▲ 7 points

Ask HN: What's your experience of living nomadically as a tech worker?

by BoxOfRain·5y ago·2 comments·view on hn ↗

Hi all,

I'm a backend web developer who's currently in the planning stage of adopting a nomadic lifestyle aboard a sailing boat. I'm intending in the next couple of years (or sooner depending on how my financial situation evolves) to buy a forty foot sailing yacht and equip it as a fairly comfortable liveaboard. I've been sailing on-and-off all my life and I'm going with a friend of mine who's an experienced yachtsman so I've got a fairly good idea of what needs to be done to make this viable.

My intention is to live nomadically rather than remain in a liveaboard marina, travelling from place to place between periods of remote work. This has been a dream of mine for a while, but the miserable stasis of life under lockdown has pushed me to make it a reality! Initially I'll be sticking to northern Europe and the Mediterranean but I'd love to eventually be doing Atlantic crossings too which means buying a boat that can endure such long passages.

I'd be really interested to hear the experiences of other tech workers living a nomadic lifestyle, especially but not necessarily those who live on ocean-going boats.

2 comments

I did this during the Covid lock down for about 7 months. My target environment was the western USA. Optimizing the uncertainties and necessities led to the mode of a single hotel m-f and moving on during the weekends. It was simplest, lowest capital investment, highest flexibility.

The big downside was overall loneliness and lack of connection - but it is hard to tease out how much of that was Covid. It was no more or less isolating than the first months of covid when I stayed put.

The planned plus was seeing places I always wanted to see. That worked out fine. It was the unplanned sights that make up most of my stories - sunset over the Sangre de Cristo while gloom rises out of the plains, freezing fog, driving into a white out in Santa Fe and many more.

The final result was the most surprising. I moved back to my hometown that I left decades ago. Having followed my whims I like now a reestablished home base, from which I can depart again for any period at any time.

Thanks for your reply! It's interesting how you found yourself moving back to your hometown, I've always thought if I ever settle down properly it'll be in the coastal town where I went to uni. I went back to my hometown after graduating as the job market is better there, but it's a bit too landlocked for my taste and housing is nightmarishly expensive (the cost of living generally is about as bad as London but without the London salary adjustment).