Digital Nomads are productive people, who don’t feel like doing classic corporate job. They are looking for alternative way of how to make a living, which can be, thanks to the internet, provided from anywhere in the world. They can work remotely while traveling and discovering themselves in new parts of the world. For a long time was Bali, the island in Indonesia, or Chiang Mai in Thailand, the most attractive places for Nomads because of its exotic beaches and low operating costs. But given the actual trends it is obvious that Nomads took a fancy to cities in Central Europe such as Budapest, Prague and Tallinn. So not only exotic islands but also these cities are up-to-date digital paradises.
Budapest and Prague with great ratings and low operating costs
Network of digital nomads is currently growing by speed of light and more people from all around the world lean towards similar way of life. Some European countries from former Eastern block that went through a huge transformation during last 20 years became in certain way an exotic for Nomads. They are modern European cities with low operating costs, great social and cultural activities and modern entrepreneurial drive – and according to Numbeo “cost of living comparator” even to half the cost compared with London, Brussels or Paris. Cities such as Budapest or Prague are appearing on leading positions in popularity of digital Nomads, and also with excellent reviews. According to world ranking – Nomad List – that is based on reviews and created by nomads themselves, Budapest is on the top position, and Prague in on the third place. Both of these capitals beat hundreds of other cities around the world and lot of digital geeks meetings are held in them.Both cities have great flight connections.
Alessandro is digital nomad from Italy and he spent one year working and living in Budapest. He found job on the place and it took him couple of weeks, as he remembered: “It was easy for me to find job as help desk assistant as the company was looking for people with native language different from Hungarian. I worked part time with Italians in the team. Full time would be enough to live there with western standards of living. Budapest is beautiful itself, amazing buildings and landscapes. City has mostly good WIFI everywhere, fast and not expensive.” What Alessandro didn’t like was cold winter there, so he preferred to move southern. According to Paylab the average salary in Budapest is 1230 eur brutto and in Prague 1345 eur brutto.
Tallinn in Estonia is digital heaven for nomad’s entrepreneurs
The next significant destination is the capital of Estonia – Tallinn, because it offers professional digital business support to the “entrepreneurs on the roads”. According to Numbeo Cost of Living comparison, Tallinn is little bit more expensive in comparison with Budapest and Prague, but Estonia is tagged as a digital tiger thanks to its national e-residency program, which drags entrepreneurs to create a virtual residency in this country that is by the way a member state of European Union. Thanks to the digitalization of state and public administration and smart technologies, it is possible to easily and effectively manage your business even if you are sitting on a beach with your laptop. It allows online tax filling, remote online administration, digital signing of contracts and documents, ability to hold euro and multicurrency accounts and low share capital requirements. Thanks to these conveniences, Estonia is loved by Nomads and start-up communities.
On a blog of Canadian Nomad Soheila, you can find out how easy is to start a company offshore. Marko Kažić, digital nomad who have spent 3 years living in Europe, Russia and Asia is native from Serbia. He also decided to register his company Zamphyr (Serbian online school for computer science) in Estonia. He says: “The benefit is clearly – lower tax, access to the EU market, but mainly its transparency and security that a procedure will be implemented consistently which I cannot say is the same in Serbia. Payment processing of credit cards is practically impossible in Serbia, it’s not even a matter of euro currency or something else – we just need to charge cards which is really really hard to do from Serbia.“
Compare your salary standard with citizens in Central and Eastern Europe
For better orientation in given realia, the international salary comparator Paylab published average monthly incomes of employees in selected capital cities in Central and Eastern Europe. Digital Nomads can easily compare their gross monthly income to incomes of ordinary people in these cities. This comparison shows that there are significant differences in salaries – especially in Baltic countries.
Sources for Paylab: Slovenia – Placa.si, Slovakia – Platy.sk, Czech Republic – Platy.cz, Hungary – Fizetesek.hu, Croatia – MojaPlaca.hr, Estonia – Palgad.ee, Bosna and Hercegovina – Plata.ba, Lithuania – Manoalga.lt, Latvia – Algas.lv, Serbia – InfoPlate.rs
Who are digital nomads?
Nomading is suitable as a seasonal reset, but it is also popular as long-term mindset or some kind of revolt against the traditional way of working. But it doesn’t mean that all modern digital nomads are freelancers. Many of them are working for home corporations on the road and employers assist by offering them various forms of labor contracts. Companies try to keep their key employees by offering them a longer time-out in sabbatical form. For some people is more suitable impact or seasonal work which can provide them a living for the rest of the year, if then, for example, they are living in countries with low operating costs. Some Nomads are looking for a job in their actual place of action. Salary tool Paylab is providing an overview on job position salaries in the area of Central and Eastern Europe.
From among the nomads there is growing a generation of start-upists and e-businessmen who organize meetings in various capitals and by this way combining business and a passion for traveling. Recently they even launched several traveling business projects, where Nomads can work and travel in groups. One of them is RemoteYear– a program for digital nomads which allows them to travel together across the world while working remotely. They believe that nomading attracts similar types of people with similar interests.
For Millenials is Digital Nomading an attractive lifestyle
The current generation of employees wants to savor money and life now and not to put it aside for retirement. Some of them just from pragmatic reasons, for example, they don’t like winter and want to draw energy in exotic paradises during winter months. The Digital nomads are not only young people with no commitments, but also mature people who feel that they need a change in their business or personal life, or simply want to start up their own thing. Digital nomadism is attractive even for young families whose children are not yet bound by compulsory education. When you meet these people at the street and they will ask you where they can find a good coffee house with good coffee and wifi – try to spend a while with them, you can learn a lot interesting things and they will be happy for a companionship in a foreign town. Loneliness is a plague that often follows nomads on their roads. 🙂
