IBIs Digital Nomad Stories

Ab Khurana: The Experimenter

Guest: Ab Khurana Career: Sales Executive Based: Nomadic Instagram: @ab.photolab LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/abkhurana/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/abkhurana/] Episode Description Ab Khurana treats his entire life as a series of experiments, including the experiment of having a normal life. Two years ago, the timing was right to settle, so he signed a lease in San Diego, built a routine, joined sports leagues, dated normally—all the standard stuff. Then, two years later, the timing was right to leave, so he left. Some people would call that a success. Some would call it a failure. Ab just calls it valuable experience. He doesn't theorise about what he wants. He runs experiments and observes the results. His framework: try ten things, you'll love three, hate three, and feel neutral about four. But only once you've actually tried them, not just imagined them, will you know what to orient your life around. San Diego taught him he's definitely a beach and sun person. That making new friends as an adult matters to him. That two years of routine felt good but not complete. Now he's pursuing the specific things his twelve-year-old self always wanted to do whilst the window is still open. Machu Picchu, check. Erupting volcano in Guatemala, check. Scuba diving certification despite being scared of water, check. Next up: the Galapagos Islands, a safari in Africa, a month on a farm with WWOOF making things with his hands instead of pushing pixels. And eventually, being a tourist in India, the country where he spent his first thirteen years but hasn't visited since. This is a masterclass in building self-knowledge through empirical living. When you stop predicting how you'll feel and start collecting actual evidence, you stop wondering what you've missed and start knowing what matters. The tetherball metaphor applies: you can stray as far as you want, but you're still tethered to something solid—whether that's good parents, close friends, or the three things you've discovered you genuinely love. Trust your inner fire. It's unique to you, and that's the point.   Timestamps 00:00-00:41 Introduction 00:41-02:05 Guest introduction 02:05-03:33 Two and a half years nomadic in two stints 03:33-05:04 San Diego experiment, lease and routine 05:04-06:38 Why he left, timing and freedom before commitments 06:38-07:56 Long-term relationships and family considerations 07:56-09:18 Twelve-year-old dreams and pursuing new experiences 09:18-10:05 Maslow's hierarchy of needs discussion 10:05-12:34 Fulfilling relationship needs through community 12:34-13:29 Nomads more open and untethered from roles 13:29-14:20 Only getting one layer deep, something missing 14:20-15:23 Strengthening existing relationships 15:23-16:57 Electron metaphor, travellers vs settled people 16:57-18:21 Hopping on friends' trips, maintaining connections 18:21-19:42 US vs Europe vacation time, 15 days vs 35 days 19:42-21:48 Tetherball metaphor, being grounded whilst travelling 21:48-23:41 Good parents as foundation, unconditional love 23:41-24:58 Ten experiments framework, love 3, hate 3, neutral 4 24:58-25:54 Self-awareness through experimentation 25:54-28:11 Ibi's grounding, music and fire metaphor 28:11-29:59 Inner fire, comparing to others leads to analysis paralysis 29:59-30:13 Finding people who encourage your unique fire 30:13-32:37 AI discussion, cultural shift and adaptation 32:37-35:21 AI tinkerers, people who played the game before 35:21-38:42 Recent adventures, Machu Picchu, volcano, scuba diving 38:42-40:49 Future plans, Galapagos, safari, WWOOF, India as tourist 40:49-41:28 Closing About This Podcast Real conversations with successful digital nomads who've built sustainable location-independent income. Strategic insights on how they transitioned, what income streams they built, and what they wish they'd known earlier. No travel tips or lifestyle fluff. Host Ibi Malik helps ambitious professionals transition to nomadic careers without income sacrifice. To watch the video follow this link: https://youtu.be/Tv0I1FYH2sI [https://youtu.be/Tv0I1FYH2sI] Follow for weekly episodes featuring professionals who've successfully built nomadic income streams. Episode length: ~41 minutes Published: 15th May 2026 Episode #13   THE EXPERIMENTER WHO BUILDS SELF-KNOWLEDGE THROUGH EXPERIENCE We're sitting in a French castle talking about Ab Khurana's two years in San Diego. The lease, the routine, the dating, the sports leagues. Normal life, basically. "And this sounds like an experiment," I say. "What did it yield?" He laughs. "It's funny to call it an experiment because to most people that's life. It's just, hey, get a lease and let's live here." "You've been interviewing too many nomads," he adds. Fair point. But that's exactly how Ab thinks. Not settling versus travelling. Not success versus failure. Just trying different things and seeing what works. The timing was right to get a lease in San Diego, so he did. Two years later, the timing was right to leave, so he left. He lives in the present, responding to what makes sense now. THE TIMING CALCULATION Two years ago, the timing was right to settle. His friend was moving to San Diego. The city appealed to him. He wanted to explore what stability felt like. So he got a lease, built a routine, made new friends. Then circumstances shifted. His friend moved out of their shared flat. He wasn't in a long term relationship. His job stayed remote. And crucially, he's in his early-to-mid thirties, which means the window for certain experiences hasn't closed yet. The timing was right to leave. It's not about one choice being better than the other. It's about responding to the moment and taking advantage of the situation as it presents itself. "I kind of just take advantage of the situation while I'm still in my early 30s or mid 30s before it gets harder to do. If you are going to potentially have a family, or potentially be in a long term relationship, it makes it a little harder." This isn't about running from commitment. It's about sequencing. Getting certain experiences out of his system now, whilst he has the freedom to do them, so that when commitments do arrive, he won't spend years wondering what he missed. There's something methodical about this. He's pursuing specific things the twelve-year-old version of himself always wanted to do whilst the variables align to make them possible. THE SCIENCE OF SELF-KNOWLEDGE The real insight isn't that Ab experiments. It's how he uses those experiments to build self-knowledge. "Having done a few things or experienced a few things that were a little scary, a little new, or just things that the 12 year old me really wanted to do, I know for a fact that that is worth it and it's worth pursuing that." He's not guessing what brings him contentment. He has empirical evidence. His framework is simple: experiment with ten things. You'll love three of them, hate three of them, and feel neutral about four. Once you've actually tried them, not just imagined them, you know what to orient your life towards. You know what to avoid. And the rest doesn't matter much. This is the opposite of how most people approach life decisions. Most people theorise. They imagine what they'd like, consult friends, read articles, try to predict how they'll feel. Ab just tries things and observes what happens. THE TETHERBALL EFFECT The nomad paradox: you need to feel grounded whilst being completely unmoored. Ab uses a tetherball metaphor. The ball spins wildly, flies in every direction, but it's attached to the pole with a rope. You can stray as far as you want, but you're still connected to something fixed. That connection is what lets you experiment without feeling lost. For Ab, that rope is his parents. He grew up with unconditional love, never doubting whether they loved him, never worrying if their fights meant instability. That foundation, he acknowledges, is luck. Not everyone gets it. But it's what enables him to travel for years, try risky things, live out of a suitcase, because he knows he's tethered to something solid. "That stability was there, that feeling. I think that goes a long way, if you get lucky with that." Even without that specific foundation, the grounding can come through other means. Through discovering those three things you love and knowing, no matter where you are physically, that you're still the person oriented around them. The grounding isn't the place. It's knowing who you are. THE ELECTRON EFFECT Here's where the conversation gets interesting. We're talking about maintaining relationships whilst travelling, and I introduce a physics metaphor: electrons versus neutrons. Neutrons sit in the nucleus, stable and stationary. Electrons whiz around. The chance of an electron hitting a neutron is basically zero. But two electrons colliding? Much higher probability. Travellers are electrons. Settled people are neutrons. If you're constantly moving, connecting with people back home who are stable becomes nearly impossible. The collision points don't align. They're on holiday for one week a year, visiting places you've already left. You're living your normal life in places they're treating as special. But other travellers? You bump into them repeatedly. Same cities, same co-livings, same paths. The collision probability is high. So Ab has adapted. He hops on his settled friends' trips when he can, using his flexibility to meet them where they are. He knows how important it is to keep contact with his good friends. And he's learned something crucial about nomad interactions: "Oftentimes when I think travellers meet each other, on average, they tend to be more open and unguarded. Each individual is not in their kind of whatever role they play back home with their friends and families. They're a little untethered." You only get one layer deep with most nomad friendships. You're both leaving soon. But because nomads are more open, that one layer goes deeper than it would back home. Higher frequency of interaction. No roles to play. Less guarded. So even though it's technically shallow, it feels substantial. The American who's always been "the responsible one" back home can be someone else entirely in Mexico. The German who's stuck in family dynamics back in Hamburg can redefine herself in Thailand. Untethered from context, people show different versions of themselves. Often truer versions. THE INNER FIRE PROBLEM Ab learned something about comparison that most people don't figure out until much later. "It's quite a recipe for analysis paralysis and discontent to be comparing your own desires to those of others or your own kind of goals or dreams or intentions with those of others." He did plenty of comparing when he was younger. It's natural. But after enough experiments, he realised something: you can learn from others, be inspired by them, but ultimately you have to trust that your inner fire, your guiding gut feeling, is unique to you. It's okay to trust it rather than seeking validation externally. The trap isn't having goals different from others. The trap is thinking your goals need to match someone else's to be valid. Some people's inner fire is building a company. Others want to master an instrument. Ab wants to see an active volcano and learn to scuba dive and be a tourist in India. None of those are more or less legitimate than the others. Take AI, for instance. Some people wake up excited to experiment with new tools, build workflows, tinker with technology. Ab sees it as a cultural shift, adapts where it makes sense for his work, but doesn't feel compelled to be at the forefront. "The people who are excited about experimenting with technology, it's not just that AI came along and turned someone who is just uninteresting to somebody who's a tinkerer all of a sudden. You're already kind of should be of that mind." They were playing the game before, just a different game. The key is finding people who encourage your specific fire, not people who try to redirect it toward theirs. "Finding people that encourage that, friends or relationships, matter. Rare." Those people are rare. But nomad communities, he's found, tend to contain more of them. Because everyone there has made the unusual choice to live differently, they're less likely to insist you should want what they want. THE THINGS THE TWELVE-YEAR-OLD WANTED There's a certain satisfaction in telling your childhood self that you actually did it. Ab stood at Machu Picchu after hiking the Inca Trail. He watched Volcán de Acatenango erupt from close enough to feel it. He went underwater despite being scared of water his whole life, got certified, and now it's opened an entire world of exploration he never had access to before. And India. Being a tourist in the country where he spent his first thirteen years, seeing the parts he never saw, experiencing it fresh. The Galapagos Islands are next. A safari somewhere in Africa. A month living on a farm through the WWOOF programme, doing physical labour instead of corporate work, practising French or Spanish, making things with his hands instead of pushing pixels on screens. These aren't random bucket list items. They're the specific dreams that survived from childhood into adulthood. The ones that, when tested through experiment, turned out to actually matter to him. Not everyone's twelve-year-old dreams are worth pursuing. Some of them are silly. Some don't survive contact with adult priorities. But the ones that keep coming back, that still feel important decades later? Those are worth taking seriously. Ab's taking them seriously. One experiment at a time. THE EXPERIMENT CONTINUES Eventually, Ab will probably get another lease somewhere. Do another round of the "normal life" experiment. Maybe it'll stick that time. Maybe the circumstances will be different. But right now, there are still experiences worth having, fears worth facing, places worth seeing. The twelve-year-old version of himself had a list. The adult version is methodically working through it, learning what actually brings contentment versus what just sounds good in theory. He's not running from stability. He's just not done experimenting yet. And when you think of life as a series of experiments rather than a series of commitments, everything changes. San Diego wasn't a failure. Leaving wasn't giving up. It was choosing to keep exploring whilst the opportunity exists. Most people spend their lives wondering what would have happened if they'd taken the risk, tried the thing, chased the dream. Ab's collecting actual answers. That's not recklessness. That's rigour. Ab Khurana works remotely in tech whilst nomading across the world, pursuing the specific experiences his twelve-year-old self always wanted. You can hear his full story about treating life as an experiment, finding what grounds you, and trusting your inner fire in: [EPISODE URL] Digital nomads and location-independent professionals featured on Ibi's Digital Nomad Stories podcast share insights into building sustainable remote careers. Listen to all episodes: www.ibimalik.com/podcasts/ibis-digital-nomad-stories

Elle Ota: The Modern Athena

Guest: Elle Ota Career: Program Officer, Human Rights Foundation Based: Nomadic Episode Description Elle Ota spent her summers underwater, diving to fourth-to-sixth-century Roman shipwrecks off the coast of Sicily. She studied classics and ancient Greek, worked as an underwater archaeologist, and seemed destined for a PhD analysing ceramics under microscopes. Her professors pushed her toward academia. The track was clear. But Elle had a problem: she has an enormous social battery, and a career staring at pottery shards in labs felt fundamentally lonely. So she made a choice, she picked living people over thousand-year-old ones. Today she works remotely for the Human Rights Foundation whilst running the U.S. fundraising arm for a Ukrainian aid organisation. October 2022 changed everything, she moved to Europe the same month she first volunteered in Ukraine. The parallel timeline revealed something crucial: remote work didn't just enable travel, it enabled impact. She could hold down her 9-to-5 promoting democracy and human rights whilst balancing weeks in conflict zones managing aid operations. Without location independence, none of it would be possible. She's lived completely out of a suitcase for two years, gaining perspective from Europeans and South Americans in co-livings across the continent. Not surface-level tourist perspective, the depth that comes from living with people, hearing their stories day after day, understanding how they think. She surfs, climbs mountains, learns to scuba dive despite childhood fear of water, and has built a life that lets her chase both adventure and meaningful work. When you ask if she's brave, she gets uncomfortable and she knows activists who've been tortured, soldiers in trenches defending their country. Her work feels comparatively small. But that's exactly the point: she's found a way to contribute whilst feeding her enormous energy to try everything.   Timestamps 00:00-00:37 Introduction 00:37-01:56 Guest introduction 01:56-02:44 Moving to Europe October 2022, transitional period 02:44-03:27 Part-time to full-time nomad journey 03:27-04:40 Value of having a base to return to 04:40-05:02 Returning to same places for familiarity 05:02-07:18 Living completely out of suitcase, 23kg limit 07:18-08:29 Kiev as difficult home base, travel logistics 08:29-09:19 Human Rights Foundation 9-to-5 work 09:19-10:31 Ukraine volunteering origin, October 2022 parallel timeline 10:31-12:08 Remote work enabling Ukraine volunteering flexibility 12:08-14:09 Nomadism enables building best version of life 14:09-15:11 Ibi's background and motivations 15:11-16:58 Maslow's hierarchy and trying different things 16:58-19:24 Gaining depth of perspective from living with Europeans 19:24-21:13 Nuance of understanding European countries beyond surface level 21:13-23:53 First-hand vs second-hand perspective, both valuable 23:53-25:40 Sicily discussion and tourism perspective 25:40-27:18 Underwater archaeology background, Roman shipwreck 27:18-28:52 Academia career path consideration 28:52-30:52 High social battery, choosing people-focused work over ceramics 30:52-31:12 Ghosts and archeology spirits discussion 31:12-32:17 Fearlessness observation from third-party perspective 32:17-33:57 What courage looks like, relative to activists and soldiers 33:57-35:20 Ukraine work feels comparatively small, adventure and adrenaline 35:20-36:16 Closing, Sicily reunion plans About This Podcast Real conversations with successful digital nomads who've built sustainable location-independent income. Strategic insights on how they transitioned, what income streams they built, and what they wish they'd known earlier. No travel tips or lifestyle fluff.   Host Ibi Malik helps ambitious professionals transition to nomadic careers without income sacrifice. To watch the video follow this link:  https://youtu.be/hxsuI1ZNMI8 [https://youtu.be/hxsuI1ZNMI8] Follow for weekly episodes featuring professionals who've successfully built nomadic income streams. Episode length: ~36 minutes Published: 1st May 2026 Episode #12   THE UNDERWATER ARCHAEOLOGIST WHO LEFT THE PAST FOR THE PRESENT I'm sitting in a French castle talking to someone who used to spend her days underwater examining Roman shipwrecks. Elle Ota studied classics and ancient Greek at university, worked as an underwater archaeologist diving to a fourth-to-sixth-century wreck off the coast of Sicily, and seemed destined for a PhD and a quiet life analysing ceramics under microscopes. Then she made a choice that changed everything: she picked living people over thousand-year-old ones. Today, Elle works remotely for the Human Rights Foundation whilst running a U.S. fundraising arm for a Ukrainian aid organization. She's lived completely out of a suitcase for two years, gaining perspective from Europeans and South Americans in co-livings across the continent. She surfs, climbs mountains, travels to conflict zones, and has built a life that lets her chase both adventure and impact. The story of how an underwater archaeologist (yes, quite literally an archaeologist who works underwater, who knew!) became a nomadic human rights worker isn't about abandoning one passion for another. It's about recognising what fuels you and building the flexibility to act on it. THE SOCIAL BATTERY THAT ENDED ACADEMIA Elle's path to archaeology made perfect sense after her studies in classics and ancient Greek. Every day: scuba equipment, diving down to a Roman shipwreck, underwater excavation, bringing pieces to the surface, afternoons analysing them in labs. "I actually think it was the best job ever," she tells me. So why isn't she still doing it? Her professors pushed her toward a PhD, toward teaching and research. The academic track. And she loved the work itself, the puzzle-solving, the nerdiness of it all. But a career in academia comes with realities: intense competition for vanishing positions, work that "can be very solitary", years looking at pottery shards under microscopes. "I have such a high social battery that it's quite easy for me to be in co-livings all the time, and that is pretty counterintuitive to a career looking at ceramics under a microscope." She wanted work focused on people. On communities. On applying what she learned rather than just researching it. The underwater work was brilliant, but fundamentally lonely. Elle needed something that fed her energy rather than drained it. So she pivoted. She chose human rights work, nonprofit management, roles that put her directly with people trying to change things. And crucially, she chose remote work. WHEN TWO TIMELINES CONVERGE There's something about parallel timelines that reveals how much of life is shaped by being in the right place at the right moment. In October 2022, Elle moved to Europe. The same month, she went to Ukraine for the first time on a volunteer mission. She'd been watching the full-scale invasion unfold since February. Working her regular job at the Human Rights Foundation (40 hours a week, 9-to-5, promoting democracy and human rights in countries under authoritarian regimes). But Ukraine pulled at her. She wanted to help, though she knew you can't just thrust yourself into a crisis and expect to be useful. The opportunity came through Polish connections. She went on that first trip, offered her nonprofit background: fundraising, social media, grant writing, website management. Started volunteering with an organization on the ground. Over three years, those roles expanded. Now she helps run the U.S. fundraising arm, manages teams, considers them family. And here's what makes it possible: remote work. "I think having the flexibility of remote work was pretty key to me being able to do Ukraine work, because I can travel there, I can balance the two. I can work my normal 9-to-5 and also be volunteering for Ukraine." Without location independence, none of this happens. She can't be in Kiev for weeks managing aid operations whilst holding down her Human Rights Foundation role. She can't balance meaningful work with meaningful impact. The nomadic structure doesn't just enable adventure. It enables action. HUNTING PERSPECTIVE Elle describes herself as an American who's benefited enormously from living with Europeans and South Americans. Not just visiting their countries, but actually living with them in co-livings, hearing their perspectives day after day, gaining depth that surface-level travel never provides. We talked about the difference between first-hand and second-hand perspective. First-hand is what you experience yourself. Second-hand comes from talking to people, hearing their stories, living alongside them. Both matter. Both add layers. "You get to hear different perspectives too, and be very much surrounded by those, not just have one conversation with somebody, but when you're living with them in the context, you really start to gain a real depth of perspective." She's not just collecting passport stamps. She's collecting understanding. The nuance of what it's actually like to live somewhere, not as a tourist passing through but as someone embedded enough to see how people think, what they value, why they make the choices they make. This is what nomadism offers beyond the Instagram version: sustained exposure to different ways of being. Not a week in Barcelona, but months living with people from ten different countries, hearing how they approach work, relationships, risk, meaning. For Elle, this depth of perspective has fundamentally shaped what works best for her own life. She's not just trying things herself. She's learning from watching others try them too. TWO YEARS OUT OF A SUITCASE Elle's been living completely out of her suitcase for two years. No storage unit in Europe. No home base besides the one in California that requires 24 hours of flight time to reach. She watches with some envy as friends with European families can leave suitcases with them, return to bedrooms in friends' flats, maintain some anchor of normalcy. For her, going back to California is a one-month commitment minimum. The flight alone makes it impossible to pop home for a weekend. "I do think that there is a lot of value in having someplace to return back to. And actually now at this point, having done this for two years, this is something I'm looking for again." The freedom is real. She can pop from place to place, choose her locations, build the life she wants. But two years in, she's also feeling the trade-off. The lack of somewhere to leave things. The constant weight of everything you own on your back. She's adapted by returning to the same places repeatedly. Building familiarity. Creating informal homes in cities she knows, cafes where staff recognise her, co-livings she cycles back to. It's not the same as having a base, but it's better than starting from scratch every month. This feels honest. Not the polished "location independence solves everything" narrative, but the reality: two years of complete freedom has her now seeking some form of rootedness again. Not because the experiment failed, but because she's learned what she actually needs. WHAT COURAGE LOOKS LIKE When I observe that Elle seems fearless (underwater archaeology, moving to Poland from California, volunteering in Ukraine), she pauses to reframe it. "I think courage can look very different for different people. And so I know how that feels in my own heart. But going to Ukraine and doing all these things sort of look externally courageous and maybe they feel different on the inside." Here's her perspective: she works with human rights activists who've led protests against dictators, who've been imprisoned, tortured, whose families have been kidnaped for their work. She knows soldiers fighting in Ukrainian trenches, on ships, defending their country daily. Compared to them, her work feels small. Aid runs, fundraising, occasional trips to conflict zones (important, yes, but part of a larger tapestry). Not the front line itself. "Me going occasionally to Ukraine doing aid runs, fundraising, it's important and it's part of that tapestry of what we can accomplish together. But it feels comparatively very small." She's not diminishing what she does. She's contextualising it. When you're surrounded by people risking everything, your own contributions feel different than how outsiders perceive them. But then there's this: "I do like adventure. I like adrenaline, I like going into the mountains and surfing big waves and climbing and stuff, and I just want to try everything." That's the core of it. Elle has enormous energy, wants to be active, wants to experience as much as possible. The nomadic life isn't just about impact or perspective. It's about feeding that fundamental drive to try things, to push into new experiences, to live fully. THE INTERSECTION What makes Elle's story compelling isn't that she chose one thing over another. It's that she's found a way to honour multiple drives simultaneously. The archaeologist's curiosity, but applied to living cultures instead of dead ones. The desire for adventure, channeled into both mountain climbing and meaningful work. The social battery that rejected solitary research, now fuelled by co-living communities across Europe. The flexibility of remote work, enabling her to volunteer in conflict zones whilst maintaining stable employment. She's not pretending it's perfect. Two years out of a suitcase is teaching her she needs some form of base. The freedom comes with trade-offs. But she's building something intentional: a life structured around trying everything, gaining deep perspective, and using her skills where they matter. From underwater wrecks to Ukrainian aid operations. From California to wherever the next co-living calls. From thousand-year-old Romans to living, breathing communities who need help now. That's the pivot that mattered. Digital nomads and location-independent professionals featured on Ibi's Digital Nomad Stories podcast share insights into building sustainable remote careers. Listen to all episodes: www.ibimalik.com/podcasts/ibis-digital-nomad-stories

Miranda Miller: The Midlife Nomad

Guest: Miranda Miller Career: Writer, Editor, Marketer Based: Nomadic Instagram: @themidlifenomads LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mirandamillerwrites/ Personal Website: miranda-miller.com Midlife Nomads Website: Midlifenomads.com Newsletter: midlifenomads.com/subscribe Episode Description Miranda Miller didn't wait for the remote work revolution. She was already there. Since 2006, fighting for $15-an-hour writing contracts as a single mum in small-town Canada, scrapping together work on Elance whilst waitressing and working factory shifts. Then someone offered her $1,000 a day to work conferences. She had two babies. She initially said no. But then she called her mum to arrange childcare. Australia, London, the US—she caught the travel bug and never looked back. Eighteen years later, she's survived every era of remote work. The pre-COVID grind when nobody understood what she did. The COVID burnout when boundaries dissolved and she took on too much. The recovery when she had to intentionally reset, kill projects that weren't working, and choose what actually mattered. Now she runs Midlife Nomads, a community helping 40-plus professionals make the leap to location independence. Not the backpacker hustle. Not the 30-year-old grind. A different pace. Different priorities. Comfort over adventure. Sustainability over exponential growth. Three years of building slowly, choosing the right people over fast expansion. This is a masterclass in reframing. When you stop seeing failures as losses and start treating them as experiments, eighteen years of trial and error becomes eighteen years of compounding wisdom. She's killed beloved projects, turned down opportunities, bought fifty domains she'll never use, and learnt that the real skill isn't saying yes to everything—it's knowing which opportunities to pursue before you run yourself ragged. Timestamps 00:00-00:37 Introduction 00:37-01:48 Guest introduction 01:48-02:12 Been remote since 2008, part-time then full-time nomad 02:12-03:10 Travel durations and recovery time 03:10-04:08 Midlife Nomads origin and purpose 04:08-05:57 Different pace and priorities for 40-plus travellers 05:57-07:15 Starting as single mum, $15/hour struggles 07:15-08:15 Elance platform and women writers' network 08:15-09:12 $1,000/day conference work pivot 09:12-09:25 Catching the travel bug 09:25-10:23 Factory work, hospitality, finding what she's good at 10:23-11:33 Internet as levelling the playing field 11:33-13:33 COVID impact: doors slamming shut, burnout, boundary issues 13:33-15:02 Selling time vs expertise theory 15:02-16:39 Packaging services and productising expertise 16:39-18:49 Contract mindset and reframing 18:49-19:27 Anxiety about proving productivity whilst nomading 19:27-20:12 Reframing mindset from corporate to outcomes-focused 20:12-21:22 Seeing others model the lifestyle, monthly check-ins 21:22-21:58 Becoming a beginner again, permission to suck 21:58-23:48 Building sustainably vs get-rich-quick 23:48-24:44 Three years building Midlife Nomads slowly 24:44-26:04 Daily routine and grounding practices 26:04-27:01 Energy management and seasons 27:01-28:18 Self-imposed pressure and recovering from perfectionism 28:18-29:35 Too many ideas problem, Writer's Den vs Midlife Nomads 29:35-29:58 Reframing failures as experiments, knowing which opportunities to pursue About This Podcast Real conversations with successful digital nomads who've built sustainable location-independent income. Strategic insights on how they transitioned, what income streams they built, and what they wish they'd known earlier. No travel tips or lifestyle fluff. Host Ibi Malik helps ambitious professionals transition to nomadic careers without income sacrifice. To watch the video follow this link: https://youtu.be/Ishui5vvCbE [https://youtu.be/Ishui5vvCbE]  Follow for weekly episodes featuring professionals who've successfully built nomadic income streams. Episode length: ~30 minutes Published: 17th April 2026 Episode #11 GUEST REFLECTION THE MIDLIFE NOMAD WHO HELPS OTHERS REWRITE THEIR RULES I sat down with Miranda Miller looking forward to hearing about Midlife Nomads, her passion project helping 40-plus professionals transition to location independence. What I got was so much more: 18 years of hard-won wisdom from someone who's been doing this since the term barely existed. Miranda has been doing this since 2006, when 'digital nomad' wasn't even a proper term yet. She's navigated every era of remote work, survived lockdowns that slammed doors shut whilst others' opened, and built Midlife Nomads over three years of slow, steady work. She's a master at reframing, turning hourly rates into value packages, burnout into boundary resets, failed projects into experiments. She's faced every challenge, made every mistake, and come out the other side with kids in tow. The advice she shares isn't theory. It's battle-tested wisdom from 18 years on the road: how to manage day-to-day life when your mind spins with project ideas, why giving yourself permission to suck at new things matters, and how the cage you're in is probably one you built yourself. THE $1,000 TURNING POINT Miranda became a mum at 24. By 28, she was a single mother in small-town Canada trying to get $15-an-hour writing contracts, fighting for business against people who didn't think they needed to pay writers. She found Elance, the original Upwork, in 2006. Built a profile over a few years. By 2008, she was doing decent freelance work but still working multiple jobs. Through Elance, she met other women writers and they formed their own private forum, taking on bigger projects together. Then one of those women came to her with an offer. "I need you to take on a client for me. It's working at conferences." Miranda's response was immediate. "Absolutely not, I can't, I have two babies." The woman paused. "Well, they'll pay you 1,000 USD a day." I laughed when Miranda told me this. Money changes things. She called her mum, arranged childcare for four days a month, and took the job. Australia. London. Conferences across the US. Representing an SEO company whilst taking university courses and getting into e-commerce. "I caught the travel bug big time at that point. And I thought, I can't go back to not doing this." At those conferences, she met people who saw what she was doing and wanted to work with her. The university courses gave her frameworks. The travel gave her perspective. It all compounded. WHEN COVID SLAMMED THE DOOR SHUT For most people, COVID opened doors. Remote work suddenly became acceptable. Companies scrambled to figure out how to operate distributed teams. Digital nomadism went mainstream. For Miranda, it was the opposite. "COVID was actually like a lot of doors slamming shut." She was in Ontario, Canada, which had strict lockdowns. Snitch lines. Only one person per family allowed at the grocery store. As a writer and introvert, working from home was fine. Not being able to travel anywhere? That got tough. But she also saw an opportunity. Small businesses were struggling, needing to pivot everything online overnight. So she helped them, taking on project after project. "There were a lot of us in marketing who felt like we needed to help people, especially businesses." The problem? Her boundaries completely dissolved. "Without travel, there's not that much else to do. So I'll just keep taking on more and more work." By 2022-23, she hit total burnout. Had to stop. The world was opening up again, and she needed to reset intentionally. "It was like an intentional resetting of the boundaries. We need to slow down a bit and get back to having a real life." TIME VS EXPERTISE I have a theory about selling time for money. You can max out around €3,500 to €7,000 a month depending on rates. After that, unless you hire people, you're stuck. The shift has to be from time to expertise. Miranda's response? "I think it makes a lot of sense." She sees this constantly at Midlife Nomads. People leaving stable careers with hourly rates, wanting to bring that same model into remote work. It doesn't translate. "They're going to compare you against the cost of what an employee would be. If you're saying you can have me for X amount of dollars per hour, that's what they're looking at." The reframe? "If you tell them I can save your business $40,000 this year by doing X, Y, Z, then it becomes a completely different conversation." She has one client she's worked with for 14 years. Package-based. Monthly deliverables. They've been acquired three times, and she's grown with them each time. "They don't really even care how long it takes. They just need to know that the research is being done properly, it's being optimised properly, it's fact checked." When life happens, she brings in freelancers to help deliver. The client doesn't care. They're not paying for her time. They're paying for outcomes. "It's a much different conversation than if it were just freelancing as a pseudo employee." This shift from time-based to outcome-based work sounds simple. But it triggers something deeper in people making the transition. TRUST ANXIETY AND PROVING VALUE Some nomads come to me with what I call trust anxiety. They're terrified about proving to clients that they're actually working. It's the shadow side of outcome-based work, especially for people coming from traditional employment. Miranda gets it. "I think that just totally makes sense for people coming out of a productivity mindset where you need to punch the card. You need to prove your value. You need to be a butt in a seat." But here's what she learned over 18 years: "They don't actually care. They want to see the end product, the outcome at the end of the month, the thing that's going to make the difference for them. Anything else is really just creating noise and paperwork." Early on, she tried everything to prove her value. Monthly newsletters showing she was keeping up with industry trends. Regular check-ins. Updates. "Nobody really cared. They're like, that's really cool that you're doing that. But it wasn't something anyone missed when I stopped doing it." She was trying to prove her value, but it wasn't adding value to the relationship. The distinction matters. "Just understanding and taking the time to check in to see why you're doing what you're doing, and is it actually producing an outcome, is super important." PERMISSION TO SUCK One thing Miranda emphasises: you're going to become a beginner again. "You might be an expert in what you've done, whether it's accounting or teaching or whatever you've done for 25, 30 years. And it's really, really hard to then become a rookie in the online business space." You might be brilliant at your core skill, but you've never had your own website. Never done social media marketing. Never built a service offering from scratch. "Giving yourself permission to suck is really important and is also really, really difficult." The internet gives things fast. Online shopping. Dopamine hits from social media. People assume building something online is equally fast. It's not. "If you want to build something sustainable, it takes time." Miranda knows this intimately. Midlife Nomads has been three years in the making. "It's not expanding or exponentially growing overnight, but it's slow and steady and the right people are involved, and that is something that has staying power." She's learned to spot the difference between sustainable building and what she calls burn-and-churn industries. Early in her career, she wrote copy for internet marketers, tapping into people's fears. "It's effective. Absolutely. But I realised I really don't like that. I actually want to build community and things that matter." Those things take time. You can't fake them. ENERGY MANAGEMENT AND BAD DAYS Miranda's day-to-day looks different every day, but there's structure. Journaling. Podcast episodes. Grounding routines that travel with her. But she's also learned something crucial: "Giving myself permission to have a bad day once in a while." Her work is structured so no single day's lack of productivity will cost her a client. She's learnt to manage energy, not just time. "I talk a lot about energy management because I've found over the last ten years how vitally important it is to recognise your energy highs and lows." Some months she's wildly creative, writing books, producing content. Other times? Admin. Social promotion. Different seasons for different work. "If you sit down at a blank page every morning and try to force something that's not happening, you're going to be miserable." Sleep quality is her indicator. When things keep her up at night, she sits down with a grid and asks: where am I spending my time? What could I put off for a few months? "So much of it I was putting on myself. It was internal pressure. Just getting okay with saying no to yourself once in a while was big." THE CAGE YOU BUILT YOURSELF Here's something I've noticed about nomads and solopreneurs: they can say yes to everything. The world is your oyster. Every opportunity is available. That freedom becomes its own prison. Miranda laughs about having bought countless domain names over the years. Every time she has an idea, she buys the domain. When she started Midlife Nomads, she also started The Writer's Den, another community and blog. She tried both for a while, then made a choice. Killed The Writer's Den. Twenty-year-old Miranda would have seen that as failure. Current Miranda? "It was an experiment. I tried it and I stuck with the one that felt better and that was more successful." "Reframing that as not a failure, not a loss, it was an opportunity." With a remote career, you meet inspiring people constantly. Ideas multiply. Opportunities appear everywhere. "You have to know which opportunities to pursue or you'll run yourself ragged." The cage nomads build isn't from lack of options. It's from having too many and not knowing when to say no, even to yourself. 18 YEARS IN Miranda's been doing this since 2006, navigating every shift in remote work whilst raising kids and building a location-independent career. She's burnt out and reset boundaries, experimented and killed projects, and built Midlife Nomads to help others make the same transition. The wisdom she offers isn't from a course or a guru. It's from nearly two decades of trial and error, reframing failures into experiments, turning hourly work into value-based packages, and learning that the hardest person to give yourself permission to disappoint is yourself. She's proof that this life can be for anyone who wants it, at any stage, with kids in tow, if you're willing to become a beginner again and give yourself permission to suck whilst you figure it out. And maybe that's the real lesson: 18 years in, she's still experimenting. Digital nomads and location-independent professionals featured on Ibi's Digital Nomad Stories podcast share insights into building sustainable remote careers. Listen to all episodes: www.ibimalik.com/podcasts/ibis-digital-nomad-stories

Jocelyn Macurdy Keatts: The Activist

Guest: Jocelyn Macurdy Keatts Career: Political Communications Specialist Based: Nomadic Instagram: @jocelynmacurdykeatts  Episode Description Jocelyn Macurdy Keatts spent ten years trying to save the world from inside Washington, DC. She worked as a political consultant, produced events for politicians, reported on protests, and built a career in progressive activism. But the system swallowed her whole. Networking became performance. Activism became about who you know, not what problems you're solving. The power center's ambient narcissism and daily energy tax drained her creativity. So she left. She told herself she just wanted to travel, write media advisories from Greek islands, take a break. But what she discovered was something deeper: distance gave her clarity that insiders never have. Being outside the US made her more effective at US politics, not less. She could think long-term instead of chasing viral moments. She could focus on problems over profit. She could build stability instead of reacting to whatever Twitter was talking about that week. Now she runs political campaigns from co-livings across Europe, more effective than she ever was in DC. She produces Resistance Labs with Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, teaching nonviolent resistance tactics. She's discovered anti-fragility, collective nobility, and that curiosity compounds exponentially when you're surrounded by courageous people. This conversation explores how leaving a power center can make you better at changing it, why comfort is the enemy in the modern economy, and what happens when you stop assuming everyone else is right and just try things. Timestamps 00:00-00:33 Introduction 00:33-01:37 Guest introduction 01:37-02:08 Political consultant for ten years 02:08-02:52 Burnt out on Washington DC power center 02:52-03:48 Activism distorted by power networks 03:48-05:08 Left to travel, discovering deeper reasons 05:08-06:24 Daily energy tax of maintaining normie existence 06:24-07:36 Creative liberation from leaving 07:36-09:51 Berlin and different assumptions 09:51-11:28 Anti-fragility concept and building resilience 11:28-13:32 Comfort is the enemy, disruption is the law 13:32-14:52 Nomadic mindset and capitalizing on opportunities 14:52-17:18 American left's problem, replicating failed strategies 17:18-18:42 Problem over profit mindset shift 18:42-20:42 Solving problems vs making money 20:42-23:56 Objectivity from distance 23:56-26:26 Resistance Labs with Congresswoman Jayapal 26:26-28:38 Building stability vs chasing viral moments 28:38-30:18 Surrounded by people you respect 30:18-32:31 Courage and collective nobility 32:31-34:47 Curiosity compounds exponentially 34:47-35:13 Closing About This Podcast Real conversations with successful digital nomads who've built sustainable location-independent income. Strategic insights on how they transitioned, what income streams they built, and what they wish they'd known earlier. No travel tips or lifestyle fluff. Host Ibi Malik helps ambitious professionals transition to nomadic careers without income sacrifice. To watch the video follow this link: https://youtu.be/tuJIZKaTcOU [https://youtu.be/tuJIZKaTcOU]  Follow for weekly episodes featuring professionals who've successfully built nomadic income streams. Episode length: ~35 minutes Published: 3rd April 2026 Episode #10 GUEST REFLECTION The Political Activist Who Realised Leaving America was the Best Way to Save it I sat down with Jocelyn at Chateau Co-living in Normandy, where we'd been living together for six weeks. She'd just spent the morning strategising media campaigns for American political activists. From a French castle. Whilst most of her colleagues were stuck in Washington DC traffic. She told me about spending ten years in DC politics, wanting to save the world. About getting trapped in narcissistic power networks where activism became performance. About leaving because she thought she just wanted to travel. And about discovering that distance didn't make her less effective at changing the world. It made her more effective. This is the story of someone who left the system and found she could fight better from outside it. Wanting to Save the World At 19, Jocelyn got into progressive politics for the reason most people do. "I wanted to save the world. That's what everybody wants when they're 19 years old." Good reason as any. The world needs saving. She spent ten years building a political life in Washington DC. Producing events for politicians and activists. On-camera reporter for protests and campaigns. Helping candidates and activists build media profiles. Doing the work she thought would change things. What she does specifically: helping progressive candidates and activists navigate America's right-wing media bias. Building strategies so the left can get the attention they deserve in a media landscape tilted against them. But somewhere in those ten years, something shifted. "I don't think I really realised, but I was actually just completely burnt out on Washington politics specifically." The Power Center Trap "You're a Londoner so I think you know the specific burnout that you can have from big power centres where there is this kind of ambient narcissism and everything costs thousands of pounds." She was right. I knew exactly what she meant. London. New York. DC. The big power centres where networking becomes performance and actual work gets distorted by influence. "You go into this world and there are so many people with power and money, and instead of saving the world, you're trying to form these relationships and keep these relationships and it becomes increasingly unclear, okay, is this leading to anything, or am I just stuck in this narcissistic social system?" The trap isn't that people are malicious. It's that the system itself distorts everything. Your activism becomes about who you know. Your strategies become about what's worked before, not what works now. Your energy goes into maintaining networks instead of solving problems. "I feel like being baked in this big American power city had kind of wounded my relationship with activism in a lot of ways. It felt like the things that I wanted to do were being distorted by all these layers of influence and networks of power and funding." Ten years in. Career established. Connections built. And increasingly unsure if any of it was leading anywhere real. "I was just like, what if I just left? Like, what's the worst that could happen?" The Unconscious Escape When Jocelyn left DC after COVID, she told herself a simple story: she wanted to travel. "I'm gonna write my media advisories from the Greek islands. Sounds nice." That was the conscious reason. Pack up the freelance work she could do from anywhere. Travel for a while. See what happens. "But as I travelled more and met other travellers, I realised there was actually something much deeper going on with why I left and why I was staying away." What she discovered wasn't just about wanting to see new places. It was about escape from something specific. "When you have a career that's based in one place, your life ends up being weighed down with all these concerns that feel so important, but they aren't. Maybe you need to have this expensive flat or car and you're seeing all these people every week and then there's not really a lot of energy left over to be creative, to be intrinsically motivated to really think about, what am I doing with my career?" She described it as the daily energy tax of maintaining what she called a "normie existence" - the constant low-level drain of keeping up appearances. Maintaining the right flat. Seeing the right people. Playing the networking game. All the things that feel necessary when everyone around you is doing them. Creative Liberation When that daily energy tax disappeared, something unexpected happened. Her creative and intellectual energy became far more available. Not because she was on permanent holiday, but because she wasn't weighed down anymore. She was careful to be honest about the transition. There's an adjustment period - maybe a few months, maybe a year - where you're acclimating to constantly switching countries and you won't be terribly productive. But after that? She was shocked by how much she suddenly took on projects that were more important, more exciting, more challenging, and more aligned with what she actually cared about. Why? Because she wasn't stuck in a limiting idea of what it meant to be a political activist. She wasn't in a sphere where everybody said the same things and did the same things. Meeting people constantly. Being challenged daily. New perspectives from different cultures. It wasn't just liberating. It was professionally transformative. The Anti-Fragility Advantage Jocelyn introduced me to a term: anti-fragility. It's an economics concept that rose in popularity during COVID - the idea that systems can sustain catastrophe but still be resilient. She thinks about it constantly in relation to nomad life. If you're going to be a serious professional and become a nomad, you're building anti-fragility. Becoming more aware of what you want to create, what problems you want to solve, and how to actually do that - versus relying on your network to tell you what to do. Here's the key insight: normal people assume a great life is built on figuring it out. But that never happens. You get older, the economy changes, technology changes. Even if you stay in the same place your whole life, comfort is a complete illusion. The advantage nomads have? Your life changes every month or two, so you're no longer allergic to the idea that things can be totally different. She saw this in DC constantly. People would do something that worked, then spend the next five to ten years trying to replicate it. But the world had changed. As nomads, you can't fall into that trap. You're forced to adapt constantly. "In the modern economy, comfort is the enemy. Disruption is the law of the modern workforce. And I think you should just internalise that and accept that." Distance as Advantage Here's what surprised her most: being out of the US made her better at US politics. Being out in the world makes you more aware of how important the American project really is, and what happens in the US impacts everybody. When I asked what specifically changed, her answer was concrete. In DC, she'd reach out to reporters she knew. The availability heuristic - the people you talk to every day become your default. Now? She gets very clear on the data. What's this reporter's reach? Are they actually an authority? Objectivity through distance. Another shift: moving from profit-focused to problem-focused. The biggest thing that shifted for her as an American was understanding that money and capitalism isn't the central driver of most cultures. That's a uniquely American problem. In the US, there's this professional assumption: if something is profitable, it's working. But just as frequently, the opposite is true. Profit incentives can disrupt actual deliverables. "If you solve a problem and you solve it really well, it will eventually become profitable. Maybe not immediately, but if you're looking to form a career built on brilliance and acumen over the long haul, it's better to be really good at what you do than to make a few thousand extra dollars tomorrow." The long-term thinking came from distance. From not being caught in DC's short-term cycles. Building for Stability, Not Virality The best example of this approach: Resistance Labs. Jocelyn produces digital events for Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, teaching people nonviolent resistance tactics. They'd been running monthly sessions for about a year. Steady work. Building something sustainable. Attendees averaged around a thousand people. Then Alex Peretti was killed. The conversation around resistance exploded. Their next session got 6,000 signups. But here's the key: that success came from a place of stability, not from a manic place of trying to force themselves into a conversation. They'd been building for a year. When the viral moment came, they had something substantial to offer. When you're in DC, going to parties where everyone's hyper-fixated on the viral thing of the moment, you lose that perspective. From distance, she can focus on what has legs, not what's trending today. "When you're able to be objective and think long term, you frequently accidentally become part of a viral conversation because you've built something sustainable." The Collective Nobility Effect One thing Jocelyn didn't expect: the quality of people she'd meet. When building a career in one place, you get distracted by whether you actually respect the people you're networking with, or if you're just interacting with them because you feel you have to. As a nomad? Suddenly she had a surplus of people she genuinely respected. People she didn't have to talk to but loved talking to. Instead of obligatory networking, genuine inspiration. Every nomad has to be courageous to live this way. Willing to see what happens when you live in an entirely new culture. And when you're surrounded by courageous people, it brings out the best in everyone. She introduced me to another term: collective nobility. We talk about the bystander effect and how collective lack of accountability enables terrible things. But collective nobility works the opposite way - when people around you are creative, loving, and inspiring, it elevates everyone. "I am such an exponentially better person than I was four years ago, because I'm surrounded by people who make me excited to be a part of the human race." The Compound Effect What struck me most about our conversation was this idea of compounding growth. Jocelyn described it as exponential. Every time you say yes to something different whilst someone else says no and does the same thing, you diverge. A year in a nomad's life is probably like a decade in the life of someone back home. Not because of money, not even really because of travel, but because of curiosity that compounds. The more you grow your capacity intellectually and emotionally, the more access you have to different worlds, different life, different beauty. She's passionate about this because she sees an alternative to what we're sold: secure a large income, have a nuclear family, then wait to die. "I want that for everybody. Can you imagine if everybody in the world felt that way?" I told her: If you made the world feel that way, you would have successfully changed the world. Which is, after all, what she wanted at 19. Changing the World from Outside It Today, Jocelyn runs political consulting from co-living spaces across Europe. She produces Resistance Labs for Congresswoman Jayapal. She helps progressive candidates navigate media bias. She builds campaigns focused on solving problems, not chasing profit or viral moments. She does all of this more effectively than she did in Washington DC. Not despite being outside the system. Because of it. The distance gives her objectivity. The nomadic life builds anti-fragility. The constant change prevents the comfort trap. The collective nobility of courageous people makes her better. She's not running away from the fight. She found that fighting from outside gives her advantages the insiders don't have. The 19-year-old who wanted to save the world spent ten years learning the system. Then she left it. And discovered she could finally do the work she actually wanted to do. Sometimes you have to leave the system to see it clearly. Sometimes distance is exactly what you need to be effective. Sometimes the best way to change the world is from outside the power centers that claim they're changing it. Turns out, that's what saving the world actually looks like. Jocelyn Macurdy Keatts runs political consulting for progressive activists and candidates whilst living nomadically across Europe. Digital nomads and location-independent professionals featured on Ibi's Digital Nomad Stories podcast share insights into building sustainable remote careers. Listen to all episodes: www.ibimalik.com/podcasts/ibis-digital-nomad-stories

Kayleigh Franks: The Seeker

Guest: Kayleigh Franks Career: Head of Digital Marketing Based: Nomadic Instagram: @kayleighrf Episode Description Kayleigh Franks didn't stumble into digital nomadism. She hunted it down. In 2016, she flew to Chiang Mai and spent three months interviewing 24 digital nomads for 90 minutes each, studying them for her bachelor's thesis. Then she made it her life's mission to become one. She took the long route. Got an office job in Sydney. Showed up every day. Built her skills in digital marketing. Established a foundation. COVID hit and restricted her further. When it lifted, she quit her job, went freelance, and finally started traveling. But it wasn't what she expected. Airbnbs isolated her. The magic she'd observed in Chiang Mai was missing. Then she discovered co-living. After eight years of planning and building toward this life, she finally found what she'd been chasing. In this conversation, we explore what happens when you spend a decade preparing for something and reality still surprises you. We discuss the time prison of office work, why one month is both too long and not long enough, and the trade-offs between freedom and connection that every nomad eventually faces. Timestamps 00:00-00:35 Introduction 00:35-01:33 Guest introduction 01:33-02:08 Writing a thesis about digital nomads 02:08-02:43 Chiang Mai 2016, 24 interviews 02:43-03:34 Integrating with the community 03:34-04:23 Observing nomads in their natural habitat 04:23-05:00 What she does now: digital marketing 05:00-05:33 Life's mission to become a nomad 05:33-06:25 Building career deliberately in Sydney 06:25-07:02 COVID restrictions 07:02-08:12 Deliberately calculated approach 08:12-09:09 First attempts: Airbnbs and isolation 09:09-10:44 Connection and belonging, the cafe lady 10:44-11:03 Month-long stays and hubs 11:03-12:23 Ten-day connection threshold 12:23-12:52 Discovering co-living in 2025 12:52-13:24 The magic and aliveness 13:24-14:19 Sustainability of co-living lifestyle 14:19-15:34 One month co-livings back-to-back intensity 15:34-16:25 Maintaining productivity while traveling 16:25-17:17 Five hours a day, four days a week 17:17-18:08 Time prison of office work 18:08-18:56 Digital nomadism as solution 18:56-20:12 How does it feel to have made it? 20:12-20:59 Gratitude and creating your own luck 20:59-21:50 Challenges and difficulties 21:50-23:15 Slow travel vs fast travel preferences 23:15-24:29 Community building in co-livings 24:29-25:44 Deep connections vs surface connections 25:44-27:48 Relationships and nomadism trade-offs 27:48-29:45 Freedom vs connection, making decisions 29:45-30:06 Worth being nomadic, liberation from structure 30:06-30:23 Closing About This Podcast Real conversations with successful digital nomads who've built sustainable location-independent income. Strategic insights on how they transitioned, what income streams they built, and what they wish they'd known earlier. No travel tips or lifestyle fluff. Host Ibi Malik helps ambitious professionals transition to nomadic careers without income sacrifice.  To watch the video follow this link: https://youtu.be/yev3GdVSrhk [https://youtu.be/yev3GdVSrhk]  Follow for weekly episodes featuring professionals who've successfully built nomadic income streams. Episode length: ~30 minutes Published: 20th March 2026 Episode #9 GUEST REFLECTION Halfway through our conversation at Chateau Co-living in Normandy, Kayleigh did what came naturally. She'd been answering my questions for twenty minutes when something shifted. She paused, smiled slightly, and asked: "Can I ask you questions?" It was the researcher emerging. The woman who spent three months in Chiang Mai in 2016 interviewing digital nomads, studying them in their natural habitat, understanding what made them tick. Old habits, it seems, die hard. After nine episodes of guests being interviewed, perhaps it was time someone turned the tables. But before she did, Kayleigh told me her story. About deliberately building a life around nomadism years before most people knew what that meant. About the rocky start that nearly made her question everything. And about finally discovering that the thing she'd been chasing for a decade was real. STUDYING NOMADS BEFORE IT WAS NORMAL In 2015, Kayleigh was doing her bachelor's degree in business and tourism when her brother told her about something called digital nomadism. The concept fascinated her immediately. "I decided to research into it. And nomadism was up at the time, and it said the number one hub was Chiang Mai. So I flew to Chiang Mai and spent three months interviewing digital nomads." This was 2016. Before COVID made remote work mainstream. Before digital nomad visas existed. Before co-living spaces were everywhere. She conducted 24 interviews, each an hour and a half long. Sitting in cafes, asking people why they'd chosen this life, what Tim Ferriss's Four Hour Work Week meant to them (spoiler: they didn't actually work four hours), how they made it work. "I wasn't technically a nomad because I wasn't working. I was studying them, but I integrated." She lived in an apartment building where other nomads lived. They'd run into each other in corridors. Meet at the same cafes for co-working. There were no formal co-living spaces then, but they created community anyway. Self-sufficiently building connections when the infrastructure didn't exist yet. What she observed changed everything. "It became my life's mission after that to actually become one myself." THE LONG GAME Most people fall into nomadism. Job goes remote. Partner suggests trying it. Life circumstances change and suddenly it's possible. Kayleigh didn't fall into anything. She built towards it deliberately. "I based my whole career on how I could choose something that would allow me to become location independent." After returning from Thailand, she chose digital marketing specifically because it was location-flexible. But she didn't go remote immediately. She did something counterintuitive: she got an office job. "I decided to work for an agency in Sydney to be able to build up my skills. But they had to have me in the office every day. That doesn't align with me at all. But I knew it was a good way to establish a foundation that would allow me to travel at my own will." Years of showing up to an office she didn't want to be in. Building skills. Getting experience. Creating the foundation that would eventually let her work from anywhere. Then COVID hit. Everything went remote anyway. When restrictions lifted, she saw her moment. "After that, I was like, there is nothing stopping me now. So I quit my job. I went out on my own." It worked. Within a year, she was earning enough to support herself to become a digital nomad. The long game had paid off. When I asked how she felt about being one of the few people who'd planned it this deliberately, her answer surprised me. WHEN IT DIDN'T WORK "I obviously spent so many years anticipating this kind of lifestyle, and then I started doing it. And I actually didn't enjoy the way I did it. And I was like, what have I done my whole life? I've worked towards it, and it's not what I expected." Years of planning. Years of building skills. Years of anticipation. And when she finally did it, travelling through South America and Europe, she hated it. The problem? Airbnbs. "It really restricts who you interact with. I think for me, a lot of the beauty to nomadism is actually connecting with people and similar mindsets, but it really isolates you when you're in an Airbnb." She could go to events. Visit co-working spaces. But it wasn't the same as what she'd observed in Chiang Mai, where community formed naturally through proximity and repetition. "When I was studying, connection with people is a big part of feeling like you belong in an area." In Thailand, she'd found an old woman at a local cafe who hugged her every day. They couldn't speak each other's languages, but the woman would sit with her, chat in Thai, hug her goodbye. That daily ritual created belonging. "It just makes you feel like you belong, which is a big part of the pain of being nomadic." Going to the same cafes daily. Staying in places for at least a month. These weren't just preferences. They were survival strategies. "You're only able to connect with people to the depth that you're looking for after ten days." One week somewhere? You're still a tourist. A month? You might actually build something real. But Airbnbs, even with month-long stays, kept her isolated from the very community she'd spent years working towards. THE MAGIC OF CO-LIVING Then she discovered proper co-living spaces. Not just apartments where nomads happened to live, but intentionally designed community spaces. Chateau Co-living in Normandy, where we sat talking, was her first experience of a true co-living. "It took you from 2016" to discover this, I pointed out. Years of being nomadic before finding what she'd been looking for. The difference was immediate. Activities she'd never think of doing herself. Skill sharing. Opening her mind to how other people think. The opposite of isolation. When I asked her to define what co-living actually is, she struggled. Like Edouard before her, finding words for it proved difficult. Eventually, after some back and forth, we landed on what came up in Edouard's episode: it's a feeling. More specifically: "It's like a family feeling. Everybody has a different definition of family. But for me it's like you feel good here with other people. It's not permanent because everybody's going to move on with their life and go different places. So it's for a few weeks, a few months. But yeah, it's like family feeling." She was passionate speaking about her experience at the chateau. The magic of it. Being surrounded by people on similar journeys, creating space to actually connect deeply despite knowing everyone would leave eventually. This was what she'd observed in Chiang Mai back in 2016. What those early nomads had built without infrastructure. Now the infrastructure existed, and it was everything she'd hoped for. PRODUCTIVITY AND THE TIME PRISON Kayleigh works four days a week and around five hours each day. Twenty hours total. She runs digital marketing strategies for universities. Meta campaigns. Google ads. Budget management. Lead generation. The kind of work that traditionally requires being in an office, responding immediately, being available. She does it in twenty hours whilst living in a French castle. "I'm very efficient at my work now, and that's because I have to be, because I want to enjoy this life that I'm living." The five-day work week? She has thoughts. "It's like a time prison. We've just accepted that that's the norm." Being nomadic forced her to become more efficient. Not because she's working less hard, but because the life she wants to live requires it. Travel, connection, experience, all of that needs time. The traditional work structure doesn't leave room. When I pointed out that she'd made it, that she had the freedom she'd desired since 2016, her response was genuine. "You saying all of that really brought up a lot of joy in me. I guess I just never really stopped to think about it that much. I just think this is what I need to be doing, and that's it." She paused, reflecting. "I love I'm so grateful for my life. Honestly, I feel like I'm one of the luckiest people. I mean, also, you create your own luck, but I do feel like I'm very lucky and grateful for being able to like this year, choosing. I'm like, where do I want to be in March and April? Like, what country do I want to be in? It's just like, what a gift that is." Her family notices. Every other sentence, she's talking about a different country like it's nothing. "It's just incredible that I get to experience so many different places and people. And yeah, I have my eyes wide open walking through." CAN ANYONE DO THIS? When I asked if anyone can be a nomad, her answer was honest. "I think the idea of it appeals to a lot of people, but I think living it wouldn't appeal to as many of them." The idea is romantic. Travel. Freedom. Experiencing the world. But the reality includes things people don't anticipate. "We are still working. So you have to balance traveling, working, meeting new people. And I think there's a lot more different kind of stresses that come up." Like what? "Different languages, trying to communicate with people from that country. Where you need to go for the supermarket, the gym. All mundane things, they can get exhausting, consistently looking for how to live your routine in the new place." The exhaustion of constantly being new. Constantly figuring out basics. Constantly adapting. For Kayleigh, it's worth it. The freedom to choose where she is in March and April. The community in co-living spaces. The efficiency that nomadism forces. The life she deliberately built over years. But she knows it's not for everyone. The idea sounds better than the reality for many people. And that's fine. WHEN THE RESEARCHER TAKES OVER Twenty minutes into our conversation, Kayleigh asked if she could ask me questions. What followed was ten minutes of her interviewing me. The researcher from 2016 fully present. Asking about what attracted me to nomadism, how it's lived up to expectations, what struggles I've faced. We discovered we're more similar than either of us expected. Both discovered nomadism in 2016-2017. Both based our entire careers around making it possible. Both worked in offices we didn't want to be in to build necessary skills. Both only discovered co-living spaces recently, despite years of being nomadic. I told her about the struggles with maintaining relationships. How constant movement makes you inherently more selfish. How you're always the one who leaves. How absolute freedom means always choosing yourself. She asked how I'd reconcile that. Whether I wanted longer-term relationships. I didn't have an answer. The full conversation, including everything Kayleigh asked and what I revealed about the cost of constant freedom, is all within this episode. THE INTENTIONAL NOMAD Kayleigh represents something rare: someone who didn't fall into nomadism but built towards it deliberately over years. The long game works. But it comes with pressure. Years of anticipation can make reality disappointing when it doesn't immediately match expectations. Airbnbs isolate. Connection takes time. Community doesn't just happen. But when you find it, it's everything. She works twenty hours a week. Lives in castles. Chooses countries like most people choose weekend plans. And when given the chance, she couldn't help reverting to what she does best: asking questions, listening, observing. Some things don't change. And maybe that's exactly how it should be. Kayleigh Franks runs digital marketing strategies whilst living nomadically, eight years after spending three months in Chiang Mai studying the lifestyle she'd eventually build. You can hear her full story, including what she asked me when she turned the tables, in: www.ibimalik.com/podcasts/ibis-digital-nomad-stories/episodes/[EPISODE_LINK [http://www.ibimalik.com/podcasts/ibis-digital-nomad-stories/episodes/[EPISODE_LINK]] Digital nomads and location-independent professionals featured on Ibi's Digital Nomad Stories podcast share insights into building sustainable remote careers. Listen to all episodes: www.ibimalik.com/podcasts/ibis-digital-nomad-stories