Digital nomads are not a new trend. What has changed is that previously many of these remote workers were self-employed, but now it’s possible for permanent employees to work from anywhere in the world too. We spoke to three digital nomads and asked how Covid has impacted their plans and work.

‘My life as a digital nomad has been a great adventure’  

- Caspar Greeff, subeditor for Daily Maverick

‘In December 2019 I told my boss, Daily Maverick editor-in-chief Branko Brkic, that I was bored with life and was thinking of going to Thailand and blowing my savings on a dissolute life. He said he had a better idea: “Go to Central America, and work for Daily Maverick from there. Start in Belize, I hear it’s amazing, and they speak English.”

‘A couple of weeks later I bought a ticket to Belize, via Istanbul, and arrived in Belize on 17 January 2020. I stayed on the island of Caye Caulker for about a month, before travelling to Guatemala in South America, and I was there during the first wave of the pandemic and the lockdown. After eight months, travel restrictions were lifted, and I went to Costa Rica, then Nicaragua, then Ecuador, where I am now.

‘I was working five days a week throughout. I work Sunday to Thursday and my South African hours for Daily Maverick are 5pm to 11pm or midnight, which works out perfectly with the time difference – I start work at 10am Ecuadorian time and finish at 4 or 5pm.

‘The world is so electronically connected that this way of life is very sustainable. In all the places I have been to in the last 16 months I have never had a problem with connecting to “the mother ship” back home. When the Wi-Fi connection is weak, I use my mobile phone as a hotspot. I’m planning to go to Peru next, and then Argentina and Chile, depending on Covid-19 travel restrictions, of course.

‘My life as a digital nomad has been a great adventure, and I have been happy throughout. I used some of my savings to buy the air ticket and now I live off my salary, just as I would back in South Africa. So you certainly don’t need to be rich to be a digital nomad. It’s just a matter of doing your job from a different location.’

‘Adjust the way you think about and see work’

-Simon Lewis, marketing consultant

‘I have worked remotely for international clients for many years, but, a few years ago, I started to feel like I needed a change of scenery. I realised that I didn’t need to work at home alone as my clients didn’t care where I was as long as the work was done. I made a list of coffee shops around town that I liked and started mixing things up by working at a different café four days a week, spending one day working from home. Being around different people every day improved my productivity and even made me enjoy the one day I spent at home.

‘As a marketing consultant, I had to attend conferences in different countries, so instead of travelling the day before the conference and returning home straight after, I started adding a week at the beginning or the end of the conference so that I could enjoy the city or the country more. Then, one day it hit me – I can actually work from anywhere. But I needed to connect to a community. At the time, I was living in Athens, Greece, and the closest coworking space was 40 minutes away, so I decided to create my own community, which I called Athens CoWorking Days. The idea was to create coworking meetups in different cafés around the city to meet interesting like-minded people.

‘I got locked down in Spain and I’m still here, but there are worse places in the world to be. I am still an advocate for this lifestyle, but the pandemic has made me appreciate the freedom I had to pick up at the drop of a hat and travel to a different place. Now it takes me weeks to get my head around the idea of moving to a new place, but, for me, the benefits outweigh the risks.

‘Mental wellbeing is so important as we all come to terms with how the pandemic has changed our work lives. Companies and employees need to adjust the way they think about and see work because it is possible to reinvent work to be more fulfilling for everyone.’

‘I do the two things I’m most passionate about every single day: travelling and writing’ 

- Lauren Melnick, travel and digital blogger and marketing writer

‘I quit my job in 2016 to teach English in Thailand for six months. During that time, I started working as a part-time freelance writer after class. When I returned to South Africa, I decided to go full-time with my travel blog and marketing business, and I’ve been working remotely since November 2016.

‘In March 2020 I was in Bali and managed to get the last flight home before South Africa was locked down, so I’ve been staying at home with my mom in Johannesburg. Like many others, I am waiting to see what happens with the vaccine roll out and the entry requirements of other countries, but I am keen to explore work in other countries as soon as it’s safe.

‘Meanwhile I have been keeping busy since hard lockdown lifted, travelling around South Africa, organising group hikes and working with sponsors.

‘There was already a trend towards mental-health awareness in the workplace before Covid and the pandemic proved that in many cases businesses people can work effectively without having to be in the office behind a desk every day. It’s an outdated way of working and remote work/digital nomadism has been the future of work for a couple of years now. I give this way of life 12/10 for my emotional wellbeing, and I’m so glad I did it before the pandemic because now I know it’s possible.’

Want to read more about the world of work, business and corporate life? Read the latest issue of MiNDSPACE magazine.