I’ve changed what city I wake up in roughly every 3-7 days for more than 3 years now after getting rid of my San Francisco base.
The actual home itself (hotel, hostel, Airbnb, friend’s place, housesit, etc.) changes, too. The longest I’ve stayed consecutively in any house was 24 days in Berlin in July 2022, petsitting two sweet cats, Max and Engels via TrustedHousesitters. (Before I accepted, I hesitated: do I want to commit for so long? My internal monologue answered: … it’s not even a month.)
“How do you maintain friendships and a sense of community?” is a question I often receive.
However, one friend actually told me she sees me more often than those who actually live in the city she’s based.
But yes: creating and maintaining good, close friendships certainly takes effort when you move this often.
Before I explain how I’ve created and now maintain an international community, let’s first acknowledge: I absolutely can see the benefits and differences of living in a city for a few years (or even months) compared to a few days. You’re right — it won’t be the same. But the beauty of friendship is that it truly can span across the world.
There are so many articles now on the loneliness that plagues the ‘digital nomad’, and many of them address traveling quickly in a negative light, or rather one that isn’t conducive to maintaining solid, deeper friendships. Even Four Thousand Weeks points out: “Digital nomad is a misnomer — and an instructive one. Traditional nomads aren’t solitary wanderers who just happen to lack laptops; they’re intensely group-focused people who, if anything, have less personal freedom than members of settled tribes, since their survival depends on their working together successfully,” Oliver Burkeman continues: “Every gain in personal temporal freedom entails a corresponding loss in how easy it is to coordinate your time with other people’s.”
Let’s start there.
Staying Connected: Tips for Sustaining a Worldwide Community While Traveling and Working Remotely
1. Coordinate your time with your traveling friends and plan group coworking trips together
There is already research on why coworking spaces help foster a sense of community. Why not organize a house?
Message 6-10 friends who also work remotely and see who is interested in booking a group house (Airbnb or similar site) and exploring a new city together. Usually I’ll send 1:1 messages first, and then based on who expresses interest, create a group message after to narrow in on dates and what city to book in.
Check with your friends about their meeting schedules: who needs privacy, and at what time? How many bedrooms do you need to make that happen? Make sure there’s space for it and coordinate together.
When messaging the hosts of your potential house, ask them to confirm their WiFi download/upload speeds, telling them of your remote work plans.
Then… enjoy!
Not only have you created a nice coworking atmosphere, but you get to cook and eat meals together, go on evening walks, take coffee breaks in between work, perhaps get up early for a sunrise kayak adventure in a new place, etc. You get the picture. You get to spend quality time together. Maybe as a group you’re able to take off a couple days and turn part of the trip into a vacation, too.
2. Seek out times it’s easy to meet up with friends in a city you’re (randomly) overlapping in
Sounds similar to the first point, but instead of coordinating ahead of time with a group, this is more of a happy accidental occurrence that may even be realized at the last minute. “Wait! You’ll be nearby in (city) too?!” You wouldn’t believe the amount of times I’ve now gotten to meet up with friends in brand new cities just because we overlapped for even a few hours.
Social media is increasingly challenging to manage timewise, but one of the ways you absolutely can use it to your advantage is exactly this — to meet up in person. Post what city you’ll be in and see who will be around (if you’re not comfortable publicly announcing it, post it to your ‘close friends’ story).
Another app I use is Strava to record my hikes / runs / bike rides. One friend saw yesterday I happened to be hiking in Indonesia, and commented: “Wait! I’m here too with (another friend)! Are you still here?! We’re leaving tomorrow!” Today I took a taxi 45 minutes south, and guess which friends I got to see?
Sometimes your cities aren’t perfectly aligned, but are certainly close enough to make the effort. Because I left Prague and took a train to Kutná Hora, I got to meet my friend’s 9 month old daughter.
3. Make an effort to spend quality time with friends who don’t want to or can’t travel
It should go without saying, but when you do visit the cities you used to live in, make an extra effort to reconnect with friends who don’t live on the road like you have chosen to. (And yes, this first requires you to make an effort to visit those cities in the first place. “What if I don’t like my previous city?” … Do you want to physically hug your old friends or not? I didn’t particularly like the city I lived in for the first 23 years of my life. I knew I wanted to leave Michigan suburbs since I was 10 years old.)
When I ask ahead of time to crash on a friend’s couch in a city I used to live in, I specifically do that to spend time with them. Obviously other responsibilities or events may come up, but do your best. If possible, why not include them?
I feel like many lists on this general topic of “community” emphasize meeting up with others who travel (some of whom work remotely, too) to create community. And yes, that’s part of it — but also, you likely already have close friends. Not everyone prioritizes travel, and that’s great! Celebrate your differences. If you want to nurture those friendships, put the effort in.
4. Talk to locals in the cities you visit, not just people in your hostel
Ah, hostels. Places that stand the test of time as one of the easiest, most common ways of meeting people while traveling. But here’s the thing — not only are locals the best people to ask for local events and activities, but if you find yourself developing a greater affection for a city and plan on returning, who is more likely to be around in that city when you return: a fellow traveler at a hostel, or… you get where I’m going with this.
“Where / how do I meet locals?”
Think of how you would usually meet people in the city you used to live in. If you’re not sure where to start because it’s usually through mutual friends (of which you may not have in your new city), think of activities you already love, and research online where to start: different classes, art, dance, sports / fitness, hikes, etc.
And then once you’re there, take the first step in going out of your way to ask someone: “Hey, it’s my first time visiting (city). I love the (art / music / whatever activity you’re into) here, and was looking for other places / events / (whatever) that are similar. Would you know of any / where would you recommend?”
“But Emily! I’m shy / don’t want to do this / this is challenging for me.”
My friend, I feel your pain. I barely socialized until I was nearly 18 years old, and used to get so nervous I’d feel physically ill. Unfortunately, I don’t have an easy answer for you: you must practice. “Exposure is an established critical component for effective treatment [of being socially anxious].”
Fortunately, though, we humans enjoy talking to strangers more than you might think, and research shows we’re happier when we do. “It is fear that the person sitting next to us won’t enjoy talking to us that makes us keep to ourselves, Epley found [article: “Mistakenly seeking solitude”]. But when we do talk to each other, those social interactions with strangers tend to be both less awkward and more enjoyable than most people predict,” writes Paul Nicolaus in NPR article “Want To Feel Happier Today? Try Talking to a Stranger”.
He goes on to cite Gillian M. Sandstrom and Elizabeth W. Dunn’s research that discusses why and how short conversations with strangers bring us happiness and feelings of belonging. ‘Weak ties’ (i.e., acquaintances) contribute to our well-being, too.
5. Don’t forget to get people’s contact info, and actually follow up
When you meet like-minded, fun humans while you’re out and about in the world, ask directly for their contact info: Instagram, WhatsApp, Signal, whatever. Be intentional about it. Make a note in their contact info as to either the city you met them in, or the city they’re usually in (you can search for it in your contacts the next time you’re in that city), and send them a message serving as a reminder of how you met.
Make it easy for both of you to reach out to one another.
…And then actually do so. Nurture your new friendship from afar. Make plans to meet up in other cities, and follow through.
Nurture a Global Network While Working Remotely Full-time
So when Burkeman writes: “The digital nomad’s lifestyle lacks the shared rhythms required for deep relationships to take root,” it is of course true that it’s challenging and requires simply different effort than living in the same neighborhood as your friends (almost) 24/7, and will look different than ‘normal’ friendships — but I don’t think it’s impossible to foster deep connections.
To recap:
- Be proactive, and make fun plans together in groups, such as booking a coworking house together. Get creative!
- Go out of your way to see your friends if you happen to overlap nearby(ish) while traveling.
- Make an effort to visit those loved ones who don’t travel.
- Meet locals, especially in cities you love and want to spend more time in. (Challenge yourself to be more outgoing to foster new connections.)
- Get people’s contact information, and follow up with them sincerely.
I’m not trying to say I’ll want to move every 3-7 days forever. Actually, I specifically plan to experiment with staying longer in a few cities in the upcoming years, too, and even having a base again. (Hey, change is good.)
But this lifestyle I’ve chosen is genuinely one I dreamed of having since I was a kid, and I feel beyond lucky to be learning how to adapt and be creative with maintaining friendships around the world. (Friends who are reading this: I love you all deeply.)
Moving constantly might not be for everyone, but if you want to make it work for some period of time, I think you can.