Everything Is Content - Everything In Conversation: The Dark Side of Being A Digital Nomad

Episode Date: July 30, 2025

Welcome weary podcast traveller! Time to take a seat, kick off your dusty sandals and voyage with us, your hosts, into the murky land of digital nomad discourse. In a recent piece for The Guardian US, freelance journalist and former digital nomad Emily Bratt explores the less glamourous side of island hopping and beach bar working. She writes: "Somewhere around the midway mark of my most recent six-month trip, something happened. A whisper of a thought began to emerge at the back of my mind. By the final month, it was a pervasive shriek: What am I doing?” And in a world where more and more people are planning to ditch their desk and fixed address, we're forced to ask: is working on the move an F U to capitalism, or is it just the same old slog in slightly shorter trousers? Thank you so much for all of your comments and takes on this topic- they were as thought-provoking, sensitive and honest as always. Follow us on IG & TikTok @ everythingiscontentpod if you would like to take part in future episodes or see some BTS footage. Talk soon!O, R, B x-THE GUARDIAN US - When The Digital Nomad Dream Turns Sour Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm Beth I'm Ruchera and I'm Anoni and this is everything in conversation we're your midweek top up of content pop culture and discourse we would absolutely love

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as it truly does help us to keep making this podcast that we love. So I don't know about YouTube, but I have often fantasised about packing my laptop, some bikinis, some Birkenstocks, booking a one-way ticket and trying out life as a so-called digital nomad. island hopping, working from beach bars, having no fixed address, and maybe no problems. Also, you might think. In a recent piece for the Guardian US, freelance journalist and a former digital nomad, Emily Bratt, explored the other side of this kind of lifestyle. She writes, quote,

initially I adored the lifestyle. I worked my own hours, usually during the day, for a handful of clients. Come evening, I would hop on the back of a scooter and drive through plumes of street food smoke to meet new friends on the beach and sip from coconuts. It all felt wonderfully freeing. But somewhere around the midway mark of my most recent six-month trip, something happened. A whisper of a thought began to emerge at the back of my mind. By the final month, it was a pervasive shriek.

What am I doing? End quote. And as she reveals in the piece, quite a few other people in her situation have been feeling the same. She talks to people who struggle to pick up local languages, battled with feelings of resentment for having to work and what they felt should be more of a holiday, relying on Starbucks Wi-Fi and noisy packed cafes

to get any Wi-Fi, missing home, familiarity and community. In the last few years, the number of digital nomads defined as people who work remotely from no fixed location, has risen massively. Emily reveals that about 18.1 million American workers described themselves as digital nomads in 2024, which is an increase of 147% since 2019, and that research from public first estimates there are, are 165,000 British citizens working as digital nomads, and that 7% of the adult population

say they are very likely to live and work as one in the next three years. I think it's all so interesting, especially as someone who could technically work from anywhere and is often asked, why don't you just set off, see the world, see what happens, work from somewhere else? So we asked all of you at home what you thought of this trend, of whether you'd consider it, have tried it yourself. And if a lot of people in the West are guilty of treating the wider world as a bit of a playground and then acting disappointed when it's not totally fulfilling their fantasies of lunch breaks on pristine beaches, adventure all year round and a better and more exciting quality of life for much cheaper. I wanted to ask whether either of you have also had that

thought and that feeling of kind of committing to this totally freelance digitally nomadic life in the way that, yeah, I have to admit I sometimes do. I have it all the time. And I actually saw a reel the other day, this girl being like, you know, you can just sell all your stuff and move to an island and whatever. And I was like, oh my God.

And then I thought about it. I was like, wait, can you? Because like visas. And I don't know if it is that easy. And so I do, I want to do it all the time. But then I get a weird, and we'll come on to this, they do talk about it.

I get a pervasive feeling of loneliness when I imagine really doing the digital nomad life. So sometimes when I feel stuck or I find London overwhelming, I think wouldn't it be lovely to lie on an island? But then also somewhere instinctively, I know that with that will come lots of complications and it won't be as fun and gorgeous

as it appears to be on social media. That being said, I did go and live in Paris for a couple of months last year, which was kind of, I guess, in the middle of like digital nomadism and just sort of a very extended holiday where I was also working because I was in an Airbnb, which was like a flat. I was with my partner. I had my dog. So I was living outside of like my home country.

it was for a short amount of time but it also had a lot of the similarities enough similarities to home that I didn't feel that far away and I also knew there was an end point in sight and I wasn't sort of just like sofa surfing or floating around. I think now that I'm older it's something that appeals to me less and less but in my early 20s I don't think it was as much of a thing then actually I don't think people were doing it as much but I think if I'd known about it in my early 20s I probably would have tried to go and live in Bali but I think at this age I'm slightly more skeptical and this piece has really kind of drummed that home for me. How long were you in Paris for? Because you totally, in my opinion, did the digital nomad

lifestyle. And for me, it felt like you were gone for a sizeable chunk. I think it was literally like two, two and a bit months. You're joking. No. It really did feel like four months to me. The Paris years. Yeah, right. I think it was right at the end of April just until like June, just because they had the Olympics. So that's why I left because it was getting really busy and really expensive. But it did, it was just, it was like unsustainable. I was having smoking. Vogue and coffee for breakfast, cheese for lunch, cheese for dinner, wine every single day. Like, it was gorgeous, but it was like, it was just a really long Paris city break with work in the middle.

I, similar to you, I think I've romanticised the idea of a digital nomad lifestyle. And actually, this piece was really great for unpicking all of that because I think I still had it until reading this. I think in my mind, doing this extended period of working away. in a different country. I always just had this idea that there could be no bad side to it because all you're doing is possibly just like picking all the best bits of being away from work, being able to set your own lifestyle, just living in gorgeous places. So I think I really needed to read this piece. In my mind somewhere, it still was like this option that I could do and that

would be the best thing for me if I just ran away. And to be fair for me, I think I would perceive doing this as running away, which is why it always felt like a bit of a fantasy because I obviously would never do it. I love my life here with my friends. It just can be super difficult on the day-to-day commuting into work, just having a bit of a shit day because of X, Y, Z, somebody just being rude to you on the tube. It just felt like in the back of my mind, maybe one day I'll just book a ticket. Maybe I'd just run away. Maybe I could do that. And because of the impossibility of that, I would never actually commit to it. I never really thought about the intricacies. So I think I, I think I needed to read this. I think I needed to grow up and realize that that just probably is

never going to be a perfect solution to my problems. I feel exactly the same. I think it has such a sheen on it. When you imagine it as like the anti, whatever we're doing right now, like, okay, it's not a horrible day to day, but I'm looking out over Victoria Park. And it's just a little bit soggy, a little bit foggy. And when you think, okay, if I was waking up and the sunrise was gorgeous, the start to that day would be so much better and I would get more done. And I think, especially living in the UK, which is like depression personified, I understand that the urge, But I also think, looking at it like really clear-eyed, I sense I would have a bad time. I would find a wait to have a bad time purely because I'd be taking myself with me. I'd be taken my work with me. And that's the thing. It's like this looks like a holiday. But everything I have to do here, I'd have to do there. I mean, I think sometimes there's an element of, okay, I don't need to make. I don't need to hustle the same way because I'm not paying a London rent or a UK rent or cost of living over here. But still, there is a cost to living wherever. And then when you factor in like travel there, travel home, visa costs, cost of like moving around, all of this stuff, I think you still are hustling to some

degree. And I, whenever I tell people my work situation and they're a new person and they find out like basically I have this podcast, I have clients, I have editors and I could, I have no fixed office address. I could work anywhere. They're like, well, why don't you? Like, and I think it's out of curiosity, but sometimes I think there is an element of annoyance at me from people that are like, I can't do this. You can. You should be doing it because they really want to. They think I'm witty a fantastic opportunity. But like, I don't want to live out of suitcase. I don't want to be far from home for months. I don't want, you know, time differences and like these issues and unreliable Wi-Fi

and having to like factor in jet lag. I feel like the people that are genuinely down to their bones suited to the kind of digital nomad existence that I imagine are quite few and far between. They definitely exist, but they exist in people's imagination far more than in practice. I think a lot of people would be like, this fucking sucks. I miss the structure of my life. I actually miss a lot of what I had back home. I actually, and we'll get on to this, I think this is far more an issue of dissatisfaction with labour in this country or in a lot of countries than it is necessarily an urge pure in someone's heart to be elsewhere and to do, to live this. I agree. So I have one friend from uni who has always been this kind of person. She now is like, works on TV shows and she's always flying abroad to work on different shows. But she's never had many things. She's never been materialistic. She's always at the drop of a pin popped off somewhere. Like you can't, you'll be like, where's

Beth and they were like oh she's gone to the Antarctic for something I think what what you mean she was here I swear like five minutes ago she's always on people's sofas she's had that sense of like flightiness is the wrong word she's always got itchy feet and she doesn't feel very tied down to one place whereas I agree I love the idea it's something about island living but it's like I think I actually just want to go on holiday to an island I don't think I want to go and live on an island that being said I do keep thinking very seriously about moving to Barcelona maybe like next year like a year because I do think that sometimes just being it's not even necessarily the UK I think just being in the same country for a long time, especially if you're single, especially

have no dependence, obviously I'd have to find a way to bring her. There is something quite alluring about being like, maybe I'll be a different person in a different city and a different country. But I also think that's part of the problem. I was talking to a friend about this where it's like, if you leave, you think you're going to leave all your problems behind. But like you said, Beth, you bring you with you. So you'll just, if you're extremely depressed and sad and you've got lots of, you know, things that you need to figure out, you're still going how to figure them out under the Tuscan sun. They're not just going to, you know, you can't just leave them behind.

And I find travelling very stressful. So I wouldn't be good at being, I could move, like, and stay in situ in a different country, which is a complete different thing. But I would find it very difficult to be packing a suitcase up. I get tired if I have to go to Charlton them for the weekend to see my nieces, which I absolutely love doing. But my sister's like, when you're coming, I'm like, I just get, if I have to get the train back on the Sunday by Monday, I'm just so tired from all the travel.

That's a two-hour train. Like, I'm not built to be getting on like night buses and planes, everything. other day I'd be exhausted. That just reminded me of the funniest story I had and I'm going to keep details vague because I think it's fine now because it's been a few years but better to be safe. Somebody working in a civil service over I think the tail end of COVID as we were all coming out was working from home. Everyone was allowed to work from home in this specific department and they were living in Brazil and their bosses never knew and they were just having to wake up at all sorts of times to the you know like smooth it over and act like they were i don't know in the countryside of kent

of some bullshit and it just makes me laugh so much because yes in theory you're living in south america but the practice of that means that you're kind of changing your sleeping patterns and your life to smooth it over for your workplace back in the UK and it kind of sounds like a nightmare keeping a light like that up and i know most digital nomads are just freelancers but i think there was a few stories I heard of people doing this. I think around 2021, 2021, 2022. And yeah, just even the kind of intricacies of making your work happy, whilst also trying to have the experience of travelling, living your best life, it sounds like an absolute nightmare. I think what you said about you're bringing all your troubles with you, you're kind of bringing yourself is so

right. And I don't think I'm suited to, like you said, and only living out of a suitcase, having that uncertainty up in the air. I don't like even going to a country. not having all my hotels booked. People do that. It's a totally normal thing to do when you get there. You just figure it out. I can't even do that. This would be my absolute nightmare. I also wonder, and this might be me being judgmental or just not grasping what people are getting from digital nomadatory. It's not a word. But I would think if it was me, I would feel a sense of like my life has to be on hold while I'm here. Because I think when you're in a place, when you're in a place, you've moved to a place, you can be thinking, could I live here? Putting down some sort of roots or

planning to put down roots roots in the future. Whereas if you are hopping about or if you are there just to not be somewhere else, I do feel like I just wouldn't be learning about what I needed from my life. Because at least if you're somewhere and you're like, I don't like it here, this is not where I'm going to live, die, spend the majority of my time. I'm going to look elsewhere. That is a kind of progress forward. Whereas I think if I took three months out, six months out, a year out to work from somewhere that I knew I wouldn't end up, I just probably would be deferring a lot of big questions and maybe it's just Western idea or maybe it's just like a capist idea of like I must be making headway in all that areas of my life, personal and

professional. I must be learning more about myself. But I think that is a kind of exploration that I'm interested in at this point. And in the piece actually she says, quote, but just as with any addiction, satisfying a craving for travel with more travel, didn't fix anything. I had the sense that I was avoidant rather than liberated. And I do think there is a sense of avoidance in a lot. No. In. some people that do this and I think that probably would be what drives me like can't make decisions back home feeling overwhelmed this will help me put it off and I do wonder whether some people come back after a couple of years and they're like oh shit I there's a lot of stuff that I have deferred

doing or thinking about because I was I was doing this instead we had a message from jemma which kind of like that bit in reverse where she said people and community are what makes a place great and community is specifically what I'm seeking in each destination I travel to as a part-time digital nomad. However, as a freelance 32-year-old single woman living in Brighton, I found that even at home, my community has diminished greatly in the last few years. Friends, settling of partners, having children, moving away. I also don't see digital nomadism as a super long-term thing. It's exhausting building a little life in new destinations every two to three months. However, for now, that payoff is worth it until I decide to take on more responsibility in my life, like a salary job,

a dog or a partner. Also dating as dreadful in Brighton, so I feel like I'll only meet someone abroad, lull. And it's funny, I was with a friend yesterday who's also single, also 31. And we were talking about actually for the first time in our lives that we feel a bit lonely. I've honestly never felt this before. I love living alone. And I think it comes from this age of where suddenly everyone's lives, people are starting to build their own kind of like nuclear families. And suddenly you do stick out as an independent person in a way that in your 20s, there was always someone to see stuff to do. And so I think that part of the draw of the like digital nomadism is that maybe by nature of that, you are an individual that's pootling about,

and that feels more natural than when you're in a city that you've come from or a place that you've lived, where all of your friends are. But then you're on your own by virtue of the circumstances of all your other friend's choices rather than your own. And I wonder if that is like part of the pull of it. It's like, well, of course I'm eating alone or of course I'm staying alone on my own in this hotel. I'm travelling. And that makes more sense. Maybe that's part of the desire for some people. Also, do you remember, we did an episode, I think it would have been a few months ago about passport bros and that side of digital nomadism, where Colombia was being used by sexist, misogynist, digital nomads and the kind of add-on to this specific genre of this lifestyle was the assumption that Colombian women were much more subservient and better girlfriends than Western women. And it's such an interesting extreme corner of this lifestyle, the idea that you can leave Western values behind and find the quote-unquote cherry-picked ideals that you want somewhere else and just

feels like that side of it, not most other people's side, feels like a modern colonialism, I guess, just kind of taking the resources of other places that are cheaper, taking, you know, the quote-unquote women from those areas. And I just, I just remembered that as we were talking about this, because I remember a lot of that side of the story was a lot of TikTok content making it seem like everyone was having the best time by doing the digital passport bros way of life, but actually the interviewer who was Jamali Maddox. Jamali Maddox. A lot of them were just having the worst time ever.

And there was a lot of, you know, very dark elements to what was happening to them. But I do wonder why a lot of why I think this is blown up is just how it looks romanticised online. And I don't think, I wonder if all of the people who are posting that content. A, they're probably posting it because that is part of their income at this point. But also, B, are they actually living out the kind of romanticized vignette? of every TikTok that they post whilst living this. I think that's a really good point.

I think a few people in RDMs had something similar to say. So Georgia said, I think the world can only improve by everyone being more empathetic by people's experiences by living someone new, but it does feel like digital nomads give a glossified depiction, which obviously isn't true to anyone's lived experiences or culture. We also had anon who said they're running away from something, which I think speaks to something similar as kind of like,

I will go into the fiction, I will go into the better world, It's also a world, I guess, that you feel that you can exercise some control over. And it's not all Western travellers. It's not all digital nomads. But I think there is a sense, similar to the passport bros, that especially the Global South, represents this sort of malleable location where, and you see it with other places. Like I remember Molly May's sister, so Molly May the influencer. I can't remember her sister name was under a bit of fire for talking about, you know, the other side to Bali. But Bali, I've never been there, but it does strike me in conversations as somewhere that a lot of Westerners have wanted and probably.

succeeded in having this exercising some control over the like rapid growth or the kind of property springing up often funded or at least like in the profit line is Western investors. It does feel very much like there is that ugly side and we run from here and kind of cause problems elsewhere. So I think that is the piece doesn't focus a lot on the socio-economic cost and the cultural cost. But I think it's a very real one. And if you are considering doing this, you can't not think where am I going, what is going to be my impact. I just want some of pretty to look at my laptop. But like the impact on a local place can be massive just for the thing that you think

I'm doing this because I'm burning out. It's like, okay, but you may well be in a long line of accidental Western assholes. And I wonder how often people come home and think, ah, this wasn't, this wasn't quite what I thought it would be. There's people that I see on Instagram that have moved to Bali and built like, huge villas and they write about how it's so cheap to do so and you're thinking because the labour is really cheap

because the people that live in Bali are being totally priced out of living in their native local community and you have a lot of what people love to call expats but immigrants moving into these countries and turning them into completely different like the beauty

of Bali in its history was the fact that it was this gorgeous island with all these like really amazing you know it's such a culturally rich, religious, interesting place with amazing food and beaches. And now you see all of these very modern places popping up and it got really infamous because especially with the rise of like Airbnb, which I think is also a massive issue in this digital tourism. And actually Airbnb is a huge issue all around the place because it's actually pricing so many people out

of living in the cities that they're from because the costs have gone up so much. And I think that Airbnb is actually going to later down the line come under a lot of fire for this kind of thing. Sally also said, I feel like this could be connected to people not feeling able to to retire, have a good life when retired. So instead, people want to have a bit of retirement travel fun all the time, which does make sense. But again, to go back to this sort of like almost like settling in these less economically privileged areas so that you get a good retirement, I think sometimes you do have to look at the bigger picture and think, what am I doing to the people that are already there? And then Laura also said, I think we've become less

content. With social media, we think there's always something better. So I think it's a mixture of all these things. I think the world is so available to us digitally. We can see so much what's available to us that it makes us feel more discontent in our own lives. Our worlds have become so much more vast, like the possibilities seem so much bigger than generations ago when perhaps you would be able to buy a house at 20 and you would stay in that house and you would stay in your local area and you'd have all your friends around you. Like the way the world, the landscape of the world has completely changed. We're all much more separated. Lots of us don't have the settled feeling of owning a property. We aren't really friends with our neighbours. You're kind of

uprooting and moving all the time anyway when you're renting. It's unlikely that people stay in a rented property for longer than a few years. So it does feel like a natural progression. But I do think that this piece really just drummed home all of my like, I guess, fears, which is everything we keep coming back to, which is I think the crux of like a happy, a really happy life is having community, having low levels of stress probably from job satisfaction being paid properly. And routine, which it's taken me genuinely like 30 years to realize is one of the biggest precursors to feeling happy is actually just having a really good routine. I am so with you on routine. I feel like in my early 20s, I had this pervasive dread of being stuck doing the same

thing or living a day that feels similar to any other. And it's bizarre because I eventually realised through lots of working, working through understanding that I have a lot of anxiety and routine actually brings me so much joy, true joy, not dread, joy. The routine is my favorite thing. And actually a lack of routine can be really difficult for me to process and for me to locate happiness, peace, ease, all of those great emotions. So I am completely with you. We got a message from Maya who said, I think it speaks to the need lots of people seem to feel like they have it all all of the time. It seems like the perfect lifestyle, earning money while traveling and you see all of these pictures of laptops set up in beautiful hostels with gorgeous views. But if you actually think about the reality,

I think I agree with a lot of what the piece says. You end up being in a strange kind of limbo where you're not doing a fulfilling job. Very few of the jobs these nomads do seem fulfilling. And by its nature, you don't get to know your colleagues, etc. You aren't building a community or seeing your close friends and you also probably can't do as much as you'd want to in terms of travelling, seeing the world,

because you have to spend a certain amount of time working. I also think there's a lot of issues with Western entitlement and gentrifying areas, brackets, see the problems in Mexico City. Of course there can be issues with conventional tourism too. I actually think that living a seemingly less glamorous lifestyle, but having roots in a job I enjoy, then going on holidays or short career breaks to travel feel so much more rewarding to me. And like you said and only, I really resonated with this

idea of routine and maybe taking a year, two years, isn't right for everyone. It can be right for some people, but this idea that holidays and taking breaks and maybe just committing to that when you can. And also just maybe the fact that we should have more annual leave in the UK. We should be, I mean, across the board, people should be paid better to be able to take breaks from their career if they want to rather than feeling the additional pinch on top of the cost of living crisis and this kind of panicked fear of keeping your job down because redundancies are becoming increasingly common anecdotally from people I've spoken to and friends. It's just, I think it is that sense of everything feels quite black and white. You either quit your job and

take a year out and just leave your life because things are really tough at the moment for lots of people. And if you are given the privilege of being able to travel or leave your life, it feels like, well, you have to do that because everyone else covets it. Or you're holding down a job and you just feel like travel is the last thing on your mind because things are quite difficult for you personally. It just, I don't know, it feels like there's all of this grey area that should be explored and should be available to people. But it's so, it's so frustrating. That's not. Oh, also the other thing I wanted to say on Maya's message is I was lucky enough to go to Mexico two years ago, I think. Yeah, two years ago. And they're right. They're so right. When I was there, I noticed so many cafes with people with laptops. And I think a tour guide that we went on a tour with mentioned that there's been a huge rise in digital nomads and people moving to Mexico City because it's so beautiful, so lovely. And I guess for a lot of Americans or other kind of. quote-unquote expats, it can be cheaper than their original place. So it's got this whole

lifestyle. And visually, it's quite stark just seeing the beautiful kind of bright colors of Mexico City and just seeing so many laptops everywhere. It is quite, it's quite jarring. Do you know what else this is making me think? And it's something we think about for a while, but we have a problem with productivity in this culture. And so I often, as a freelancer, don't not work on holiday. Sorry, that was a horrible sentence. When I go on holiday, I'm working. because I don't feel like I can not work because if I don't tap my emails or have my laptop, I might get a job in and if I miss that job, I might not get another job that month. So I don't necessarily feel like when I go away, I have the luxury of being on holiday.

But what I've learned is that that is then not a holiday. You do not relax. You do not get the benefits of a holiday in the same way as if you genuinely switch off. And so I think that people have got confused and thought that you can somehow experience both at the same time. But I think because so many people, especially freelancers, feel like you can't take time off really anyway I might as well just work in a lovely place but then I think you're getting the worst of both worlds because it's like she says in the piece when she goes back to the office god did that make me want to work in an office I was so jealous I've never really worked in an office

but I have to say and woes me and the gilded cage that I do scream from but there is something to be said for the fact that when you are freelance you can never really switch off so it might not be hard work you might not be saving lives but you do have to work hard that it is kind of relentless and so I think that there's this maybe sort of fake relief in this idea of working as a digital nomad because you get to have what you're perceiving to be like a break from some of the relentlessness of what we perceived to be whilst working. But actually you're probably not enjoying and it'd be much easier or better if we were able to genuinely just switch off for a week, go and lie on a beach and read books

and not think about work and then go back to a very structured, very routine, day to day, boring quote unquote life I think that that traditional sense of the break from work the holiday the back to work is also what gives human sustenance I think we like feeling needed and important we like feeling like we've got a purpose we actually do like work when we get proper respite from it and I think that culturally no one has respite from it because of emails because of interconnectivity because of the fact that we feel like we have to be hyperproductive all the time in this super late capitalist society and so all of this is kind of we're everyone's trying to figure out a way to get around it but all that we're doing is sort of stirring the same pot

and just moving stuff around but not actually clearing any of the decks i think that's it i think we are trying to microdose holidays at all points i will also scream and shout about how bad it is to be a freelancer like you do need to microdose holidays like it's awful no security net. I probably earn, I probably am paid about at least £1,000 a year lower than what I've worked for because someone won't pay me. Like it is relentlessly exhausting. So I do think when people like, yeah, but the freedom, you're like, okay, yeah, shit, the freedom. I've got to use the freedom. And then I'll take off on a working holiday and be like, yeah, shit, I should have not done this. I should have just tried to have one proper holiday. I think it's the constant

tussle. And we got a message from Kay who said in quite straight, straight, straight, talking terms, she was like, everyone's different. If it's for you, then great. If not, do something else. Simples. And I agree that there is something quite simples about it, but also I think there are aspects of it, which due to human psychology and the structure of the kind of modern working world, isn't that simple. Because I think if you're not happy at home, in the country you're born in, where you're based now, fixed to a desk, in the sort of cold climate, you will go, okay, right, I know, I know what I don't like. I know if I switch this up and I kind of flip the script, I will be happy. I'll go somewhere hot and I'll go somewhere where I can work from anywhere. And then you go. And I think as we saw in the Guardian piece, like you also feel like you're drowning. This is not the opposite, the plum opposite of what you've just had is not making you happy. And I think it's that feeling and what's not very simple about it is that feeling of realizing it isn't where it's what, it's work. As we've said before, it's work and it's modern iteration that is antithetical to your peace and your happiness and your prosperity. And that what the fuck

do you do that like twiddle your thumbs until the revolution comes like i think that is a cold hard big pill to swallow and i think that is what i fixated on in this discussion about this digitally nomadic life it very often is not just about space and place i think the conversation is about labor and it's about exploitation and work creep and that is not going to go away with like a warmer more beautiful backdrop and slightly cheaper lattes i think that is coming on playing with you and so that feels complicated and not that simple. I mean, I also will say I'm related to that. I have been a low-key digital nomad for the last. I didn't think about this when we started this conversation, but like since the beginning of July, I have not been to my base, which is in Wales for more

than, I think, two days, maybe three. I have been hopping around East London and I am exhausted. I went from Clapton to Highbury to Clapton. Now I'm in Victoria Park and I'm like, girls, this crazy jet-setting life is not for me. And I think that tells me all I need to know about my potential big plans to island hop around the South Pacific. Absolute travel bunny, going back and forth on the overground. It's an exhausting life. So jet-lagged. What you said about microdosing holiday is just absolutely perfect.

No notes, I think that is exactly what this is. And also, when my friend Molly, who went to Lisbon for, I think six months, came back home, went back for six months again possibly, and she, they left because of extortionate rents in London. So they made use of their work contract and went out to Lisbon. And they messaged me, giving me full permission to quote, all I really did was get depressed in Lisbon and realise everyone I loved was in London. I also realised that digital nomad is for broken people running away from real life, in my opinion. The ones that really lasted, who I knew were fucked up to.

The thing is, I think the thing is so many of us are broken in this culture. You know, we talk about it all the time. I think that we're really, every generation maybe feels this, but I do think we're disadvantaged in like so many different ways. But even just the thing that stuck out to me, and I thought was the most depressing in the piece. And I can't remember if you brought this up, but it's just the fact that they're like, you basically do a tour of all the Starbucks.

And I do this here. So yesterday I was working with a friend and we were like, where can we go? And we were like, where's in the middle of us? And eventually we were like, I guess Joe and the juice, because it's like it's got good Wi-Fi. You know there's going to be somewhere to sit. And it's like even when you don't want to work from your flat, because I do think there is actually something bad for your brain

about constantly working in the place where you're also meant to sleep and relax. I do think, like, I actually find it quite hard to sleep at the minute. I think because this flat I'm in is lovely, but it's quite small. So it's just all work. I've had to start listening to Thunderstorm's playlist before I go to sleep, which is actually so nice, but I've never done that before. Anyway, so I need to get out of the house. I also need to like body double with someone.

I need like human connection because of the loneliness thing I was saying about earlier. and then we were saying it's actually so hard to go and work so much this other coffee shop where everyone was on their laptops but it's like you have to spend money there's this weird kind of like there's something weird about everyone working on laptops and coffee shops it feels like it should be really romantic or very cosmopolitan or you know oh what's everyone doing but actually it's just everyone's elbowing each other trying to get to the plug someone's really loud on a zoom call it's too hot you're asking for a cup of water but they're giving it to you in a cup the size of a thimble and you're like I can't go up again and ask for more water it's so embarrassing

So then you're like, maybe we'll go sit somewhere else. So you go somewhere else. Then we spent £19 on a salad. And I was like, I can't, I can't do this. So there is that like, that feeling exists. Every time I try and go and work in a coffee shop, I last for about two hours before I'm like, I can't pee here again because someone's going to like,

she's peed 85 times. And then I pack up all my stuff when I come home again. And it's just that idea that that feeling, that's going to happen. It doesn't matter where you are. You're going to be in that situation somewhere else. And if it's air conned and you're inside, you might as well just be in London. God, it absolutely sucks, doesn't it?

You just stop in one cafe, you realise the Wi-Fi is shit, or it doesn't work. But at that point, you've ordered a coffee, so you have to sit there, drink the coffee. You're literally drowning in, like, steaming hot beverage going down your throat. You leave that place, you try another one, and then you inevitably end up at a Starbucks or something shit. That feeling whilst also being away, you're so right. That is a nightmare, absolute nightmare. I mean, also on the other side of this, we had Meg and RDMs who said, quote, I had a really interesting conversation with a digital nomad while travelling who said that

because he only has a limited time in a country due to restrictions on visas, he felt that it meant he made the most of the opportunities to explore the different places he was in rather than being sucked, rather than being sucked into a monotonous routine. And I think that is another side to this. There are people who really suit this. There are people that are respectful of different cultures who are, who understand the parameters of this, who aren't running from their lives. And I think it is so easy to be a neggy peggy towards those people who take the leap. And it is a leap in it, it can be so, so brave, and to act like they are just definitely hiding from themselves and other people. But I think actually it's just a life that looks different and

is perhaps they are catching on faster than a lot of the rest of us, that that is one way to be happy in a, in a quite uncertain future in like the housing, labour, life climate of today. It's like, why not? If something in you are saying, go, then I think you should listen to it. Thank you so much for listening this week and for all of your amazing thoughts on this topic. Quick reminder that you can find us on Instagram and TikTok at Everything is Content Pod with extra behind the scenes content and ways for you to take part and suggest topics for upcoming episodes.

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