Are you really a digital nomad?

Are you thinking of becoming a digital nomad, or are you just trying to make moving abroad sound cooler than it is?

Let's clear this up. A digital nomad is someone who works remotely while moving between places. A remote worker is someone who works remotely and usually stays put. Most people end up closer to modern expat life than the classic nomad version. They stay in one place, build a routine, start a business or buy property, and stop moving every few weeks. That is not the old digital nomad picture, even if people still dress it up that way.

What was sold as the digital-nomad lifestyle was always a bit of a scam. Bali was the obvious example, but a lot of the people there were long-term expats with laptops, not free spirits chasing the horizon. "Digital nomad" sounded cooler than "I work remotely and want a cheap life in the sun". It made the whole thing seem more adventurous, more free, more interesting than the reality, which was often remote work, routine, and ordinary life with a better label.

So what's changed? People have realised that moving around every two weeks with your laptop looks good on Instagram and awful in real life. It brings instability. Friendships, relationships, work, even the feeling that you actually have a home. A lot of the people doing it well now are long-term expats using the digital nomad label for SEO and status. I'm completely guilty of that in the past. So maybe the next thing isn't digital nomad at all. Maybe it's just remote expat, which is less glamorous and far more honest.

What it really was

The beach version was never true. Head to Bali and you only have to pass a few cafes or coworking spaces to see it: people who have ditched an office for a laptop, but are still living a 9-to-5. They are not sitting on the sand. They are sat inside, working the same hours as everyone else, just in a warmer place with a nicer backdrop.

The digital nomad version we all know burned a lot of people out because it was never built to last. It was a performance. You can't build a proper career, real friendships, or decent health if you keep moving every two weeks and treat a whole country like a backdrop.

The people doing well out here aren't travelling more. They've slowed down and stayed in one place.

What people do instead

Walk around Rawai or Cherngtalay now and you meet a different type of person. They've been here eight months, not eight days. They've got a gym, a coffee place, a few real friends, and a routine. They run a business or have a proper remote job. They're not travelling, they live here.

Nobody planned this. It shifted. It stopped being about escape and became about building a better day-to-day life somewhere warmer, cheaper, and easier to live in. That is less sexy, but it is the version that survives.

So does this mean we need to redefine what a digital nomad is, or do people need to be honest about their lifestyle?

The visa is the big change

Let's be honest, digital nomads deserve some leeway. But the border-hopping crowd made governments treat everyone like a problem. In Schengen, the rule is 90 days in any 180-day period, so that easy in-and-out rhythm is already gone. Southeast Asia is moving the same way: fewer loopholes, more structure, less patience for people who treat borders like a lifestyle choice.

Thailand fixed part of that in July 2024 with the DTV, the Destination Thailand Visa. The DTV is a five-year visa for remote workers, freelancers and long-stay visitors. Each entry lets you stay up to 180 days, and you can extend once at immigration for another 180, so basically close to a year at a time. You need about 500,000 THB (about USD 15,321, £11,376, and €13,162) in savings, and the fee is somewhere between USD 275 and 1,150 depending on where you apply. You can't work for Thai companies or take money from Thai clients on it. It's for people who earn abroad and live here.

Malaysia has DE Rantau, ASEAN has even looked at a common visa for non-ASEAN nationals, and the direction is obvious: more structure, fewer loopholes. So yes, maybe the border-run crowd did ruin it for everyone. If you treated countries like a stopover and a visa run like a lifestyle, the rules were always going to catch up.

If you're looking for a long-term visa in Thailand, the DTV is the first place to start.

What it costs

"It's so cheap" is only half true, and a bit less true every year. The numbers still work if you're sensible about them. Roughly, it looks like this. If cheap is the reason, read why cheap is the wrong reason to move to Thailand first:

These are rough conversions only. Exchange rates move, so treat them as ballpark figures.

The usual mistake is to pick the most touristy, most expensive part of the island, live like you're on holiday, then say it doesn't work when the money's gone by week six. Pick an area the way someone who lives here would, and the cost still stacks up well against most places. I went into this in detail in what expat life in Phuket is really like.

The real problem is loneliness

When it goes wrong for someone, this is usually why. The freedom that sounds so good, no office, no set hours, no colleagues, is the same thing that leaves people on their own. You can be somewhere beautiful and still be lonely.

The people who last treat it as something to fix, not something to put up with. They show up to the same run club every week, the same coworking day, the same Sunday hike, until the same faces become friends. That's the reason I built SocialGryd. You post that you're going for a sunrise swim or a coworking afternoon, people nearby join in, and a plan turns into a friendship. Getting people to actually meet up is the whole point.

So where does that leave us?

Courses on how to become a digital nomad are everywhere now. Everyone and their mum seems to be selling one. The more useful version is just remote expat life: real visas, real places to live, real communities, and building something that actually works.

There is nothing wrong with being a long-term expat or a digital nomad who travels. The problem is the pretence. Most of the people selling the dream are really based in one place, taking their photos and videos, then packaging that up as a lifestyle you can buy if you sign up to their course.

So if you're weighing it up, the real question isn't whether you're a digital nomad. It's whether you actually want to move around all the time, or whether you want to admit you want a settled life abroad with better weather. The first version is mostly for the internet. The second is the one that works.