i-nomad
type: Article
content: Since my first Big Adventure on an Oasis Overland truck for three weeks in the Middle East I've been itching to see more of the world. During my PhD I have been taking the absolute piss utilising my academic freedom and conference travel funding effectively, and since September 2012 I visited seventeen countries, most (but not all) on a university's dime. I did this not by fraud or trickery, but by carefully picking conferences and communities to involve myself with, by thinking laterally about how I might find the cheapest transport options, and by asking for barely any funding towards accommodation, so I can ask for more transport funding again in the future. I squashed accommodation costs by CouchSurfing, hotel-surfing (when I know someone attending the same conference who has a spare bed or sofa in a room covered by their organisation), and staying in hostel dorms. Thinking laterally about transport options involves being flexible about dates, but also cities and means. Buses and trains are often cheaper than flights in Europe, and transport links are good. It's possible to get good multi-city deals on flights, and if, for a conference in city A, I can fly into city B and out of city C for less than a return flight between home and A, nobody minds when I expense that... and I get to see three cities instead of one. For that, I'm happy to pick up the cost of buses and trains to A from B and C myself. In the end, I'm sure I saved the university money. In May 2015, I found four legitimately work-related reasons to be in different continental European countries in the space of four weeks. My department paid for a three-week Interrail train pass, which was cheaper (and more environmentally friendly) than two flights a week for a month. Before my rail pass started, I hitchhiked. En route between the places I was supposed to be for meetings or conferences, I visited a few new places alone, for peace and quiet and to catch up on work. This trip lasted five weeks, and wa…
name: I, Nomad
published: 2016-10-08T20:00:00-04:00
tag: digital+nomad
tag: justgo
tag: travel

digital
type: Note
content: I picked up my e-residency from the Estonian Embassy this morning, and now I'm in a proper hipster cafe to work and eat vegan cake and drink flat white with quinoa milk surrounded by other cool lookin' laptop people, I'm at peak digital nomad today. Also posting about it to social media.
published: 2018-10-18T12:36:00+03:00
tag: digital+nomad
tag: travel
tag: life
tag: hacking

hotels
type: Note
content: I can't lie, a hotel room ever once in a while is a niiice luxury. Just one night before my ferry out. Especially after a few weeks of hostels and couchsurfing. (There are no hostels in Kavala.. but I still booked the cheapest thing I could find and I did NOT shell out for a sea view room with a balcony.. yet here I am.)
published: 2018-12-11T22:31:00+02:00
tag: digital+nomad
tag: travel
tag: hotel

problems
type: Note
content: Fiiiinally. Now my problem is sun glare on my screen, which I've gotta say is a tremendous improvement over freezing to death.
published: 2018-12-06T15:30:00+02:00
tag: digital+nomad
tag: greece
tag: travel
tag: thessaloniki

2018-in-review
type: Article
content: In 2017 I finished my thesis in Malaysia, flew back to Europe, got a job in Sarajevo and settled down there for a bit. It would have been easy to stay. Too easy. Being comfortable makes me uncomfortable, so in 2018 I became once more an everything-I-own-in-a-backpack no-fixed-abode full-time digital nomad. I posted logs or photos or blogposts to my site 4,817 times and posted 9,520 individual photos. tl;dr Started travelling, around Europe, mostly. Did not fly. Finally wrapped up the last Social Web WG specs. Left OCCRP and joined ODS. Drafted half a novel. Went to a couple of conferences, for either fun or profit. Refaced my website. Made many new friends, some fleeting, some lingering on WhatsApp or Signal. Goals for 2019: Proceed on current trajectory, but write more. Skip to: Words Travel Work Code Stuff January: travel practice February: re-finding my nomad March: slow down April: new experiences, and academia flashbacks May: beaches and history and solitude June: home again home again July: off-route August: back on plan September: Lithuania is underrated October: writing, stability, then a detour November: I LOVE POLAND December: to the sea, better late than never Reflection on 2018 2019 Words I wrote 437 things. On my site I posted 350 short notes or commentary with photos, and 87 longer articles. I also logged non-blogpost writing 34 times. These all comprise approximately 122,401 words in total (47,804 off-site). That's a mean of 335.35 words and 1.20 posts per day. I wrote about 217 different topics, with the most common being travel (181), life (89), food (46), week in review (44), vegan (38), hacking (26), Georgia (the country) (13), sloph (13), tourism (12), Sarajevo, Bosnia (10), Poland (10), and nanowrimo (10). My NaNoWriMo project was Birds, and I also wrote small bits of Quest for Brothers and Offcast. Travel I stopped in a total of 24 countries; I visited 9 countries for more than a couple of weeks, 7 of which I had never been to before, and passe…
name: 2018 in review
published: 2019-01-01T20:10:00+02:00
tag: transit
tag: logs
tag: food
tag: year+in+review
tag: quantified+self
tag: writing
tag: week+in+review
tag: https://rhiaro.co.uk/tags/2018
tag: travel
tag: life
tag: occrp
tag: sloph
tag: ods
tag: digital+nomad

nomad-friend
type: Note
content: I consider air travel only for emergencies and I generally have my own travel agenda, but what's the point of having me as your attachment-free digital nomad friend if I'm not going to drop everything and fly half way around the world to see you sometimes?
published: 2019-04-05T10:46:09+02:00
tag: digital+nomad
tag: life
tag: travel

packing
type: Note
content: Packing for a big trip is easy when you own hardly any stuff. And getting my backpack down from 45l to less than 30l compressed to airline carryon size was pretty easy and fun. Just need to get rid of 1/3 of my stuff so it's this small all the time.. (Some things I'm leaving behind temporarily included my hammock, kitchen supplies, and my bag of misc random shiz that comes in handy from time to time, so they can't really go long term... but I'll figure something out. I'm leaving my jeans (they split) and winter coat for good though.)
published: 2019-04-28T15:06:00+02:00
tag: digital+nomad
tag: travel

skopje-cafe
type: Note
content: But on the plus side we're close enough to Greece that I can get real freddo espressi and also close enough northern Balkans that lemonade is just squeezed lemons so I'm drinking a lot of those.
published: 2019-08-02T13:20:00+02:00
tag: life
tag: digital+nomad
tag: food

2019-in-review
type: Article
content: In 2018 I travelled all over Europe, mostly alone, and got to know myself better than ever. 2019 was a continuation of this, with a few unexpected twists, new lessons, and reinforcement of things I discovered last year. I posted logs or photos or blogposts to my site 4,974 times and posted 9,032 individual photos. tl;dr Continued to travel around Europe; visited lots of new places, and returned to places I know and love. Met a few wonderful new people. Kept in touch or reconnected with many others. Tested the limits of my sociability. Did contracting work as well as my day job, but not enough to add up to full-time. Went out of my way to attend RWOT conferences twice. Looked after other peoples' pets. Took a detour to visit Elizabeth in Zimbabwe for 2 weeks (broke the no-fly rule). Had a rhino-related near-death experience. A long, hot, Balkan summer; swam in the sea often, got a lot of migraines from the heat. Learnt to read Cyrllic with ease. Returned to the UK for Co-op and family stuff. Did more exercise than last year. Not that the bar was high. Fell in love with the Bulgarian Black Sea coast. Won NaNoWriMo! But overall wrote less than last year. Overcame a bit my aversion to fire, through necessity. Goals for 2020: more of the same really. But with more solitude. Words I wrote 321 things. On my site I posted 261 short notes or commentary with photos, and 60 longer articles. I also logged non-blogpost writing 34 times. These all comprise approximately 95,722 words in total (52,001 off-site). That's a mean of 262.25 words and 0.88 posts per day. That's less than last year; missed my 'write more' goal. I wrote about 153 different topics, with the most common being travel (99), life (69), week in review (50), nanowrimo (29), writing (21), food (15), tourism (13), vegan (12), Bulgaria (10), ods (9), montenegro (8), and hiking (8). My NaNoWriMo project was Quest for Brothers, but I didn't write much else. Travel I stopped in a total of 22 countries; I visited 12 cou…
name: 2019 in review
published: 2020-01-31T23:24:00+00:00
tag: didwg
tag: writing
tag: food
tag: quantified+self
tag: https://rhiaro.co.uk/tags/2019
tag: life
tag: year+in+review
tag: travel
tag: week+in+review
tag: digital+nomad
tag: transit
tag: logs
tag: ods
tag: w3c

everything-i-own
type: Article
content: I haven't written a post about everything I carry around with me since I, Nomad, when I gave away everything I couldn't carry and left the US for Japan. Since then, I have downsized considerably, and became a bit hooked on the idea. I left the US with a 52L top loading backpack and a 40L side loader. In Malaysia I gained and lost stuff, but gave away more than I gained; in Australia I swapped the side loader with my cousin for a more compactable (and tattered) 35L rucksack; by the time I got back to Europe the 35L was about empty and I left it at a hostel in Croatia. Then I spent eight months in Sarajevo getting more things, winter clothes, awesome boots, etc. The whole lot, filling up my 52L bag, I left to my yoga teacher, and packed the rest into an orange 40+5L I bought for €30 on amazon. I love the orange bag. For a cheap knockoff it's done very well. It's front loading, has an expandable front pocket, lots of places to attach stuff, and I can tighten many straps to size it down when it's not full. It probably has another couple of years of use in it, though it's starting to show wear; one of the straps is splitting away, and it has a lot of soy sauce stains on the inside. I backed the RiutBag kickstarter last year, after extended questioning and personal video replies from Sarah Giblin, the designer, on twitter. They were due to be shipped in October, when I had a trip back to the UK scheduled anyway. In the end I fouled up putting my address into kickstarter properly, and it didn't get sent out with the first batch. Racing an uncertain brexit at the time, I left it as late as possible to but eventually gave up on the bag and booked last minute travel to Bulgaria. The bag arrived the day after I left. My Mum unboxed it in a video call for me, and I spent the next few months thinking about how great it will be to have a smaller bag. The orange bag lent itself to downsizing well, as whenever I gained space I could pull in the side and bottom straps. Mostly I ende…
name: Everything I own fits in a 35L RiutBag now
published: 2020-02-12T12:24:00+01:00
tag: riutbag
tag: travel
tag: digital+nomad

estonian-digital
type: Note
content: The Estonian Digital Nomad visa is cool and all but the income requirement of €3.5k per month means it's only for one kind of digital nomad. I've met many digital nomads who teach English (or other languages) online who would be excluded. Even in tech, those who work for nonprofits or other public-good type organisations, and for companies in regions with lower market rates, part-time workers and freelancers with variable income are all not going to make the cut. Pretty disappointing.
generator: no-ceremonies-are-necessary
published: 2020-08-01T08:11:45+01:00
tag: travel
tag: life
tag: digital+nomad
tag: estonia
tag: tech
tag: visa

found-really-nice
type: Note
content: I found a really nice flat to rent in Scotland and called to arrange a viewing and it was already taken over the weekend. Then I looked at a tenancy application form which has many questions about address history I can't answer helpfully and remembered about utilities and internet and stuff and now I'm lowkey stressed out about the whole concept of renting in the UK and yeah, moving once a month between hostels and short term lets in the Balkans is vastly preferable.
generator: no-ceremonies-are-necessary
published: 2020-08-24T11:51:44+01:00
tag: digital+nomad
tag: life
tag: renting
tag: uk

2020-review
type: Article
content: In 2019 I zigzagged around Europe and even further afield. I thought this year would either be much the same, or completely different. It was completely different - but in an entirely different way than I what I expected. But that was the case for everyone, right? I posted to my site 4,394 times. I posted 6,017 individual photos into 11 different albums. tl;dr Downsized to 35L. Travel stalled. Upsized in order to occupy a part-furnished flat. I was the Best Man at my friend's wedding. Did one Vipassana retreat, in Switzerland. Got trapped by the pandemic for 5 months in Sarandë, Albania. Returned to the UK for multiple reasons, then stayed. Started the process for donating a kidney, but then wasn't needed any more. Decided on something to invest my savings into, but still pending. Read a lot and watched a lot of TV. Stood for election to the W3C TAG. Goals for 2021: Make the most of Fife. Spend time with my IRL friends again, IRL. Try to make myself useful in the local community, and online communities. Words I wrote 345 things. On my site I posted 282 short notes or commentary with photos, and 63 longer articles. I also logged non-blogpost writing 29 times. These all comprise approximately 59,593 words in total (9,010 off-site). That's a mean of 162.82 words and 0.94 posts per day. I wrote about 156 different topics, with the most common being life (122), travel (74), week in review (49), food (40), albania (34), hacking (31), vegan (29), ods (27), coronavirus (27), crochet (24), covid19 (21), and uk (16). My NaNoWriMo project was Dumping Sky. I didn't write anything else, or finish any previous projects. Again. Travel I stopped in an all-time nomadding low of 6 different countries, none of which I had never been to before. A long stay in Albania was a goal I overachieved on, with 149 nights in total. Pre-lockdown I spent 13 nights in Turkey, 2 in Greece, 3 in Bulgaria and 16 in Switzerland (11 of these on a Vipassana meditation retreat). And 177 in the UK by the e…
generator: no-ceremonies-are-necessary
name: 2020 in review
published: 2021-01-04T16:48:28+00:00
tag: travel
tag: life
tag: hacking
tag: week+in+review
tag: cooplife
tag: w3c
tag: https://rhiaro.co.uk/tags/2020
tag: covid19
tag: coronavirus
tag: albania
tag: uk
tag: sloph
tag: nanowrimo
tag: zero+waste
tag: quantified+self
tag: digital+nomad
tag: ods
tag: year+in+review

rhiaro-2020
type: Note
content: rhiaro 2020: I have exactly one 35L backpack of stuff, am attached to none of it, and the idea of more is horrifying. [ [ pandemic ] ] rhiaro 2021: would you like to come and look at my collection of oil paintings in the flat that I am renovating? (I don't actually have a collection of oil paintings.. yet.. I'm thinking about buying a couple though.)
generator: no-ceremonies-are-necessary
published: 2021-06-10T10:35:44+01:00
tag: life
tag: digital+nomad
tag: covid19
tag: coronavirus
tag: pandemic

digital+nomad
type: Collection
total items: 14

https://rhiaro.co.uk/tags/digital+nomad
type: CollectionPage
items: rhiaro-2020
items: 2020-review
items: found-really-nice
items: estonian-digital
items: everything-i-own
items: 2019-in-review
items: skopje-cafe
items: packing
items: nomad-friend
items: 2018-in-review
items: hotels
items: problems
items: digital
items: i-nomad
name: digital nomad
part of: digital+nomad