and dedicated social media platforms. While having a blog to share adventures as well as providing advice and travel inspiration to others can be a cool hobby, keeping a regularly updated, personal travel blog can be a clever route to additional income for living and travel costs through ads on the site, and brand partnerships; meaning that travelling full-time leads to extra work in itself.

Someone who knows a lot about this is digital entrepreneur Tali Love, who had the foresight to make her travel blog into something that could help her see the world. Also known by her (very fabulous) blog title ‘Pretty Brown Nomad’, Tali decided to modify her career when she took the leap into nomad life; though her work as a meeting manager in the pharmaceutical industry gave her the chance to travel frequently, the pressure of shuffling in-between tightly scheduled meetings meant that Tali rarely felt as if she was getting the chance to truly enjoy her surroundings.

‘I was having nice five-star experiences, but I was stressed out,’ Tali, 37, told me (from San Francisco). ‘I wasn’t able to go and experience any city I’d been sent to.’ So in the space of three months, she left her job, sold most of her worldly belongings and left Texas for good to begin her longterm travels: the first destination being Vancouver, Canada, before going further afield to Thailand.

Like many others, Tali started a blog to document and share her travels; however, perhaps in the reverse way of other travellers, she always intended her site to be an extra source of income. ‘For me, it was totally about monetising,’ she explained frankly. ‘Obviously I have fun with the blog and interacting online, but I totally started that digital platform after learning about ways to generate money. You have to find creative ways to make it happen – and I like that I get to do that while showing others that you can live the lifestyle you want, on your own terms.’

Tali Love, hard at work

Having a keen eye for business and a hustling spirit is a common trait with all who live in this way; often being thousands of miles away all from fallback support systems, digital nomads are under pressure to keep making money to sustain their journeys – or it could mean the end of their travel goals. As a result, you’ll rarely encounter a DN with just one job title: as well as blogging and creating travel guides for would-be nomads, Tali also makes money through brand collaborations and marketing, as well as running a business strategy and development company, helping business owners with their own digital platforms.

Annette, though primarily a fashion stylist, is also a lifestyle writer for various online sites, and is making waves as an influencer through her blog ‘From Annette With Love’, as well as being the founder of forum ‘Fat Girls Traveling’, uniting curvy and plus-size travellers. And while Jakiya is a branding expert and a content creator, she is also the founder of her own platform, ‘The Traveling Fro’, giving updates on her journey, with a special interest in the roads not often travelled – last year, she made a temporary home in Senegal, as well as living in other countries like Tanzania, Mexico and Israel.

Keeping it moving

Though the point of living nomadically means that there’s no permanently fixed point to call your home, many DNs are ‘slow travellers’, spending at least a month or two in a location before moving on to the next. And unlike holidays, or traditional travel with a fixed return date, digital nomadic life often means meeting overseas deadlines – so even if it’s just for a few weeks, nomads have to foster a sense of stability and consistency in their living to make sure that they can work effectively.

When Annette began her adventures in Bangkok, Thailand, she was lucky enough to have made friends with a hostel owner from a previous trip – which meant that in exchange for helping the hostel with online marketing and social media, she was able to stay without paying a fee.

Annette Richmond in Myanmar

Tali, however, has now been on her nomadic journey for over a year, with an impressive 12 countries and 33 global cities under her belt – and while she can appreciate how hostels are the winning choice for some, she knows that hostel life is not for her: ‘I prefer renting out a tiny room within someone’s house over being in a hostel – it just doesn’t work for me. I think that if you’d find other women also in their mid-thirties, they just don’t want to be in a hostel.’

The variation in just these housing examples just goes to show how truly diverse this lifestyle can be.

Warning signs and side effects

Of course, with all major life changes, there are some possible downsides to be aware of – namely, the negative reactions of others. ‘Digital nomad life has gotten, and still gets, a lot of weird responses,’ Tali admitted. ‘When I first started to tell people, I could tell that nobody took it seriously; even after I’d sold my car and home, and actually moved, I got questions like: “So how long are you going to be on this vacation?”

‘It’s not a vacation, and I’m not going through a mid-life crisis; I’m not running away from life, I just happen to work from different locations. There is this perception that you’re a little irresponsible; so I’m constantly trying to show people that you can very much be a professional, and live wherever you want.’

Tali Love in Paris

Elsewhere, moving through life as black women, going into the unknown can bring up an immediate mental note about what to expect: possible microaggressions at best, and full-out racism at worst. However, these women haven’t let the possibility of ignorance hold them back from exploring the world as they deserve. Having spent much of her nomadic life exploring countries in Asia, Annette has been on the receiving end of plenty of attention from locals, merely while going about her daily life – but she’s chosen to look on the bright side, and see people’s interest as pure curiosity, rather than as a negative.

‘Every time I’d go out, there’d be people who’d want to take pictures – there’d be so much intrigue that people would happily line up to have a photo with me! ‘I don’t see it as a bad thing – since most people they see on a day-to-day basis are Asian too, seeing people of colour is a rare thing. Black people are so dominant in entertainment and media, that it’s somewhat understandable that they’d be intrigued to see someone similar! You can’t focus your thoughts too much on the negative; it’ll ruin your own experience.’

Independent women

Though each on varying journeys, the three black digital nomads featured in this piece are absolutely inspiring for stepping outside of the boxes created for them to take full control of their lives, and doing with each day exactly what they want. Even if you aren’t looking to take your life on the road any time soon, in seeing the courageous, liberating moves of Annette, Jakiya and Tali has been a great reminder that our lives – and our homes – can be exactly what we want it to be. So let this be a note to take a leap of faith every now and then; it might just work out! But if it doesn’t, you can always find your way back home.