The coronavirus pandemic washed over the entire world and then began to ebb, with the advent of effective vaccines and greater understanding of how to treat the virus, leaving behind a changed and shaken populace. Many people have become resistant to the idea of returning to traditional office-based work, and have instead adopted something of a nomadic lifestyle, traveling widely, enjoying experiences and not worrying as much about promotions, landing deals and making a name for oneself. Why are so many families adopting a nomadic lifestyle?Work from Home – or Anywhere, Really!
With the sudden embrace of work from home technologies: Zoom calls, collaborative shared documents, and the realisation that one doesn't have to be sitting under a manager's eye to be productive and achieve work targets. In fact, many people enjoyed working from home – especially when given the choice to tailor their days to fill in their eight hours in any way that they could – so much that they have demanded to work from home full time – or to work flexibly with two or three days based at home. This was quite quickly transformed into the realisation, as the world opened up again, that work from 'home' could be tweaked to mean work from anywhere handy – or perhaps even somewhere quite distant! As long as they have access to high-speed internet and keep an eye on the time zones, there is nothing to stop a nomad checking into work from the beach or the top of a mountain! Being able to travel without fretting about money, because you don't stop earning, is a wonderfully freeing experience.
The Great Resignation
Especially in the USA, but also with some UK sectors, the pandemic made people think about what they really wanted from life. Many found that their dream wasn't actually slaving away for 60 hours a week to pay one-percente shareholders a fat dividend… And they resigned en masse, seeking employment in fields closer to their childhood dreams and aspirations, perhaps reducing their income, but massively boosting their happiness levels.
Growing Awareness of Mental Health Issues
Along with the Great Resignation, and probably a contributing factor to many cases, came the new, more sympathetic understanding of mental health issues. Instead of eye-rolls and accusations of laziness, people found that their worries about mental health were actually taken seriously. And in examining the roots of their mental health issues, many found that, along with worries about Covid, the specter of unexpected and untimely death and other pandemic related blues, much of their mental ill-health came from their lifestyle: living in small, cramped apartments, blocked off from nature by the city's urban jungle, and racing, always, to stay ahead of the bread line, with expensive rent and food swallowing up enormous amounts of income. Travelling to other countries and having low overheads by living in a campervan: no rent, no utilities, much cheaper and better quality food – transformed their lives in ways that many are still coming to terms with, unable to believe how much nicer their lives have become. Their main expenditure is probably insurance to keep their campervan in good condition and their nomadic life in full flood. Check out campervan-insurance.co.uk here.
The Gig Economy Enabled It
With companies reluctant to pay employees full time salaries, offering short hour or zero-hour contracts instead of fixed monthly employment, it has the effect of letting people know that they are disposable as far as the company goes. When your boss doesn't care about you being able to eat or make your rent, any sense of loyalty to the company quickly vanishes: and when people lost their jobs due to the pandemic, they took the opportunity to reassess their skills – and many realised that they could live comfortably and happily by making the change to a nomadic lifestyle.
