Do you want to become a digital nomad?

So, you’ve seen people living the digital nomad lifestyle, working on the road and travelling to exotic places and you want the same! But you don’t know where to start on that journey, and your mind is filled with questions, concerns and worries.

I'm sure you're feeling overwhelmed by the idea of navigating logistics and legal requirements you'll have to tackle if you're going to work anywhere in the world. It can feel like a minefield…. But let me help!

Here are 4 things you need to know in order to become a digital nomad!

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1. Where you want to go

You might have a vision of travelling to a different country every few months, but in reality, if you find somewhere you like and have a good community you’ll probably want to stay for a little while.

I get it, you might not know yet, but try to narrow it down- are you likely to stay in one or two countries? Stay within Europe? The USA? This will help you to decide on which jobs to apply to in case they’re time zone specific or require you to have certain work rights.

A lot of remote work companies now work asynchronously (async), which helps with the pesky time zone issue!

In case you’re not familiar with that term- asynchronous working is when teams work at different times of the day, rather than at the same time (e.g. 9-5). Some companies work completely asynchronously where it really doesn't matter what times you work, as long as you get the work done, and in others there may be an overlap when teams are working at the same times, or attend a daily meeting.

2. Contract Types

Before you even start thinking about your digital nomad lifestyle, it's good to know what your options are.

There are a variety of types of contracts you can take, but here are the three most common:

• Permanent (perm)/ Employment Contract: This could be full or part-time. If you're looking for something more stable and long-term with benefits such as paid holidays, sick leave and pension contributions, then a permanent position may be the best option for you.  
• Contract/Self-Employed: If you want to be able to move around between jobs easily and have more flexibility with your schedule, becoming a ‘contractor’ may be ideal for you. Whilst these offer more freedom than permanent full-time jobs, in most cases, you do not receive employee benefits such as health insurance or other taxes paid by the employee.
• Freelance: Freelance jobs might be right up your street if you're looking for a flexible job where you can set your own hours and take on multiple projects.

3. Work rights

To work in a particular country, you need to have the right to work there, in most cases, especially if you’re looking for a perm job.

However, this becomes more complicated when you want to move from country to country.

Broadly speaking, if you want to change countries every few months, you’ve got two options:

1. Work as a contractor or freelancer, so that the responsibility for your work rights and tax are on you, not the company
2. Work with third-party organizations such as Deel, WorkMotion, Remote or another ‘employee of record’ (EOR) so that the company can hire you as an employee even if they don't have a legal entity in the country you’re going to work from. Most true remote-first organizations will already have their preferred EOR.

If you’re happy to stay in a country for longer than a year, you can still do either of the options above OR you can get sponsored by the company. However, this is quite difficult to do unless you have a skill that is in demand in that particular country- like software engineers for example.

The good news is that there are now around 50 countries offering digital nomad visas!

The digital nomad visa has some benefits over other types of visas, like the fact that it doesn't require an employer or sponsor. The digital nomad visa also doesn't require you to have any particular skills or qualifications — you just need to be able to prove that you can support yourself financially. Check out CitizenRemote which has info on 50+ countries offering these kinds of visas.

Depending on the country, you can stay for a minimum of 6 months and up to 5 years in some cases.

4. How to get a remote job!

Now you have a good understanding of what your options are, you need to get a remote job, but not just ‘remote’, you’ll need a ‘work from anywhere’ (WFA) job that gives you the freedom to move around. These are harder to come by with approximately 1% of all jobs posted WFA.

In the Remote Job Academy, we’ll show you where to find genuine ‘work from anywhere jobs’, teach you how to apply in a way that gets you interviews, and how to interview so well that you land a fully remote job so that you can finally become a digital nomad!

As visitors of FindAsync, we invite you to join the Remote Job Academy and save 10% if you use the code: ASYNC

Stay rebellious,

Michelle from Remote Rebellion

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