On Seeking Paradise and Understanding Who it Serves
By: Anneka Van Scoyoc
Tags: Digital Nomads

I’ve been on the road with Remote Year for 11 months now. Recently, there have been a number of questions floating around in my head that don’t have answers attached to them. They’re often disjointed and they tend to be in the form of “why” statements. They wiggle themselves into my everyday life and cause me both curiosity and anxiety. Worst of all, they’re hard to articulate, which has made writing and talking about them challenging. But I’m going to try to do so here in this very public forum.

In an attempt to organize my thoughts, I’ve identified three clusters of questions that I’m going to flesh out here:

Questions about who I am as a tourist

Am I comfortable being a tourist?

My first cluster of questions revolves around my presence in a foreign place. If you’ve been keeping up with my blog, then you know how I’ve been grappling with the conundrum of how to be a tourist in a world where I generally dislike being a tourist. This article does a pretty perfect job summarizing my general feelings on the matter.

No one likes to be identified as a tourist. I have been living in a constant state of denial for the past 11 months, justifying that I don’t deserve the “tourist” label because I’m here for a month instead of 3 days. But in the end, I’m not a citizen and I don’t work in this country. I’m a digital nomad (the key word here being “nomad”) who stays a bit longer than your average Joe.

And that’s not necessarily a bad thing. A lot of economies thrive on tourism and I am often happy to be a part of that exchange. I give you money, you give me beautiful beaches, sunny days, a nice workspace, etc. But it’s a more complex issue than that and everyone knows it. Truthfully, I may be here a month, but I’m not really getting to know the locals. I appreciate Tracks™ because they in some way expose me to a part of the city I wouldn’t have the energy to arrange myself. But I’m not really integrating.

However, I am experiencing and bringing the knowledge I gain with me and integrating it into my life, views, beliefs, and understanding of the world. I have an appreciation for cultural differences (and yes, sometimes, unappreciation). An understanding of how the world works outside of the U.S.A.

But there’s a level of guilt I feel as a tourist.

Why do I feel guilty being a tourist?

I’m a white, middle class […in the States. Upper class in most of the rest of the world], privileged, young woman. I guess there’s always some guilt associated with that. Just the knowledge that I have easier access to things I need and want than many people, mostly because of the arbitrary dealing of life’s cards. Nowhere is the contrast between someone like me, who has the luxury to travel the world for a year, and the lifestyles of most of the rest of the world going to be more starkly highlighted than during this year of traveling to so many corners of the earth.

For the most part, I haven’t felt like there have been too many RY cities where we’ve lived drastically different lifestyles to locals. In fact, I’ve felt most uncomfortable when I’ve been side tripping and really have been a tourist by definition (save, perhaps, for Chiang Mai). Still, upon reflection, I’ve realized one of the reasons I was most comfortable in Kyoto was because it was a city where I truly felt like I was living like a local and wasn’t taking advantage of a country with a lower GDP than the U.S.

I’ve also discovered that I can be timid when it comes to interacting with people outside my bubble. When you’re on Remote Year, the focus is building relationships within your group which is great because it’s meant I’ve developed incredible life-long friendships. But RY’s structure doesn’t inherently encourage lots of interaction with locals. I don’t think that’s RY’s fault as it’s not their prerogative — it’s up to us to seize our own opportunities to branch out. But I’m not someone who’s likely to do that and I feel bad that I’m not dedicating time to connecting with the people who could be a gateway to true appreciation of a city. Unfortunately, not building those relationships furthers this disconnect between being someone who pops into a place for a short amount of time and being someone who really understands what it means to live in one of these cities.

I have also discovered that I hate feeling ignorant while traveling. It’s true that visiting a place is often the best way to learn about history, culture, etc. But I think what I’ve discovered is that it’s one thing to travel and have knowledge gaps filled in, a bigger picture painted, and cultural mannerisms added to your appreciation of what it means to be from that country, and it’s another to travel to a new country with your only real knowledge being where it is on the map. RY has taught me about how fulfilling it is to travel and learn, but it’s also taught me that I will always have a better, richer experience if I’ve done my research.

But should I feel guilty for being a tourist?

I’m sure most people reading this would respond with a resounding “no.” I did just list two paragraphs of reasons why traveling and being a tourist is a good thing. But despite that, I don’t think I’ve totally convinced myself. And I think that’s healthy. This year has shown me more about who I want to be as a traveler. I’ve discovered that personally, I’m someone who’s uncomfortable with major class disparities. I’m someone who doesn’t enjoy being waited on very much. And I don’t want to be someone who shows up somewhere without any context of where I am or who I’m interacting with.

On the other hand, I’m not sure guilt is the force that should be driving my travel decisions. Instead of feeling bad for situations and circumstances that are often out of my control, I think it’s better to evaluate the issues that have been brought to my attention during this year and sort them into the following categories:

Issues that are beyond my control, but are things I don’t want to support or encourage Issues that affect my day-to-day lifestyle choices Issues that I can do something about either locally or abroad

Dissecting these will help me feel less guilt about being who I am and feel more control over who I am as a traveler and a person.

Questions about how I present myself to the world as a tourist & digital nomad

Another cluster of questions taps into my level of comfort with what I share with the universe. Social media is such a central component to all of our lives, but there’s sort of this extra layer when you’re traveling the world for a year. We’re supposed to be constantly showing everyone where we are and how much we love it. Realistically, though, the truth is often mashed down and disguised as perfection.

Who am I as a digital nomad?

One of my friends on RY, Helene, is the most pro-digital-nomad-lifestyle person I’ve ever met. She came on RY because she had made a very conscious decision to work remotely & travel. It was comical how much this threw me for a loop, despite the fact that I too had made the same choice. But unlike her I hadn’t even heard of the term “digital nomad” till I arrived in Croatia and discovered I was one!

Since then, I have thought more about how much I want to embrace this title during this year and into the future. I’ve concluded that the digital nomad lifestyle is a great fit for my work/life values and other priorities. I see the benefits of working in an office as well, but after working out of WeWorks and other similar coworking spaces over the past 11 months, my ideas of what makes a good office have also shifted. On the whole, the digital nomad aspect of this year has been one of my favorite parts and is very much in line with what I think it can mean to be a “productive employee.”

If that’s the case, what’s wrong with being a digital nomad?

It’s not the lifestyle, but the label that I struggle with. If your only knowledge of digital nomadism is based off of Instagram, then you’re likely to think us a very cocky bunch. With our Insta pics of our laptops propped on knees while we dangle our feet in the ocean; Facebook albums of our sky diving/paragliding/shark swimming/hot air ballooning/robot club visiting/snowboarding excursions (which often happen on weekdays while YOU’RE stuck at your boring, conventional job in the States); and blog posts of grand adventures where we exclaim the joys of nomadism.

Sometimes being a digital nomad feels like the most self-indulgent lifestyle possible. I don’t know if I would feel this way without social media, but that’s not a hypothetical that many of us entertain. The social media aspect of digital nomadism has really worn on me over the year and has also made me question my reasoning behind the travel decisions I make.

Sometimes, especially when side tripping, I ask myself: why am I here? What has driven me here? What am I enjoying about being here? Every time I find a new lake view, green pasture, or turquoise beach I ask myself “why do I want this?” Whose paradise is this?

Why am I suddenly uncomfortable constantly seeking paradise?

This digital nomad lifestyle is amazing. In fact, in many ways it’s just plain luxurious. And I’m only 27 years old! I’ve been more places in a year than most people will visit in their lifetimes.

I guess after you see so many new things (and also a lot of the same), it becomes easier to start evaluating how YOU define paradise and not how others do. So much of this year is visiting these places that others dream of, taking the picture and sharing it with the world to announce that you made it! But when I look back on RY, my favorite memories actually rarely have to do with the landscape. They have to do with the people I shared the moments with.

In a way this is very freeing. It makes me realize that to me, paradise isn’t how swanky the Airbnb is or how blue the water is. It’s how much fun I’m having with the people I’m sharing it with.

But yeah, ok, I do love a good private pool. And that’s ok.

Questions about who this is for

My third group of thoughts center around one issue in particular: that is, who is this serving? This amazing year of mine where I experience the world, see new things, eat new foods, and work remotely. Who is this helping? What am I doing here and do I like it?

The obvious answer to the last question is an obvious “yes!” Of course I’m happy doing what I’m doing. As stated many times throughout this post, very few people will ever have an opportunity like the one I’ve had this year and I’m overjoyed each day I wake up in Colombia or wherever I’m living that month. I love the constant incentive to do more with my days, weeks, and months. I love realizing just how many small but important cultural mannerisms I’ve picked up on this year through interactions with locals. I love seeing new places and experiencing new things.

The problem here is that I just used the word “I” 10 times in that past paragraph. Because as much as I’m learning, loving, and living, this year is one of pure self-indulgence. Maybe the realization of how self-focused I am these days is not even a realization that comes from travel. Maybe everyone starts to question this at some point in their lives and my questioning just happens to have climaxed at the age of 27. Nevertheless, I think feeling like such an outsider on an everyday basis heightens the level of discomfort between the amount of time I spend focusing on myself and the amount of time I spend contributing to a community in some way.

So who am I serving?

Well, obviously the answer to that is me. This year of travel has pushed me to grow and reflect in ways I probably wouldn’t have back in D.C. and I so appreciate that. But I think I’m ready to change.

In light of this reflection, I now know that I’m ready to do the following things:

Contribute to a community. I’m not sure what community this will be or how I will do so, but I need to feel more connected to my neighbors to feel comfortable with myself and who I am as a world citizen.

Embrace the label “tourist” but only when I’ve done research on the place I’m visiting so that I have a basic level of understanding of their culture, people, and political climate. I want my travel choices to be based off of this research. I want to have a motive behind my travels.

Continue traveling with good friends. Remote Year has shown me that you can’t put a price tag on valuable time spent with the people you love. And sometimes it’s perfectly fine to bring people together in places that are normally associated with vacationing. That just doesn’t need to be the only way I travel.

I’m not ready to stop traveling. In answering these questions, I’ve realized that nowhere does the answer say “stop traveling” like I was worried it might. What it has done instead has made me understand how, where, and why I travel.

I’m excited at how helpful it’s been to think through these questions and land on the exciting, concrete conclusions that I have. Still, I’m sure most of these questions and others will continue to bounce around in my mind for a long time. But the real work is done by asking them, taking them to heart, and trying to be the best “tourist” I can be with each new adventure.