Slowing Down The Nomadic Life: A New Way To Travel

📸 Hi from Malacca, Malaysia 🇲🇾

When my wife and I started our digital nomad journey in December 2022 in Vietnam, we were excited to explore new places. We planned our stays in each country carefully, optimizing for visa durations and the cities we wanted to visit.

For an entire year, we moved every 5 to 7 days. We did the same in Mexico and Costa Rica this year, with some exceptions. For tourists, spending that long in one place might feel excessive. But for us, it’s not a vacation—we’re living abroad full-time while working. We need time to work and enjoy “normal moments,” so we can’t move as fast as someone on holiday.

I’ve loved moving every week—it’s been the best time! We’ve seen incredible places in so many countries across Asia and Central America.

However, we realized this pace isn’t sustainable in the long run (especially for Rosie, who needs more rest and downtime than I do—and hates packing, which isn’t ideal when everything you own fits in a backpack 😂). That’s why we decided to slow down for the second half of 2024, revisiting familiar places to just live life. We spent two months in Bangkok, six weeks in Kuala Lumpur, and now we’re in Malacca for six weeks. People often laugh when I say this, but we’re living a pretty normal life—just in different places.

It feels like we’re transitioning from digital nomads to slowmads. We still live nomadically, but at a slower pace, moving every month or two instead of every week.

I’m not sure when—or if—we’ll settle down, but this feels like the next step in our journey. It will likely become a hybrid: traveling quickly for 2-3 months to explore new regions, followed by slower stays in places where we feel more at ease. Eventually, we’d like to establish a home base so we don’t have to carry everything we own all the time. Right now, the stuff we don’t travel with stays at either my parents’ or Rosie’s parents’ house, which isn’t always ideal or practical.

From what I’ve read, this seems like a natural evolution for many digital nomads.

Personally, I still have a strong desire to explore new countries, like South America or Europe. But I’ve also come to appreciate spending one or two months in a city I know, just to connect with the culture, people, and traditions on a deeper level. There are things you simply can’t experience in just a week—like discovering an insanely good bakery in Kuala Lumpur that makes bread as good as in France. Staying longer offers a different perspective. I’ve also realized that revisiting places for a longer stay can shift my impressions. For example, I loved Kuala Lumpur during my first week last year, but this time, after a few weeks, I felt ready to leave.

The reason I’m sharing this is to highlight that there are many ways to travel—no single “right” way. The amount of time you spend in a place depends on what works best for you. If you’re thinking about living a nomadic lifestyle, don’t feel discouraged by what others say or do. Everyone finds their own rhythm. And when there’s a will, there’s a way.