[The Case for Living Abroad as a Nomad] Living While Traveling Increases Happiness in Life

Ashida here.

I earn money using a laptop and the internet while living and traveling overseas.

In fact, I am writing this at a Burger King in Penang, Malaysia, and I also run a corporation (ACIDHOUSE, INC.) in Japan without any problems.A “nomadic life” of traveling and living abroad increases happiness in life, so you should experience it at least once.

Far more people live as overseas nomads or move abroad than in the past, and the word “workation” has appeared recently, but they remain a minority.

I would be happy if this article encourages even a few more people to become interested in, or actually try, “living while traveling overseas.”

• People interested in long-term overseas travel or nomadic life abroad
• People who want to minimize the belongings they need in life
• People who want to use the internet to 120% of its potential for work and life

My Overseas Experience So Far

I have never written an article about my overseas experience, so I decided to summarize it briefly.

If you are not particularly interested, please skip this section.

Entertainment Sparked My Interest in Other Countries

As a child, I was obsessed with music and movies, but at some point I became more interested in foreign works than Japanese ones.

Being a child, “foreign” really only meant America and Britain, but I was deeply interested in worldviews completely different from Japan's, so naturally I wanted to visit and experience the local atmosphere.

My First Overseas Trip Was in My First Year of University

I went to New York in America for about a week.

I think the round-trip airfare was about ¥100,000. I remember telling my parents, “I want to go abroad!”, and they readily gave me the money, saying, “Go ahead.”

It had a major influence on my later outlook on life, so I am nothing but grateful for that.

Unlike now, there was no internet or smartphone, so I bought my airfare at a JTB branch, found a local sightseeing guide booklet, and stayed in a motel.

There were no digital cameras then; I took pictures with a disposable Utsurun Desu camera, and the photos themselves have gone missing, haha.

Nomadic Life Abroad

I started in January 2019.

I became self-employed in August 2017 and lived until December 2018 in a shared house with a private room, working from there.

By then, my work, including web consulting and outsourced operations, was already fully online and remote, so when my shared-house contract came up for renewal, I thought, “Could I work without living in Japan?”, booked a low-cost carrier (AirAsia) and an Airbnb, and headed to Thailand—that was the beginning.

At the time, top blogger Manabu was independently earning money while living in Thailand, which was a good example.

When the pandemic broke out in March 2020, I temporarily interrupted my overseas nomad life.

Later, in December 2021, I resumed it, and it continues as I write this article.

Countries Where I Have Stayed

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My trips to Europe and America were mainly vacations while employed (except Ukraine), whereas my overseas nomad life has mostly been in Southeast Asia.

I have also visited Southeast Asia on ordinary trips.

Southeast Asia is generally friendly to Japanese people, and the small time difference from Japan makes everyday life easy, so I recommend it.

Oh, my number of countries visited is nowhere near that of so-called “travel bloggers,” haha.

Benefits of Living Abroad as a Nomad

That was quite a long introduction, but here are the benefits of living abroad.

There are many others, but I think these are the three main ones.

Your Assumptions Are Swept Away

This is the biggest one.

Apart from people raised abroad, international-school graduates, or those routinely interacting with foreigners at foreign companies, most Japanese people use Japanese and socialize with other Japanese people.

Japan is also an island nation, and living in 100% Japanese culture naturally gives you a set of assumptions that is 100% Japanese.

Those assumptions include “follow everyone else,” so you live in an environment where the idea of absorbing other ways of thinking tends to disappear.

But that only applies inside Japan.

Once you step abroad, each country has its own distinctive culture.

You Naturally Develop Initiative

After the change in thinking described above as “having your assumptions swept away,” comes a change in behavior: “developing initiative.”

Once abroad, the language is different, and unless you join a tour, you need to follow your host country's customs and rules and handle your own affairs.

To make your stay go smoothly, you naturally get into the habit of doing the following:

You pick these up without even trying.

This “naturally developing initiative” should become an extremely valuable skill in both life and work.

Also, ultimately you have only yourself to rely on when something happens, so a mindset of autonomy and personal responsibility develops too.

In an era of historically rare, sweeping transformation, all of this is beneficial.

You Appreciate Japan's Good Qualities

It may sound paradoxical, but “going abroad helps you appreciate Japan's good qualities” is undoubtedly true too.

In my experience:

You often notice Japan's good qualities, easily forgotten while living there, only after leaving.

Of course, Japan has bad points too.

But long stays in Japan make you notice those and, conversely, make its good points harder to see.

Going abroad becomes an opportunity to appreciate anew good qualities you had overlooked.

The Fastest Way to Achieve Nomadic Life Abroad

I think you have to create these three conditions for yourself.

Earn Money from Work Completed Online

Nomadic life abroad is freedom from constraints of time and physical location—nothing less.

You cannot simply work locally in the country where you are staying; it only works if money comes in regardless of where you are and you can use it freely.

Work like this is a good fit for overseas nomad life.

Of course, owning a business that runs without you, or investing in real estate, for example, providing “regular income sufficient to live on without taking action yourself,” also fits overseas nomad life well.

Either way, being able to handle almost everything in work and life online is crucial.

Minimize Your Life's Baggage

Whether renting or owning a home, “a fixed lifestyle” tends to accumulate belongings.

But nomadic life requires, at most, limiting your belongings to one suitcase plus one backpack.

So it is important to weigh carefully: “Is this truly necessary in daily life, and worth carrying?”

One way is to make a list and “rank priorities on a 5-point scale and discard anything rated 3 or below”.

When doing so, ask yourself:

It is important to think things through to this level.

In my case, I basically live as if losing anything other than my computer, smartphone, tablet, and valuables pouch containing money would not be a problem.

In reality, I sometimes carry paper books and video recording equipment too, so it varies.

You could leave such items at your family home or use Sumally Pocket or another inexpensive storage service.

Leave Salaried Employment and Become Self-Employed

The greatest appeal of being an overseas nomad is “free time.”

Being stuck working in a foreign country feels like failing to enjoy life, which is a waste.

It is best to begin overseas nomad life combined with the privilege of traveling or having fun during weekday daytime hours.

Besides, most companies, particularly Japanese ones, do not entertain the idea of “being a full-time employee while living abroad as a nomad.”

So I think it is better to assume that “overseas nomad life goes hand in hand with self-employment.”

However, some foreign companies apparently let full-time employees live abroad as nomads.

More precisely, “quit work that binds you to a time clock” may be the right way to put it.

The Essential Value of Nomadic Life Abroad

I have described what you can gain from living abroad as a nomad. To finish, I will discuss “The Essential Value of Nomadic Life Abroad” at a slightly more abstract level.

I think it comes down to these two things:

That is what I believe.

Frankly, everything now overflows: things, information, options of every kind.

Most things that catch your eye add little to your life.

Even as social media connections expand, the relationships you really need may number 10 or fewer.

Because nomadic life abroad presupposes movement, you examine every belonging and ask, “Do I really need this?”, and you start thinking the same way about things beyond belongings.

To borrow the title of a book that was popular a while back, it becomes “Essentialism.”

Also, fully using the internet means multiplying the impact of your work style and lifestyle.

So “The Essential Value of Nomadic Life Abroad” can also mean “increasing productivity in life”. And since the premise is that you can decide your own life, ultimately I see it as “increasing happiness in life”.

Of course, there are as many lives and choices as there are people.

There is no simple good or bad.

But I think there is no downside to knowing that nomadic life abroad is one way to increase happiness in life.