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Social Media + Society

Digital Nomads and the Covid-19

January-March 2022: 1­–11 
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DOI: 10.1177/20563051221084958
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Mobility

Karine Ehn , Ana Jorge , and Manuel Marques-Pita

Abstract
Digital nomads (DNs) are independent professionals who rely heavily on digital media and communications, are not bound to
the constraints imposed by traditional organizations, and prioritize variables such as cheaper living costs when deciding where
to live. Communication technologies enable the emergence of this digital lifestyle that is characterized by high mobility, self-
efficacy, location-independent resource-sharing, and minimalism. The immediate outcome of the Covid-19 pandemic created
an unprecedented space for debate between the DN community and the mainstream. On the one hand, the mainstream
recognized the adaptive advantages of location independence and working remotely; on the other, DNs realized that one of
their most fundamental values—the freedom to move—could become compromised by stringent border regulations forcing
them to reassess nomadism. This article draws on risk society theories, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and self-actualization,
to approach this problem. We Analyzed content produced by DN creators on YouTube, focusing on risk perceptions and
arguments about the choice of staying nomad, compared with the alternative, that is, going back “home” seeking safety: (1)
we found that most creators upheld core DN values, rather than shifting to fear-based or risk-control narratives driven by
the effects of the pandemic. The narratives circulated in the videos thus contributed to reinforce the community’s values
related to self-actualization, in a time of crisis; (2) as a group, the creators we studied were not biased to one option (keep
moving or go home) and rather offered strong arguments to support either choice.

Keywords
digital nomadism, risk, content analysis, social mobility, social networks

Introduction from diverse cultural backgrounds (Chayko, 2008; Thompson,

Digital nomads (DNs) are independent professionals who
rely heavily on digital media and communications (Hardy &
Robards, 2015). They are not bound to the constraints
imposed by traditional organizations and prioritize variables
such as cheaper living costs and good weather when deciding
where to live (Bozzi, 2020; Gretzel & Hardy, 2019; Hall
et al., 2019).
DNs do not define themselves as part of a specific demo-
graphic (Wang et al., 2018), yet most are highly educated pro-
fessionals in their 30s who own so-called “strong” passports
that allow them to work in many countries, at least for short
periods (Thompson, 2019). The DN preferred destination
countries typically satisfy four criteria: (1) lower cost of liv-
ing (compared with the DN’s home country), (2) good
weather, (3) diverse leisure activities, and (4) attract people
2019). A key differentiating factor of the DN lifestyle is the
prioritization of achieving life goals through self-actualiza-
tion (Beck-Gernsheim, 2002; D’Andrea, 2006; Lyng, 2008;
McLeod, 2007) over ensuring basic survival human needs
(food, shelter, and safety; Douglas, 2015; McLeod, 2007).
The practices of location independence and remote work
that characterize the DN lifestyle were growing before the
Covid-19 pandemic imposed working from home as a norm
for public health (Aroles et al., 2020; Bauman, 2013;
Universidade Lusófona, CICANT. Portugal
Corresponding Author:
Manuel Marques-Pita, Universidade Lusófona, CICANT. Campo Grande
388, 1700-097 Lisbon, Portugal.
Email: manuel.pita@ulusofona.pt

Creative Commons Non Commercial CC BY-NC: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-
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(https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
2 Social Media + Society
D’Andrea, 2006; Hemsley et al., 2020). The restrictions
imposed by the Covid-19 pandemic severely inhibited
mobility globally since it puts people at greater risk of
spreading diseases (Law, 2006). Indeed, one of the reasons
the Covid-19 virus spread to the entire planet so quickly
was hyper-mobility and the fact that constraints were
imposed already too late by most countries (Barbieri et al.,
2021). Governments dealt with the onset of the pandemic
by imposing stringent border restrictions (Richter, 2020).
For the DN community, this meant having to stay in one
place for a longer time than initially planned, with this
impinging on one of the DN fundamental values—location
independence (especially open borders) (Bozzi, 2020).
DNs embrace the risks associated with travelling and
location independence creatively and dynamically. In their
pursuit of self-actualization, they develop and refine meth-
ods, identify new resources, and share useful information
with their peers through fast communications enabled by the
internet. For example, in the context of border restrictions
(Woldoff & Litchfield, 2021), DNs often rely on the so-
called “visa run”— a widely used mechanism to avoid the
often cumbersome process of reapplying for a visa (Green,
2015). This practice entails travelling from the current base
(Country A) to a neighbouring Country B for a short period
to reset the length of stay in Country A automatically. Many
other similar tactics exist, but most of them assume there is a
degree of freedom to cross borders.
Naturally, the risks to mobility associated with full bor-
der closure create tensions in anyone deciding to adopt or
keep practising the DN lifestyle (Barbieri et al., 2021). In
the context of the Covid-19 pandemic, stringent regulations
imposed by most governments have shown that there are
not many creative mechanisms left for DNs to overcome
such unwanted situation, thus compromising the ways of
life that are the foundation of the DN community. On the
contrary, several studies consider DNs as a useful case
study for capturing trends and forecasting future work prac-
tices (Hemsley et al., 2020; Sutherland & Jarrahi, 2017). In
this work, we seek to answer the following questions: (1)
How did the DN community approach the adaptations nec-
essary to cope with the scenarios imposed at the beginning
of the Covid-19 pandemic? and (2) Was self-actualization,
a key value in the DN lifestyle, affected by the restrictions
on mobility?
We base our analysis on narratives produced by DN cre-
ators with a substantial following on YouTube. Our perspec-
tive rests on the assumption that these creators were highly
motivated to remain relevant to their audience—especially
during the pandemic—by producing narratives that (1) reso-
nated with the DN community and (2) aligned with the DN
fundamental community values. In general, creators stressed
the importance of upholding these values by, for example,
adapting their goal-seeking plans and reflecting on how to
still achieve their “best selves” in the new scenario.
Literature Review
Self-Actualization
A defining feature of the DN community is the prioritization
of their personal life trajectories as individuals (Beck-
Gernsheim, 2002). DNs thus accept the risks and hardships
that characterize alternative careers, making them secondary
to their self-actualization goals.
The notion of self-actualization was put forward over 70
years ago as part of Maslow’s unfinished work on a theory of
motivation (Maslow, 2013). In Maslow’s view, motivation is
intrinsically linked to a hierarchy (or pyramid) of human
needs. The basic needs of safety, food, and shelter are at the
base of this pyramid. Higher levels of this pyramid include
social belonging, connection, and then self-esteem. All of
these needs must be satisfied to some degree so that a human
being can attain the highest state of being: self-actualization.
While the precision of Maslow’s unfinished theory has been
widely criticized, for example, it does not account for cul-
tural and individual variation, many of its constituent ideas
remain relevant and still guide current research (see Kaufman,
2018, and references therein).
Maslow conceptualized two types of motivation. The
first is the so-called deficiency motivation that refers to a
state in which people are driven to act based on what is
perceived as threats to their basic needs. The second type is
known as growth motivation. In this motivational state,
people take actions to explore, create for themselves, and
co-create with others. Such individuals choose to focus on
their health, development, relationships, and the meaning
of life (Maslow, 2013). Maslow posited that growth moti-
vation was possible only once basic needs were satisfied to
a sufficient degree. Paradoxically, DNs turn Maslow’s hier-
archy of needs upside down by prioritizing self-actualiza-
tion above basic needs (D’Andrea, 2006; Maslow, 2013;
McLeod, 2007).
While DNs constantly face the risk of sliding into pre-
carious work situations (Sutherland & Jarrahi, 2017), they
choose to put a greater focus on their autonomy, self-
expression, and experimentation. In this sense, they are
risk-takers with contradictory connotations of their
nomadic status, as well as the political undertones of their
relationship with both movement and labour (Bozzi, 2020).
DNs prefer to cope with setbacks on what most people
consider basic needs than to sacrifice their self-actualiza-
tion goals (de Almeida et al., 2021). It must be noted, how-
ever, that neither actively cultivating nor seeking risk is
part of the DN lifestyle. Instead, it is the experience of
working in different projects and locations, interacting
with different cultures, as well as handling risk and uncer-
tainty in a controlled and calculated manner (Douglas,
2015) that is not constrained by seeking the benefit of a
secure life within the confines of the state (Deleuze &
Guattari, 2010), what counts as crucially defining aspects
Ehn et al. 3
of the DN lifestyle—all of which contribute to self-actual-
ization (Stark & Levhari, 1982).
EdgeWork
To invert the priorities in Maslow’s pyramid of needs upside
down, DNs rely, fundamentally, on the diversification of
income sources, actively avoiding dependence on a constant
source of income, which would impinge on their freedom to
move. It is worth noting that such income diversification and
the ensuing DN mobility patterns may have contributed to
gentrification in the locations where they live and work
(Williams & Baláž, 2012). Nicola Bozzi further suggests that
the DN community has the power to become a political sub-
ject through a cultural and aesthetic appropriation of the idea
of remote work and proposes that digital nomadism is a col-
lective cultural product (Bozzi, 2020). DNs are thus often
perceived as “rebellious” by the mainstream (Beck, 2016).
At the root of such perception is the misconception that DNs
embrace risk—a behaviour commonly associated with the
so-called EdgeWorkers (Lyng, 2008).
While the original notion of EdgeWork was about risk-
taking for leisure, it quickly developed to encompass other
domains, including many elements of the DN’s lifestyle.
EdgeWork and standard theories of risk are opposite to each
other in terms of how they conceptualize uncertainty. Coming
back to Maslow’s ideas about human needs, EdgeWork
understands risk in a positive light to attain higher self-actu-
alization needs. In contrast, standard theories of risk equate
uncertainty to the consequences of losing the resources that
ensure that basic needs, such as food and shelter, are covered
(Lyng, 2008). Indeed, DNs and EdgeWorkers share the idea
that risk is something to work with rather than something to
avoid at all costs. This approach to risk explains its accep-
tance better than the idea that DNs and EdgeWorkers take on
risks “lightly” (Siegrist & Árvai, 2020).
Taking responsibility for one’s life trajectory is a vital con-
cept for DNs and the readiness to take risks converges to some
of the most basic orientations of modernity: “The capability to
disturb the fixity of things, open up new pathways, and thereby
colonize a segment of a novel future, is integral to modernity’s
unsettling character” (Giddens, 1991). For many DNs, the cur-
rent pandemic is an opportunity to reflect on the nature of citi-
zenship in the risk society. Being a type of justice-oriented
citizens (Pietrocola et al., 2021) that move around the world to
places that welcome them, DNs are questioning and changing
established systems and structures that reproduce patterns of
injustice over time. Thus, the phenomenon of “strong passes”
and how their owners perceive the risks of mobility during
Covid-19 inspired this work.
The Diversity of Risk Perception
German sociologist Ulrich Beck proposed that there has been
a very significant qualitative leap in how people conceive and
deal with risk. Until the Industrial Revolution and the onset of
the Information Age, people worried about common external
risks, such as natural disasters, diseases, or invasions. External
risks were perceived similarly by people across social groups.
Variations in this perception could be explained in terms of
probability distributions associated with the chances of some
dangerous situation actually happening. According to Beck,
people see risk differently nowadays. New forms of risk exist
because of, for example, technology and global politics.
Human decisions bring new dangers into existence—a para-
digmatic example of this climate change (Beck, 2009).
Managing these new layers of risk requires significant cogni-
tive effort and more coordination between individuals in con-
nection to their immediate circles. At least partially, such effort
is necessary to integrate information about the effects of deci-
sions made by other humans at several levels of a sociopoliti-
cal hierarchy. Unsurprisingly, an expected outcome of this
new type of risk is that people in different social circles
become more diverse, both in how they conceptualize these
dangers and in how they handle them. Several ethnographic
studies contributed to this emergent account of risk (e.g.,
Douglas, 2015; Rayner & Cantor, 1987; Rittel & Webber,
1973; Wynne, 2002).
In this view, modern societies have to manage two sides
of risk. On the objective side, there is still a need for manag-
ing risks originating in external sources, for which we have
information, including, for example, probabilities and causal
factors. Subjectivity is central to the other, more recent side
of risk perception. Our socially constructed values determine
not only the relative impact of different risks associated with
human decisions but also our internal models of those other
people’s intentions and priorities, for example, politicians
(Schenk et al., 2019). Naturally, different norms and belief
systems differ in how people conceptualize the dangers
stemming from human actions (D’andrade, 1995).
DNs in particular are very aware of these risks and have
thus developed resourceful, creative, and pragmatic
approaches that are centred on the individual, but that result
in knowledge that is widely shared and constantly updated
at the community level. Broad political changes have shifted
western societies toward adopting neoliberal policies, where
the responsibility for dealing with life challenges such as
unemployment, health, and ageing problems is an individu-
al’s concern (Lyng, 2008). For example, Nicola Bozzi
defined digital nomadism as a contradictory avatar of neo-
liberalism by highlighting its role in defining a depoliticized
aesthetics of global work (Bozzi, 2020). Not only do these
individuals face risk consciously, but they also consider
diverse sources of risk information in decision-making pro-
cesses guided by neoliberal values (Wong & Lockie, 2018).
Sharing their risk-assessment processes through social con-
versation has informed the collective DN mindset. Indeed,
the vicarious experiences gained from interaction among
peers contribute to a feeling of self-efficacy (Pollnac et al.,
1998) that informs the belief that taking risks may
4 Social Media + Society
be necessary to achieve goals that contribute to individual
self-actualization. Unsurprisingly, such a perception of skil-
ful self-efficacy fuels a sense of control over the potential
negative consequences of risk (Lyng, 2008).
Critical mechanisms for how DNs manage risk emerged
from the “communication technology boost” (Hemsley et al.,
2020), which enabled an almost instant connection between
peers of a social group, thus diminishing the perception of
danger associated with previously unknown risks quickly
(Sutherland & Jarrahi, 2017). Thus, social network hyper-
connectivity generates a seemingly paradoxical collective
reinforcement of the DN’s individualistic approach to risk.
Further reinforcement stems from the fact that people tend to
change their behaviour to achieve a stronger sense of mem-
bership in the social group they want to belong to (Gioia,
2017). In a similar vein, social regret (Cooper & Rege, 2011)
posits that individuals act like their peers to avoid a sense of
loss from inaction.
All of this suggests that DNs, as a collective, continuously
develop mechanisms for better individual decision-making
in risky scenarios. This dynamic interplay between individ-
ual and social cognition endows DNs with the ability to adapt
more swiftly to changing conditions and risk perceptions.
Method
In this article, we report findings obtained through the quali-
tative analysis of content (Neuendorf, 2017) collected on the
video-sharing media platform YouTube. We collected a set of
YouTube videos found using the search terms Digital nomads
and Covid-19. Following a snowball approach, we consid-
ered other creators or videos mentioned in the first videos
(indeed a number of them predate the pandemic) until we
reached a final set of 20 videos produced by 13 creators who
identify themselves as DNs. Table 1 shows a characterization
of the creators considered in our corpus, while Tables 2 and
3 characterize the 20 videos selected for analysis.
We purposely sought content on the topics of our research
questions, namely, how DNs approached the adaptations
necessary to cope with the scenarios imposed at the begin-
ning of the Covid-19 pandemic and the effects of mobility
restrictions on fundamental DN values, especially self-actu-
alization. Relevant data for these questions can be broadly
captured under the more general category of videos where
creators discuss the reevaluation of independence and mobil-
ity favouring state welfare, which we refer to henceforth as
the DN dilemma. The chosen qualitative analysis approach is
an adequate method of inquiry into how a community dealt
with a recent social adjustment given the size of the corpus
and the potential complexity of the information available
data. Our study rests on the assumption that these creators
were highly motivated to remain relevant to their audience
especially during the pandemic by producing narratives that
(1) resonated with the DN community and (2) aligned with
one of the DN fundamental values, namely, the timely
diffusion of pragmatic advice on how to deal with unprece-
dented obstacles.
We used the YouTube automated speech-to-text transcrip-
tion, copy-pasted transcripts of all 20 videos, and organized
the output video transcripts into a repository in Microsoft
Excel. Access to online YouTube video content is public;
hence, no sensitive issues were identified while transcribing
and storing the material (Franzke et al., 2020).
After preprocessing and cleaning raw text data, one author
(first coder) examined the generated text transcripts for each
video using an inductive, interpretative method to identify
(1) macro and (2) micro topics. During our collaborative
meetings, we defined macro and micro topics. For example,
broad subjects that touch on essential aspects of the DN life-
style formed macro topics: personal values, cost of living,
integration into local life, mobility, cultural diversity, and
others. Micro topics, instead, were always about concrete
issues or entities, for example, specific freelancing possibili-
ties, building a specific online business, or restrictions in a
particular country.
Next, the first coder performed an inductive analysis
(Strauss & Corbin, 1990) on the transcript of every video,
identifying narrative blocks that are relevant topical instances
that combine macro and micro topics in specific ways.
Together, we conducted relevance criteria considered: (1)
how prevalent the topic is across the videos and (2) how
much it relates to decision-making and risk. At this step, we
did not focus on DNs dilemma of staying or moving during
the pandemic. The output was a set of 19 topics, each of
which was labelled with unique codes. The first coder pro-
cessed these topics to assign a second label that describes the
topic’s relevance to our primary research questions (we used
three levels: high, medium, and low). We considered the
coded topics in a generic sense, that is, out of context, when
assigning relevance labels.
With this coding system, the first coder looked at the tran-
scripts for each video again. This time, the goal was to assign
a primary and a secondary code to each narrative block. In
addition, we decided to add “relevance” labels to each of
these codes during online meeting discussions by looking at
their default relevance score in the coding system and revis-
ing it to account for context. In the final step, we computed
the basic statistics for the annotations we made on the tran-
scripts to gain insight into the data.
Of a total of 19 topics, nine were considered to be highly
relevant to narratives about the aforementioned DN dilemma.
We turn to these over the next section. We combined those
nine topics into identified four prevalent themes discussed
by the creators with relevance both before and during the
time of pandemic about (1) comparison of legislation and
government policies for DN; (2) the assessment of stay ver-
sus keep moving decisions; (3) pros and cons of location
independence, and perception of risks and handling of safety-
related issues; and (4) self-management and techniques for
self-actualization.
Ehn et al. 5

Table 1.  Characterization of Content Creators.

Creator About the creator Subs.

Chase of Adventure “American Traveling Vlogger, travel journalists who showcase the beauty in different cultures 85,800
and inspire others to chase their dreams. Now, we teach you how to quit your soul-sucking
job and make money on the road, so that you can make your travel dreams a reality.”
Chris Freelancer “Chris the Freelancer is documenting the Digital Nomad movement and the Future of Work.” 77,500
Grateful Gypsies “Sasha and Rachel—Americans world-traveling, English-teaching, jam band-following couple.” Und.
Jaycation “Jay jay Jaycation inspires, motivates, and creates a place where travelers or viewers can find 14,000
inspiration for their own travels or to offer people a place where they can be on holiday and
live vicariously on Jaycation.”
Joanna Yung “A former 9–5 employee turned full-time digital nomad specializing in social media marketing 1,830
consulting and content creation.”
JohnnyFD “British web developer, who created passive income while living in places like Chiang Mai, 42,800
Thailand, Bali, Sri Lanka.”
Nomad Capitalist “Nomad Capitalist is a consultant who works exclusively with seven- and eight-figure 206,000
entrepreneurs and investors who want to become global citizens.”
Ready Go! Expat “Brazilian v-logger, traveled to 30 countries, and I have lived in four countries in three Und.
different continents. Believes that when we experience different cultures, meet people from
completely different backgrounds, go beyond any preconceived idea we had about common
issues, we start to understand and accept people more and see how beautiful it is to be
different.”
Running Remote “Liam Martin is a founder of Running Remote—World’s Largest Remote Work conference 4,750
and gives practical advice from leading CEO’s, Founders, and Project Managers who build and
manage remote teams.”
Sergio Sala “Web designer. Digital nomad for 7 years. Films about the remote work lifestyle.” 5,030
Support Adventure “Support Adventure is a labor outsourcing, information technology, and business consulting 611
company staffed by talented and enthusiastic global citizens who are settled in affordable
countries.”
Tory Landry “Canadian girl, v-logger, former backpacker, now promoting the journey toward a 90% 8,980
greener lifestyle.”
Traveling with Christin “A digital nomad, online entrepreneur, and expat relocation consultant who has lived, 25,800
worked, or traveled in 60 countries over the last 15+ years. I’ve helped 1,000s of people
move abroad or travel full-time while working remotely.”

Note: ‘Subs.’ stands for Number of Subscribers, and in that column of the table, the value ‘Und.’ stands for Undisclosed.

Results that creators’ positions varied in a broad spectrum of justifica-

By looking at the prevalence of the coded narrative blocks, we
observed that creators’ narratives remained aligned with DN’s
fundamental values for the most part—particularly, in terms of
supporting freedom of movement and work location indepen-
dence. Notably, creators did not make dealing with the pan-
demic a decisive factor in this context explicitly. Instead, they
largely focused on personal development, learning new skills,
and upholding the values of the DN lifestyle. To a lesser extent,
creators spoke about possible new trade-offs between desir-
able policies affecting DNs as well as on living costs and
“hacks” to keep them low. Another prevalent topic concerned
the places to which DNs should go in the case of moving.
Most of the creators we studied advised their audience to go to
the most popular pre-pandemic DN hubs. Yet, there were a
few mentions of new places that may have been offering an
appealing trade-off between policies and living costs to DNs at
the time when our corpus data were collected. While we
expected that most creators would lean either to keep moving
or going back home during the lockdown, what we found was
tions that accommodated both possibilities.
Comparison of Legislation and Government
Policies
The discussion about long-term travel policies reflected in
narrative blocks about the so-called “Digital Nomad visa”
was perhaps an expected political response to DNs exerting
pressure to stay longer in some places due to travel restric-
tions and regulations. In the same context, creators focused
on entry/exit procedures, quarantines, and Covid-19 tests.
Indeed, several governments started to issue long-term visas
for independent professionals with high income and the abil-
ity to work remotely. Our corpus provided evidence that DNs
began to evaluate such opportunities right at the start of the
pandemic. Several social media contents about DN visas
were produced at the time. For example, Christin Wilson
(Table 2, Video 2) evaluated different offerings of DN visas.
Her narrative reflected on the second most frequent topic in
6 Social Media + Society

Table 2.  Characterization of the Video Corpus Analyzed—Videos 1 to 10.

Video Channel Title Posted on

1 Joanna Yung “I became a digital nomad during COVID-19 Pandemic and here is what I learned” 28/10/2020
2 Nomad Capitalist “Thoughts on Estonian e-residence” 11/06/2020
3 Traveling with Christin “Living in DUBAI: Digital Nomad Visa, Lifestyle, and Cost of Living” 31/10/2020
4 Chris Freelancer “Is the location independent lifestyle for me? (Pros and Cons)” 16/12/2016
5 Chris Freelancer “How to be a digital nomad—the framework” 03/06/2016
6 Chris Freelancer “My year as a digital nomad” 01/01/2018
7 Sergio Sala “14 Digital Nomads in Quarantine: COVID-19 Stories” 14/05/2020
8 Support Adventure “Future of Digital Nomads: Post Coronavirus Predictions 2020, Part 1” 21/04/2020
9 JohnnyFD “Why Digital Nomads Cope Better Under Quarantine!” 19/04/2020
10 Running Remote “Where will Remote Work Be After the Pandemic?” 16/09/2020

Table 3.  Characterization of the Video Corpus Analyzed—Videos 11 to 20.

Video Channel Title Posted on

11 Support Adventure “Future of Digital Nomads: Post Coronavirus Predictions 2020 [OCTOBER 28/10/2020
UPDATE]”
12 Jaycation “Digital nomad living in Barcelona during COVID19 pandemic” 28/10/2020
13 Nomad Capitalist “Benefits of slow traveling, exploring the destination, managing businesses, creating 28/10/2020
bases”
14 Running Remote “Emergency Message for all Digital Nomads—Health Update” 28/10/2020
15 JohnnyFD “Coronavirus—Travel Plans and Digital Nomads” 28/10/2020
16 Tory Landry “Why I Immediately Stopped Traveling and Came Home to Canada” 28/10/2020
17 Ready Go! Expat “10 Best European Cities for Digital Nomads” 28/10/2020
18 Traveling with Christin “Digital Nomad Visas EXPLAINED: The Best and Worst Work and Travel Permits” 28/10/2020
19 Chase of Adventure “Coronavirus CHANGED Our Lives” 28/10/2020
20 Grateful Gypsies “Traveling Home During a Pandemic” 28/10/2020

our corpus, namely, living costs vis-à-vis country visa legis-
lation for DNs:
2020 has been the year of the digital nomad visa for sure! There
are upwards of 15 or 20 different digital nomad visas on the
planet right now, and before the coronavirus pandemic, there
were zero. There were some freelancer visas, some startup visas,
and work permits, and things like that. But before this pandemic,
there was no such thing as a digital nomad visa as the basic
premise.
In the video, “Digital Nomad Visas EXPLAINED: The
Best and Worst Work and Travel Permits” (Table 3, Video
18), Christin Wilson assessed how attractive some new
visas were for DNs. In her comparisons, most of these
visas favoured a segment of knowledge workers from
high-income countries. For instance, Dubai began to offer
a specific DN visa that allowed anyone with an income of
$5,000/month or more to live there for 12 months, with the
possibility to prolong their stay. This visa also allowed
people to work in the Dubai market and interact with the
local workforce. Traditionally, DNs were not allowed to do
this almost anywhere. From the content characterized in
Table 2, Video 2,
One of the only downsides about living in Dubai is that the cost
of living can be high, ranging from $2000 per month and up to
thirty-five hundred dollars per month for most expats and digital
nomads, but this rate can be much higher for families with a cost
of up to eight thousand. . .
Christin Wilson argued that many DN visa rules were not
well articulated with DN values and priorities. Thus, they
lacked real value to them. These rules proposed not only dis-
proportionate requirements of earnings but also high applica-
tion fees. One example of such is a Barbados DN visa:
. . . this digital nomad visa is doubling the length of time that you
can stay in Barbados but it comes with a price a two to three
thousand dollars non-refundable application fee and so unless
there is definitely a downside unless you have a specific reason
that you want to stay in Barbados for 12 months, I’m gonna
say—pass denied.
Furthermore, these visas did not address many DN concerns,
such as, often, their inability to comply with constraints of
the traditional legislation, like notarized bank references or
proof of life insurance, because of short-term working con-
tracts and unstable income.
Ehn et al. 7
The Assessment of Stay Versus Keep Moving
Decisions
DNs who, despite all challenges, chose to continue travelling
expressed their thoughts about their choice of countries to
visit during the pandemic. Eric, a DN from Belgrade running
“Support Adventure” (Table 3, Video 11), said,
I’m not really that afraid of getting sick but, you know, it does
factor into the way that your experience as a digital nomad will
be in those places so you have to consider restrictions on entry
to those places and also the restrictions on daily life and how
much worse it can get.
He identified Brazil as a country of his choice to travel to at
the end of 2020 and early 2021:
Brazil’s pretty um somehow attractive because I feel like how
much worse could it get in that country and it’s probably going
to start getting better so I’m considering going there. . .
Both he and his colleague Tal, a Canadian entrepreneur
from Vancouver, have been around several countries since
the start of the pandemic. Eric said that he has visited
Thailand, Serbia, Belarus, and Turkey. In contrast, Tal vis-
ited Thailand, Sri Lanka, Oman, Turkey, Canada, and
Serbia. They admitted that their values have changed dra-
matically since 2019, resulting in less spontaneous and
more structured and planned travelling.
Pros and Cons of Location Independence, and
Risk Perceptions During Pandemic
Discussions about living costs (the second most discussed
topic in our corpus) often took place in conjunction with the
perception of pandemic risks and staying safe while still
being a DN. This was a subject in 12 videos of the 20 we
analyzed. The risk of being stuck in a country with an unsta-
ble economy and insufficient legal protections was one of the
reasons why Anette Fortner, an American v-logger and travel
journalist, decided to move back home (Table 3, Video 19):
my mindset started to shift from being worried about getting the
virus to social order, crime, theft when supply chains start to fail
and I had to ask myself is this where I want to be for three
months when businesses shut down and when people are no
longer making money and that answer was no, so yeah goodbye.
Martin Liam, the founder of the largest remote work confer-
ence, “Running Remote”, strongly advised peers to travel
home as soon as possible (Table 3, Video 14). His main argu-
ment was that a global infrastructure collapse was a possibil-
ity in the scenario that the spread of Covid-19 spiralled out of
control and that DNs should not be part of the problem, in his
words:
There is an issue I want to address with you guys right now if
you are currently travelling internationally, you are part of the
problem you are not part of the solution you need to be able to
take this time off go back to your country and prepare to get
through this.
Johnny FD is a British web developer with Asian roots who
has lived in Chiang Mai, Thailand, Bali, and Sri Lanka. He
questioned the choice of travelling back home during
uncertain times when so many flights were cancelled, and
there were no guarantees of reaching the desired destina-
tion (Table 2, Video 9):
I would say if it becomes a real genuine concern don’t even fly
home or any home country and that makes it worse, just stay
where you are but find a small not so populated town, hopefully
by the sea where it’s warm get some fresh air stay away from big
cities, stay away from airports don’t change your travel plans.
Most of the creators that advised people to go back home
(before border closures) come originally from developed
countries like the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United
States. Their attitudes are somewhat different from DNs that
come from other parts of the world. This gap became evident
in narrative blocks, where DN creators expressed feelings
like guilt or anxiety of being affected by pandemic crises.
For example, in a video produced by Sergio Sala titled “14
Digital Nomads in Quarantine: Covid-19 Stories” (Table 2,
Video 7), Chad Nattan, a DN from South Africa, was eager to
see the pandemic crisis as an opportunity to do meaningful
work and help others:
. . . the company I work with is a very highly connected health
care affiliate and we only work for safe doings and we are all
working in crazy a lot but it’s, it’s very needed right now and we
know that actually with every step we take we can help people.
Since mobility is a core aspect of their lifestyle, DNs were
already very familiar with travelling hygiene procedures
before the start of the pandemic. Thus, by minimizing the
probability of undesirable outcomes, such as getting stuck in
a place with poor sanitary infrastructure, DNs were, to some
extent, less likely to catch and spread diseases (Table 2,
Video 9):
I am keeping my immune system strong and healthy, exercise,
eat healthily, have my stress low and wash my freakin hands
twenty seconds soap and water don’t touch my face that’s kind
of the precautions that I’ve made for myself and not just because
a coronavirus I always do that. . .
Johnny FD further admits,
Chances of dying from coronavirus are way less than being hit
by a car while walking outside and it does not matter where you
live. . .
8 Social Media + Society
Pollnac and colleagues found the same type of narrative
among a community of fishermen, who made similar com-
parisons between the dangers associated with fishing com-
pared with those of driving a car. Again, there was a common
recognition that the individual can reduce some physical
risks, including a degree of fatalism associated with risks of
danger from external events (Pollnac et al., 1998). DNs that
chose to stay where they were during the onset of the pan-
demic were generally hopeful about the future. Two enthusi-
astic global citizens from the YouTube channel “Support
Adventure” told their followers (Table 3, Video 11) said,
“Don’t let fear dictate your life” and asked them to be proud of
having the opportunity to visit four different countries during
this whole thing.
Furthermore, the same creators suggested that this pandemic
would propel DNs to being more generally accepted by the
mainstream:
It will be a change for digital nomads after the pandemic, yeah
they’re not gonna look at us like those are the crazy guys
anymore—yeah exactly.
In his video, “Emergency Message for all Digital Nomads”
(Table 3, Video 14), Martin Liam shared a message that went
more along the lines of traditional risk perceptions to the DN
community concerning the real danger of not being able to
get access to food or medical care in developing countries:
Now it is not gonna be safe for you to be in Thailand or Vietnam
or Bali when you’re not a citizen of that country and you’re
trying to get medical care or more importantly you’re just trying
to be able to get access to food because frankly, you’re at the
very bottom of that list.
Self-Management and Self-Actualization
Techniques
In this context, creators aligned to a single vision that favours
healthy routines at the same time as accepting new risks to
break out of routines creatively (Table 2, Video 1):
. . . especially, you know, being a digital nomad . . . things are
constantly changing around you. So always make it a priority,
make it a habit, to take care of yourself. And now I have the
awareness to recognize when things are slipping, and I take
action and change course immediately when that happens.
In this video, “I became a digital nomad during Covid-19
Pandemic and here is what I learned”, Joanna Yung describes
how taking care of herself keeps her ready to recognize and
adapt to fast-changing scenarios. Notably, the focus was not
on dealing with specific changes, but on taking care of her-
self to stay adaptable. Also, in the analysis of this video, we
found the first direct and explicit description of how the
pandemic would change the future lifestyle choices made by
DNs. Yung framed this in the sustainability of travel:
. . . feel like it’s our global duty to not only travel in the future in
a slower pace, but also we should all travel more responsibly,
sustainably and safely than we used to. . .
Johnny FD and Christin Wilson, both DNs with prior experi-
ence in working remotely and travelling, talked about why
DNs were handling this unprecedented crisis so well in their
short YouTube version from the podcast “Why Digital
Nomads Cope Better Under Quarantine!” Uncertainties of
income and isolation are dangers that DNs have experienced
and adapted to before the pandemic. They find themselves
accepting the “new normal” easily. These creators inter-
viewed Kevin, a father of two who has been living the DN
lifestyle for some time (Table 2, Video 9):
It actually explains why my life hasn’t changed and I am not
feeling so much difference at all: we have six and four years old
with us who we still home-school on the road. We are in Tulum,
Mexico now and have been skating lockdown in San Diego. It’s
a shame that we can’t go to restaurants or visit the gym, but part
of it, our life other than these services is normal and work is
normal.
Narratives about dealing with lockdowns specifically were
also present in our corpus, albeit in a much smaller propor-
tion (approx. 8%). However, again, DN creators did not
make the pandemic and lockdowns the main subject in their
narratives. Rather, they suggested that people should use the
lockdown in a positive way to develop skills and knowledge,
productivity routines, as well as the self-management of
healthy discourse.
Discussion
This study revealed that DNs’ assessment of risk in the deci-
sion to stay or keep moving during the Covid-19 pandemic
was driven by the desire to retain the freedom they see as one
of their core values. We confirmed that the DN community
did not have a universal risk management strategy in the con-
text of pandemics. Instead, strategies varied more according
to (and were consistent within) the DN’s sociocultural back-
ground, than by their membership to the global DN commu-
nity. For instance, some Covid-19 risks were perceived as
very dangerous to DNs from developed countries, but as far
less ominous to DNs from developing countries. Our data
showed that the latter type of DN continued to disregard the
dangers of economic collapses during the pandemic.
We also observed that DN creators portrayed themselves
and their peers as sharing a conscious degree of outer struc-
tural control, which is similar to the self-driven personal con-
trol exercised by EdgeWorkers (Lyng, 2008). There is ample
evidence that both groups accept, and even embrace, the
risks they take. This passivity does not mean avoidance or
Ehn et al. 9
willful ignorance of possible negative outcomes. Instead, it
is a reflection of how DNs prioritize their goals according to
their need for self-actualization.
Narrative production has been shown to help people in
transition phases to cope with life stressors (Pennebaker
et al., 1990). The DN community production of content
about their thoughts and feelings in the context of the
Covid-19 pandemic was on a scale of trustable content,
where a positive attitude was a commonly observed feature
of the contents we analyzed. The “Broaden-and-build the-
ory” (Conway et al., 2013) suggests that thinking about an
idealized future is associated with positive thoughts about
that future, leading to enhanced levels of self-regulation,
resilience, and in turn self-efficacy (Ceja & Navarro, 2009;
Fay & Sonnentag, 2012). This process fits within positive
psychology and the “salutogenesis” framework—an
approach that focuses on factors that support human health
and well-being, instead of factors that cause disease and
burnout.
Risk management is an integral part of many DN rou-
tines; their approach to danger may thus have been shaped
differently to the mainstream’s due to habituation and confir-
mation bias, with both individual and sociocognitive rein-
forcement playing a role. Indeed, we did not see a strong pull
in a direction different from this habituation that could be
explained by DN’s reassessment of risk to face the pandemic
explicitly. Thus, for example, DN creators could have
approached moving between countries as a much riskier
activity during a pandemic. However, while some did, most
creators followed confirmation bias in the direction opposite
to high risk. As a result, they became more prone to seeking
evidence partial to existing beliefs. We observed that DNs
continued to seek out new risks to avoid the inflexibility of
fixed and established routines and to remain excited and
motivated. This type of dynamic is consistent with Lupton’s
ideas about people of “the modern age”. She argues that the
spread of communications technology has put into question
established thought, expression, and practice, and has
resulted in the deconstruction of all fixed structures and tra-
ditions (Lupton, 2013).
The interrelation between global hyper-mobility and sub-
jectivity formation is one of the factors that mediate self-
actualization observed by D’Andrea (2006). In his critique of
self-actualization theory, he stated that any discussion of
self-actualization arises from the requirement that people
must have a choice of values and “good conditions” (Maslow,
2013, p. 105). By this, Maslow referred to a necessity for full
access to information and the ability to choose without fear
or social pressure. Schneider et al. (2014) discussed fear in a
context relevant to this work by positing it as one of the
mediators that restructure cognition and emotion, reducing
human capability of self-actualization. On the contrary, the
absence of fear, resulting from successful risk management
practices, is one of the factors that mediate enhanced self-
efficacy and self-actualization.
This connection seemed particularly noteworthy since we
observed that DNs still approached risk as a part of their path
to self-actualization at the outset of the Covid-19 pandemic.
We regarded this phenomenon as the flipside of modernity’s
obsession with measuring, predicting, and controlling risk.
Conclusion
The Covid-19 pandemic accelerated the normalization of
many aspects of the DN lifestyle by blurring the traditional
borders between work, leisure, home, and travel. But more
importantly, it showed the DN-lifestyle adaptive superiority
in global scenarios like the one imposed by the pandemic.
Our analyses revealed that creators in the DN community
concentrated on narratives linked to self-actualization
mostly. The majority of these narratives were, specifically,
about self-development, learning new skills, and finding
ways to remain a DN in the new crisis scenario. Narratives
on these topics were surrounded and often contextualized by
other narratives that, almost in equal proportions, focused on
the nature of the DN lifestyle and on handling risks. On the
latter topic, only a few creators used fear-based approaches
and most of these encouraged DNs not to become “part of the
problem” (the pandemic).
The analyzed content of YouTube channels such as Chase
for Adventure, Joanna Yung, Johnny FD, or Support
Adventure indicates that the DN community adapted quickly
to lockdowns and expressed no general fear or stress of han-
dling such issues, since they had already experienced the
shortcomings of location-independent work, changes of
travel plans, and other uncertainties of the gig economy
(Sutherland & Jarrahi, 2017). This, together with the fact that
narratives on developing new skills, trade-offs and work-
arounds were the most prevalent in our corpus led us to the
conclusion that the DN community increased its adaptability
to crisis scenarios. Preestablished attention and fostering of
values like self-efficacy as well as experience in risk man-
agement can explain this adaptive vantage.
We framed risk on theoretical perspectives about individ-
ual and collective risk management practices. The goal was
to understand how DNs make sense of risk in conjunction
with the multiple restrictions and reduced mobility in situa-
tions like the Covid-19 pandemic. Beck’s theories provided
us with insight into the type of modern risks stemming from
human decisions, the perceptions of which may be shaped by
varying constructs in distinct social groups (Beck, 2009).
Several additional studies have concluded that people with a
high degree of perceived control were prone to taking more
risks. Indeed, both behaviours became intertwined in those
cases (Gioia, 2017; Siegrist & Árvai, 2020).
Lyng’s (2008) “risk culture” perspective on postmodern
societies, characterized by a link to individual responsibility
for constructing a meaningful life path, also proved to be
valuable as part of the framework of our study. We observed
in our data that DN narratives matched the main features of
10 Social Media + Society
“risk culture”. Thus, while risk-taking could have become an
adaptive response to the ever-intensifying focus on control
and predictability in modern societies, we also found that the
DNs we studied actively sought new risks to avoid the stag-
nation of fixed routines. Taking such risks can be easier to do
when social reinforcement is constantly available, which, in
the case of DNs, makes them feel confident about choices
that would seem far too risky in the mainstream’s eye. In
addition, it became evident that rationality was a significant
aspect of how DNs managed risks at the time, countering
some traditionally held views that DNs take risks recklessly.
The DN community seemed to resemble Lyng’s “risk cul-
ture” because both social groups value individual control
over their life trajectories. Our analysis of DN creator narra-
tives clearly showed the interplay between individual deci-
sion and action in a context where information about the
external environment is actively processed collectively.
As more people seek to escape the daily commute to/from
office cubicles (Thompson, 2019) to benefit from traditionally
“reserved” advantages to some nationalities, it becomes evi-
dent that many of them now navigate the global space of
inequalities of the capitalist system (Hermann & Paris, 2020).
We expanded current knowledge about the interdependencies
involving social network narratives about risk management
produced by creators with a large following in the DN com-
munity. The global pandemic challenged the neoliberal figure
of the DN to reevaluate individual independence and mobility
in favour of state welfare and social protection (Deleuze &
Guattari, 2010). Content creators seemed to have used the
occasion to reinforce the community’s adaptive advantage over
the mainstream. It also became clear that the DN sustained
focus on welfare and self-actualization, even when pressured to
shift their attention to the new risks, was a key aspect of the DN
adaptability. Thus, the community’s values were not affected
by the dramatic change of context, but reinforced instead.
One advantage that is also a caveat of this analysis was
the focus on individual creator narratives. This methodologi-
cal choice allowed us to focus on content produced by key
members of the DN community about the effects of the pan-
demic on their lifestyles. This focus excluded the interactive
aspect, namely, how the community assimilated and
responded to these narratives. This could not be studied in
the small number of comments on the videos in our corpus,
but we leave a study on interaction using more comprehen-
sive data from social media content for future work.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect
to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support
for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article:
Karine Ehn acknowledges funding by the Portuguese Fundação
para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT), PhD grant UI/BD/151501/2021.
ORCID iDs
Karine Ehn https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4872-8688
Ana Jorge https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4069-6212
Manuel Marques-Pita https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2180-6823
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Author Biographies
Karine Ehn (MS Social Science, University of Stockholm, Sweden)
is a PhD student at Lusófona University, CICANT. Her research is
on large-scale mixed-method research of social conversations and
narratives within the digital nomad community and the interaction
between them and the mainstream during and after the Covid-19
pandemic.
Ana Jorge (PhD, University NOVA of Lisbon, Portugal) is a senior
researcher at CICANT and associate professor at Lusófona
University. Her research interests include children, youth and
media, digital culture, and celebrities.
Manuel Marques-Pita (PhD, University of Edinburgh, Scotland) is
an assistant professor at Lusófona University, CICANT. His
research interests include studying the interplay between micro-
level interactions and collective patterns in social networks, and the
use of artificial intelligence in education.