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Meet the digital nomad

There was a time when you couldn’t turn your head without seeing someone promoting the ‘digital nomad’ lifestyle. Runaway bestsellers like Tim Ferris’s4-Hour Workweek promoted freedom and the life of your dreams being just a few keyboard strokes away. The 9 to 5 was for suckers. Learn a few simple secrets and limitless travel awaits.

Maybe you were tempted. Maybe you still have a copy of that book on your shelf, or ads popping up on your Facebook timeline. Maybe you flirted with the idea of being a nomad … but life has a way of, well, getting in the way. Borders closed and then opened again. Life got more expensive. Work got busy. Time passed. Books gathered dust on the shelf. And the dream faded … Or maybe you took the other path, the road less travelled by. You set out, passport and laptop in hand, to conquer the world one Wi-Fi hotspot at a time.Untethered is for those who have made — or are tempted to make — this second choice, and what it actually looks like. You’ll be able to peak behind the curtain at the real face of the digital nomad lifestyle. You will discover that, far from the ripped Instagram models sipping piña coladas by MacBooks in Thailand, the real face of long-term travel can look a bit more like this:

» Thom Brown: An English travel writer who, despite starting from almost zero barely a year ago, now lives and travels the world on the back of his writing, and he’ll explain exactly how he does it.

» Nora Dunn: A Canadian business owner, blogger and speaker, one of the ‘OG’ digital nomads, she is a leading expert on how digital nomads finance their lives and travels. She shares her personal story and experience.

» Jennifer Roberts: The editor and customer service manager who performs a range of communication, writing and project management jobs remotely from bases as far afield as South America and Eastern Europe, between occasional visits home to Illinois.

» Barry Kirkham: A British businessman and graphic designer who networked and hustled his way to turning a small local magazine into a global business that he runs from the branches of Brazil and the cafes of Poland.

» Enrique Hygge: The Florida-born business owner who used the connections he made while living in Asia to launch his own widget company with just a few hundred dollars to his name. The risk paid off and his seven-figure business now takes him around the world on his own terms.

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