Mar 18, 2026 Mar 18, 2026 2026-03-18

One of the most transformative experiences in life is being displaced. I know in the current world this is a very weird thing to say, but bear with me.

The Digital Nomad Lifestyle

I’ve been location independent for 15 years and digital nomad for a little more. It’s an amazing lifestyle. Very diverse, very fulfilling, but extremely jarring. While you experience far more than you would do in average lifestyle, that also means you’re constantly adjusting, constantly trying to fit in, adapting to unforeseen and unpredictable circumstances. It gets tiring at some point.

Of course, in time you can build some “muscle” for this, you learn some shortcuts, but the very nature of unpredictability is that is, well, unpredictable. You can never tell what will happen next.

And out of this vast pool of unknowns, the most impactful one is “how will they look at me?”. By “they” I mean all these people you’ll encounter in your journey. They’re all new. You’ve never seen them before. In a normal lifestyle you have some social substrate that’s supporting and solid: your neighborhood, your school mates, your relatives. When you’re constantly living somewhere else, not so much.

And that makes you fundamentally weird for anyone who’s looking at you.

There’s no way around this: you’re a stranger. And you will always be.

Being The Weird One – The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Let’s start backwards here. Let’s start with what’s ugly.

We define our persona both internally and externally. We have some deep thoughts about who we are that never leave us, they come from “the inside”, but there’s also a thick layer generated by constant interaction, coming from “the outside”. It’s the reflection you get by looking in their eyes. And when the eyes are constantly changing, the reflection, the “you” that you get from the others, also changes. You literally start to drift away. You lose contact with your personal history and, some days, you look at the guy in the mirror with genuine surprise: “is this guy really me”?

For me, this is the ugliest part of this lifestyle, the constant redefining of your personality and identity. I know it sounds abstract, I’ll give you some real life examples a little later.

Now, for the bad parts: there really are not many, honestly, at least after 4-5 years. You learn the basics and the basics work pretty much everywhere. There is an adaptation period that’s compulsory in every place, between 3 and 6 months, but after that, you function without too much friction.

The price for this initial effort is really worth it – and with this, let’s get to the good. Because, yes, the good greatly outnumber any ugly or bad stuff you inherently get.

1. You Get High Entropy

I wrote before about this fundamental need that we have: we need entropy. Without entropy, we decay. This is not symbolic, this is biological, we need to confront new challenges constantly to stay in shape. Being the weird one gives you a lot of entropy, because there’s never the same way of being weird. In some places you’re being weird because you travel, but in remote cultures, you get weird for way more reasons.

2. Your Learning Muscles Are Constantly Trained

This constant adaptation rhythm, as jarring as it is, makes your “learning muscle” grow and improve. I speak 5 languages now, and I’m comfortable in Western or Asian cultures. By comfortable I mean all those subtle situations that you literally have no way to know unless you’ve lived there. It’s not about taking your shoes off in Asia, although it counts, but it’s more about understanding how much from what you hear it’s polite, how much is actual information, and how much it’s saving face. The same words in Asia do not mean the same thing in the West.

3. You Delay Death

Both physically and mentally. Physically, you need to be in shape so you pay extra attention to your routines, you eat as healthy as you can and you try to always be on top – simply because tomorrow may require more from you than today did, and you have no way to know how this will unfold. And mentally, because you discover, you uncover, you learn, you experience and you live far more than by sitting in one place. There’s more life crammed in the same amount of years, which, ultimately, counts as delaying death.

Personal History

Now, before closing, here are just a few of the “being the weird one” experiences I had so far:

• in Vietnam, especially in the countryside, everybody greets me: “Hello, sir”. Everybody. Everywhere. 20 times a day.
• in Korea, men will look at me with a very subtle mix of apprehension and admiration, both pretty unsettling – it’s because Westerners are not really welcome in their culture (I’m talking about real life, not tourist places)
• in Spain, tying to speak English made me a complete alien, nobody speaks English. So I had to learn Spanish.
• anywhere in Asia the assumption is Western guy = rich guy. This led to more scamming attempts that I can remember. The first year was really difficult.
• in Europe and, to some extent, in South Korea, working from a coffee shop is normal. In Vietnam, not so much, the coffee shop is a space for relaxation and killing time

All in all, the cultural differences account for the majority of weirdness situations.

The Strange Guy In The Mirror

Yeah, that guy in the mirror still surprises me sometimes. But I’ve made peace with that. That shape shifting reflection isn’t a loss of myself — it’s proof that I’ve been somewhere real, and that it changed me.

That’s not drift. That’s actually growth.