I've always known I wasn't a special snowflake and that there were many people in my same situation, what I was not expecting is that there is apparently a buzzword for it: digital nomad. I've been joking about being homeless for years, now it seems I was being inaccurate. Not that I mind, the homeless thing is cooler IMO.

For those knowledgeable with the term, it's about those crazy people who work online and don't have a house or an office. Forum veterans have probably noticed how my country keeps changing: it's Belgium now, it was UK couple weeks ago, will be Korea in a couple weeks. I move around and have no permanent address. Hell, I still don't know where I'll sleep tomorrow. It's kinda fun, sometimes. Often, even. You do get tired of it after a while, humans can get used to the weirdest things, but I certainly have enjoyed and don't regret this last few years.

I've actually only met a handful of them in person, and I refuse to use facebook or social media in general which makes talking to others pretty hard. So I thought, now that I know the technical name of my species, why not come out in the open in the forum and see if there are any comrades around? Digital goods are really great for people with a lack of real state ownership such as myself, after all, not that rare for more to be around.

So, is there any? Hello?

Well, I belong to the roots-under-feet species, but what you do sounds like fun to me (at least for some time because life without my close friends seem like a nightmare of sorts..). Unless you work so much that there isn't enough time to get out and live the life. :)

Now I finally get your forum title.

I love meeting new people, but I sure miss regularly meeting with people who already know me and I don't have to introduce myself to. It gets repetitive. This is also why lately I only travel to places where there's someone I know, or try to meet GOGlodytes offline. How was the fruit any difficult to get?

It was more the wandering part I had problems with. I never noticed your country changing. (Inattentive, I know.)

It probably requires absurd amounts of memory and attention to detail unless you happen to talk to me, and check the country, fairly often.

I'm originally Basque BTW, I started using the country I was in because Basque wasn't an option and I refuse to use Spain. But I got hooked to changing it all the time.

Interesting species

Ah, I was in the process of typing a question but I reloaded to see if there were more details because I didn't and still don't really understand.

So you're only a nomad digitally, then? In real life, you live at the same place for periods of time. Correct?

I was imagining the "no" answer to that question, and that really befuddled me, since the only thing that I could come up with was that you were just a wandering soul without an actual body, evidently (?) I doubt that.

The thing that throws me off is this part: I really can't understand how that is physically possible.

Edit. Changed quote formatting.

It's simple. I work over the internet, talk to my colleagues via Skype and email, and use other online tools and cloud services to get work done. Basically, I was working from my rented appartment in Ireland hardly ever physically meeting any human being (work related, that is). I started making weekend trips, spending Mondays and Fridays on the trip, spending the whole week outside the house, then a whole month traveling the UK. Eventually, I went on holidays to vietnam with a friend and the whole thing took around 4 months, all while still paying the rent of my place in Cork despite not using it at all. So I stopped paying, and now I just stay in hostels, crash at friend's houses, or whatever else I can manage. So long as I can get wifi, I'm good. I do occasionally rent a place for a month, but that's pretty rare.

Did I make things a bit more clear? Just ask away if you want more detail. Indeed. We tend to have a bunch of anecdotes and stories to tell.

Yup, I understand now. I should have realised that there was still the possibility of renting / hostels / friends without having to own a house or working in an office. That bit blocked all my comprehension.

Thank you for the clarification!

You're welcome.

So you're not exactly Paul Erdős... Now he was the real thing. ;-)

How do you deal with those annoying incompatible stuff, like electric plugs and currency.
How do you prepare for hot/cold weather and do laundry? Do you even cook your own food?
What about family and social relations?
Do you even wake up in the morning, wondering "where am I?" How long does it take you to remember? It happens to me some times...
Do you have some sort of a "home base"?
How do you elect your next destination?

... OK, I'll stop the questions here. :-)

Ok, let's go over it slowly
Electricity wise, I bought an all around converter in Hong Kong years ago. It can be used for the most commonly used plug types (Europe, USA, China and UK, basically). It's rather bulky, but I always carry it in my backpack. If I'm staying long in one place and feel I need more converter or a more confortable one, they aren't hard to find in hardware stores. As for currency, I just use the local ATM the moment I enter a country. Typically, I don't know the conversion rate, so I just pick something around the middle of the options offered by the ATM and see where I go with that. I checked around the banks back home to find one that didn't charge me any comission for using their card abroad, and use that account as my default spending one even though I get paid somewhere else and need to transfer funds every so often.
I'm pretty hardcore when it comes to cold, I handle it very well. I go in shorts and T-shirt all year around, which is very convenient for this kind of life. Last year a Polish guy stopped me in the street to take a picture of me in shorts on the snow, which I found hilarious. I do have a coat and a raincoat on my backpack just in case, but I hardly ever use it. I also have extensions for one of my shorts, which I put on for some work meetings and certain asian temple visits. Also for some pubs, when I must. As for laundry, coin laundries can be found almost everywhere and hostels often have laundry services, it's not a problem to clean clothes once per week or so.

Food can be tricky though. While several hostels do have kitchens you can use, it's not like I can carry around a bottle of olive oil for instance, so it's hard to cook things more complicated than pasta or a frozen pizza. I can't be eating in restaurants every day either. All in all, I do what I can; but it is not very healthy.
What about them? I go home every now and then, meet my friends, talk to them over the internet. There certainly is a disconnect, a very good friend of mine married last year and I still don't know his wife, which made me sad. As I put above, I love meeting new people and hostels are great for that, so I'm not missing social interaction; but I certainly do miss having old friends with me. Nothing is perfect.
Not really, I guess I just don't care? Or maybe I'm just too used to sleeping on a different bed every day and it's become a part of my routine to the point I don't even notice anymore. Don't have an answer to that, I'm afraid.
The closest would be my parents'. And maybe Belgium, as I've got several friends here and my boss is also from here, making me drop by fairly often for meetings and such.
Depends, normally I go by the excuse system. Oh, we're working with a freelance from Poland? Better get to know him in person then, spend a month in Warsaw. A friend goes and says, "let's go to Japan!"? Sure, let's! 2 months and a half over there. An old friend from Nicaragua got back in contact? Might as well visit and spend autumn in Central America. Right now, a couple friends are on holidays in Korea, so I'm flying over next week to say hello, then say hello to my Korean friend, then try to rent a place for a month or 2 and find some Korean language class. Because Korean people were very nice to me previously, and not being able to talk to them bothered me. After that who knows? There were some business deals going on in India, may head there.
I often get told that I'm crazy or that I live and adventurous lifestyle. I disagree, I've seen truly crazy people out there. There was this French guy who left home with no money and went hitchhiking all the way to Kazakhstan, working for food in farms and whatnot. Took him over a year I believe. I travel quite relaxed and with pre reserved hostels where I know I have wifi, because it's a must for work. It's a whole other deal from savatical years or holidays, or whatever you call what you are doing yourself. I might actually try that if I lose this job, and travel with no strings attached for a while. Should be fun.

This is a lifestyle I'd like to pursue sometime soon, because I've gotten tired of physical materialism, and the idea of settling down in one city for my entire life feels stagnant to me. Apartments are such a fun way to live.