What it means to live nowhere

Today I canceled the lease on my apartment. I have lived in this beautiful one-bedroom apartment with a huge balcony for the last three and half years, and I love it here. After living in student housing for six years, I finally had a place big enough to store all my books and go crazy with plants. So why did I cancel my lease if I love this apartment so much? Simple, because I want to live nowhere and everywhere at once. How do you ask? By becoming a digital nomad.

Digital nomad

Let’s start with the name: digital nomad. It’s a good name because it pretty much explains the concept with just two words. Work online (digital) and do it anywhere you want (nomad) so you can travel the world. Sounds easy enough, right? Except when you try to explain this plan to friends and family, you realize it is also a little bit insane.

Okay, maybe more than a little bit. There are generally two kinds of reactions when I tell people about my plan. The first kind of reaction is when people are really supportive and overload you with all kinds of travel tips and places you definitely must-see. The second kind of reaction is when they look at you like you’ve lost your mind. You can literally see the cogs turning inside their head. Why would I give up my stable job? Why would I want to leave my friends and family and go travel alone? How can I live when I don’t have a house or an apartment? Am I choosing to be homeless?

Thuisloos

In Dutch we have a word for it: thuisloos. It translates to homelessness but is not the same as being homeless. Thuisloos means you go from place to place, often staying with friends and family and always on the lookout for your next place to sleep. Thuisloos is usually defined as “the place I sleep is not my home.” And that is exactly what I’m going to do. I want to travel the world and go from hotel to AirBnB to hostel to couchsurfing. I won’t have a place of my own anymore to call home.

I can always stay with my parents when I’m back in Belgium, but that is not home anymore. I grew up in that house, but it is not my home anymore. I’ve always been extremely independent, so moving back in with my parents, even if it is just for a few weeks at a time, will have its challenges. Strangely, my family only works when we are far away from each other. This makes me a perfect person for being a digital nomad, so I’m embracing my destiny here.

On being scared

While I am beyond excited that this is really happening, I am also scared shitless. I have been thinking and dreaming of this for a while now, but actually giving up my apartment was the first real step I took to make that dream come true. Yes, I started freelancing and looking into ways to earn money online, but things like that aren’t permanent. Writing a letter to my landlord saying I want to cancel my lease was very real and there is no turning back from it.

I will use this blog to tell you guys all about my adventures in the next few months as I take the next steps to go full digital nomad. I promise you I will keep it real. No fake happy social media posts and conveniently forgotten to tell you about all the hard stuff that comes with it. If you are seriously considering doing the same thing as me, then you need to know what it really means to make it work. Also, life sucks sometimes and it’s good to talk about it, so this just became my very public diary so to speak.