Digital nomadism works best for those in a position of privilege who can already afford to buffer its risks. So, what does it mean if knowledge workers from wealthy countries work remotely in poorer countries, and climb a few rungs up the class ladder compared with the local population? Enjoying the fruits of an “exotic” setting while taking advantage of global inequalities like cheap labor, currency discrepancies, and low property prices raises questions about the structures the nomad lifestyle is built on and supporting. 

Just a few years after Roberts completed his journey, “digital nomad” entered the lexicon. The term originated in a 1997 academic textbook of the same name, by Tsugio Makimoto, a celebrated Japanese technologist whose contributions to the field of computer science earned him the nickname “Mr. Semiconductor.” The author’s note in the front of the book summarizes its main argument: “Times are changing. The driving force of change in the world is technological advance. It is pushing in two directions: towards smaller, cheaper, more portable personal tools, and towards the imminence of cheap, high capacity, global communications networks.  Technology does not cause change but it amplifies change. Early in the next millennium it will deliver the capability to live and work on the move. The world’s major technology companies are targeting the lifestyle of the ‘mobile professional’ in developing the tools for leading a nomadic business life. In time these tools will become cheap enough for everyone, and the biggest lifestyle change for 10,000 years – since humans stopped being nomadic and settled down to farm – will be delivered to most people in the developed world.  People will therefore be able to ask themselves, ‘Am I a nomad or a settler?’ For the first time in 10,000 years that choice will become a mainstream lifestyle option.”

While the definition of “portable” has changed a lot over the past 40 years, the recognition that technology would uncouple work and location—challenging the foundations and certainties of 20th-century society in the process—has been clear for decades. Every generation has thinkers and tinkerers who dream of connecting seamlessly across borders, locations, and time zones—and some go the extra mile to articulate what that world might look like. 

Americans working from home