Being a digital nomad can seem really glamorous if you checked my Instagram you would see lots of cool stories about being out and exploring new and cool places and eating mouth-watering food. Behind all the Instagram post’s though are the long hours and weird time zone issues of working for American hours remotely.
Getting Home Sick
At the 5 month mark is about where I started getting really homesick, you start to realize the connections you make while traveling are short-lived and everyone is moving. I got settled in Bangkok and started falling into a regular routine, work all night, wake up around 2 pm, eat, clean, watch Netflix and wait for work. Once the fun and excitement of being in a new place wears off you start to wish you had your support network around your longtime friends and family.
Heading to India
Getting a little restless and tired of my day to day routine I ended up taking a new job, one that was fully remote and offered a higher position. This was great timing as it would allow me to head home enjoy the summer then head back out to whatever country I wanted. The only caveat to this new job was that I needed to go to Bangalore India for a month to work with one of their teams.
One of my first experiences traveling and working abroad was a 3-month stint I did in Kolkata when I was 25 for a mobile tech startup. I cannot express how much I dislike India and how miserable it was back then to work there for 3 months. Already getting pretty homesick I was not excited to head back there for a month but if it got me in a better job then it was worth the sacrifice.
Long Story Short
Honestly, my India experience deserves a writeup of its own but the basic gist of it is that if you are already homesick, going someplace with constant power outages, terrible internet does not really help things. I was pretty excited to get back home to the PNW and enjoy the remainder of summer after being gone for 7 months.
