Hey guys! I hope you enjoyed the video and our attempt to be funny... For those of you that are genuinely interested in what the daily routine of a digital nomad can look like, this is what ours is like:
What is a digital nomad?
Digital nomad is a big generalisation, but basically means living anywhere and working online. For us it means being YouTubers, travel bloggers and social media influencers (specifically Instagram).
But it can mean anything - from teaching online to being a virtual assistant, from music journalist to writer. Nowadays with more and more aspects of our jobs becoming digitalised, more and more people can work from their laptop - we even know online doctors and lawyers, and of course that infamous millionaire poker player we met in a club.
Where can you be a digital nomad?
This is our routine in Budapest, because that's where we currently are, but really it doesn't change too much if we're in Bangkok or Brisbane or Bristol or whereever (which is the beauty of being a digital nomad). The only time it really changes is when we house sit - because then we have to work the house and pets around our schedule (get up earlier, take the dogs for long walks etc).
Essentially though, you can be a digital nomad pretty much anywhere - but you will be restricted slightly by things like visas, tax rules and of course how much you earn, depending on the country you want to live in and the country you are from, of course.
Chiang Mai is probably the most popular spot in the world for digital nomads. But with cheap prices (for Westerners) and fantastic internet, Budapest is becoming popular too.
Daily Routine of Digital Nomads
This is what our personal routine looks something a little like:
8: get up, breakfast
9-12: work
12-1: lunch
1-3: more work
3-4: learn Hungarian
4-5: exercise
6-7: dinner
7-10: relax + social media work
10-11: plan day, tidy
This is a very, very rough routine. Our point is kind of not to have a daily routine - if you have a routine you get bored, if you get bored you get depressed and so we try and switch it up as much as possible.
But there are things that have to be done once a day/ once a week/ once a month, here are some of those things:
Emails
Replying to and pitching emails are a big part of what I do - we get emails about possible collaborations, interviews, article suggestions, emails from hotels, from brands bla bla bla. I try and make sure I answer all of them - especially if they are particularly ridiculous, I love to write a good sarcastic reply.
I spend anywhere between ten minutes and two hours answering emails in the morning, but after that's done I don't answer any more that day, it's my treat to myself.
When we're moving around a lot, I make sure I read all the emails as often as I can, but only reply to the super important ones - I mark all the other ones as unread until we have more time to answer them.
When it comes to pitching (hotels, brands, possible collaborations etc) I want to research the business first to check if they're any good. This takes time. So I generally only pitch one person at a time.
For me, generally all I have to do for YouTube is what you see on the screen - talking, 'acting', screaming...
For Tanbay, there's a lot more work: editing, creating the thumbnail, answer comments, staying up-to-date with YouTube analytics, editing older videos (changing keywords, title etc), planning new videos, sharing the videos and so much more. I'm super grateful Tanbay does all this, I don't have the patience for any of it.
Blogging
There is so much more to blogging that writing random thoughts down and cringing at my writing - coding, photo editing, keyword research, back-linking, sharing the post, asking others to share the post etc. Then there's checking old posts - updating them or deleting them if necessary.
I used to write one post a month, but then I found I wasn't writing once a month and I had writer's block. I actually find it easier to write one a week.
Sometimes I'll give myself a day to think of the title (I mean, I'll do other things that day, but under the blogging umbrella that's my only task). Then the intro will take me ages too (as I'm sure you can tell haha). But once those are done the blog posts themselves take me no time at all - 30 minutes usually, 2 hours at most. This is because I've written so many now, the connection between what I say and what I really want to say is finally there. Yey.
We actually have three other websites: www.veganvstravel.com, www.lovetravelquotes.com and www.travellingweasels.de. Tanbay writes for the latter two. I usually write a blog post for Vegan Vs Travel every week too.
Whilst it, apparently, looks like I'm playing around on Instagram all day, that's really not the case. Instagram is a big money maker for us and a serious part of our business. (But okay yea admittedly also one of the most fun parts.)
The work on Instagram starts with the photos - I use Layout all the time, not to make a collage to upload to Instagram (please stop doing that, it looks crap); but rather to check my Instagram photos will all look good together. That sounds kind of weird, but it's so important that your Instagram photo works well with your other Instagram photos (think colours, focus etc).
I use lightroom to edit my photos and make them pop. I really don't like it when Instagram photos are so edited that they look edited (your saturation is too high Carol), BUT I also think that photos often don't look as good as they looked in real life, without an edit or too.
I edit the photos a bit more on Instagram (using the edit button, never the filter button). And then I choose some appropriate hashtags.
That's the tip of the iceberg - with Instagram it's really important to make good connections and connect with those connections as much as possible. Find it boring? Connect with less boring people. Usually I do this whilst I'm watching Netflix or drinking wine (hence my weird and often inappropriate comments).
Finally there's answering messages on Instagram - I answer all of them unless they're super dumb.
We generally post once a day on Travelling Weasels' Facebook. Facebook does this fun thing where it only shows your posts to people who've liked your page if Facebook thinks it's a good post... So if you fancy doing us a favour for us today that will cost you nothing, take you a second but mean the world to us try this:
Click the following button, and select 'See first' so our posts are at the top of your newsfeed (you can change it at anytime).
If our stuff makes you smile or laugh or anything, please give it a like - again it doesn't cost you anything, but brings a lot more value to our business.
If our stuff makes you smile or laugh or anything, please give it a like - again it doesn't cost you anything, but brings a lot more value to our business.
Posting on Facebook takes basically no time at all. What takes me ages is answering all the messages people send to our Facebook page - but I remember when no one used to message us ever, and so I'm so grateful to receive these messages (and hence why I reply to them all).
People also try and message my personal account, I won't reply to those. On a similar note a lot of people add my personal account - I only accept people I've had an actual connection with, be it in real life (think hung out with rather than said hi to in the street once); OR spoke to a lot via messenger (again, Travelling Weasels messenger, not my personal account). Got to draw the line somewhere!
Tanbay covers our Twitter account - he tweets, he replies to tweets, he follows people, he retweets. I hate Twitter.
Finally there's Pinterest, which annoys me because I feel like I should love it and I don't. Again Tanbay covers Pinterest - pins, repins, joins groups etc.
Learning languages
A big part of our life now is learning Hungarian which we love - we've been learning with super teacher Zsuzsi!
I'm also trying to keep up my German, and Tanbay makes an effort to learn big English words every day that I don't even understand.
Fun
Being a digital nomad is weird, because on the one hand I don't want people to think when they see my sitting around on Facebook and Instagram I'm not working hard - but on the other hand, I want people to know I love my job and it's not hard work if you love it.... basically I work hard but I love it, okay.
But we make time for fun outside of work too: travel is obviously a giant part of that, but one of the things we love about staying in Budapest (and Bangkok) is the circle of friends we have here who we love to bits!
Budapest is a great place to meet other digital nomads too - it's always nice to hang out with people who do similar work to us as a) we can swap tips and b) they know what we're talking about and we don't have to explain every little thing.
Other fun for me includes hitting things - before we travelled the world I was a kickboxer. Now we are in Budapest for the next two months and I've treated myself to kickboxing classes which are so. much. fun!!!
We have also made it our mission to visit every single vegan restaurant in Budapest (which is hard as a) there are so many, and b) we want to go back to the ones we've already been to... #lifeshard).
Conclusion
So there you have it, a general idea of what we do on a daily basis. I'm sure I've missed something important out...
If you have any questions or ideas, drop us a comment below!
Budapest is a great place to meet other digital nomads too - it's always nice to hang out with people who do similar work to us as a) we can swap tips and b) they know what we're talking about and we don't have to explain every little thing.
Other fun for me includes hitting things - before we travelled the world I was a kickboxer. Now we are in Budapest for the next two months and I've treated myself to kickboxing classes which are so. much. fun!!!
We have also made it our mission to visit every single vegan restaurant in Budapest (which is hard as a) there are so many, and b) we want to go back to the ones we've already been to... #lifeshard).
Conclusion
So there you have it, a general idea of what we do on a daily basis. I'm sure I've missed something important out...
If you have any questions or ideas, drop us a comment below!
ABOUTME
We overland. We eat plants and fungi. We live outside as much as possible. We are all connected. A female travel blogger overlanding and writing about ecotourism, ethical and sustainable travel, socially conscious travel and housesitting. An online travel magazine since 2015.
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