8 Years as a Digital Nomad: The Good, the Bad & What’s Next?

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Eight years ago today, I got on an airplane and moved to Mexico.

I had already been living abroad for over four years. For once, moving to another country wasn’t the biggest adventure on my to-do list.

When I moved to Mexico in 2016, I had already been job-less for over a year.

I quit my job as an English teacher in Korea back in April of 2015. Then I spent 5 months traveling around Asia, a few months back in the US visiting family, then a few months in the UK followed by two months housesitting around Paris and Copenhagen.

I was living off of my savings and things were starting to run low. I knew I wanted to make a living as a writer, but I was still trying to figure out exactly how to do that.

How it Started

When I started this blog in May of 2016, my intention was to use it as a portfolio to show publications what type of writing I could offer them.

I had in the back of my mind that I might, somehow, be able to make some money through my blog. But if I’m completely honest, I had NO IDEA how anyone could make money blogging. I just knew that some people seemed to be doing it.

I blogged for the love of it. To share my experiences and help others find the best things to see, do, and eat in different places around Mexico. Especially in Mexico City.

I didn’t make a single penny from my blog for that first year. Instead, I was copywriting. I wrote SEO articles for car companies (I can tell you a lot about Jeep Cherokees and Dodge Rams), I wrote blurbs for websites like Booking.com and Hipmunk.

Then one day while I was writing my 956th blurb trying to figure out a different way to describe an outdoor pool, I got an email from an editor at Lonely Planet.

First, I cried. Then I checked to see if it was spam. When I realized that it wasn’t, I cried some more.

The editor, who at the time, covered destinations around Mexico, had found my website and saw that I was based in Mexico City. She really liked my writing style and she wanted to know if I would be interested in being the Mexico City “local” for Lonely Planet’s website.

I don’t think I even waited 24 hours to reply.

Writing for Lonely Planet

Being asked to write for a dream publication like Lonely Planet was the validation I needed to step away from the non-travel-related writing that I absolutely hated (and that paid pennies).

I was writing articles for them, updating information on the website about restaurants, bars, and attractions. They even paid me for some of my very amateur photography.

It was the first time I felt like I was being treated like a real travel writer and it gave me the push that I needed to believe that I was good enough. I learned so much from my editor and really credit this role with much of the success that followed.

It was in year two as a digital nomad that I finally started to treat my blog like a business. I spent a lot of time learning how to earn income from my blog and by the end of year two I was finally making money from my website.

Eight Years On

Today, I am sitting in my apartment in Seattle, Washington.

Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think that this business would make me enough money to support myself in the US.

I started this website with the expecation that I would be making enough money to stay on the road, to keep traveling, and to live in cheap(er) countries like Mexico, Costa Rica, Thailand, and Lithuania.

I’m still traveling as much as possible. I just came back from a week in LA, before that I was on Orcas Island not far from the Canadian border. Before that I spent a week in Portland, and I already have plans to head to Mexico at least twice before the year is up.

But I’m also enjoying some of the things that I mentioned about missing in last year’s post.

I’m building community. I’m meeting new people, some like-minded, some expanding my own mind-set.

I have a library card and a bus pass and a beach chair that I use at the rocky beaches here. I take cold plunges in the icy Puget Sound and sit on my rooftop with my laptop in the shade of an umbrella looking out at Mt. Rainier on a clear day.

If you had told me eight years ago that I would be back living in the US, still running this business, still traveling and sharing my experiences with the internet, I would have told you no chance!

A lot has happened in the last eight years. I have lived what feels like many lives, but the one constant (besides Luke of course!), has been my website.

The Good

The last 12 months have been the best months financially for this business since I started it.

I am reaching more people thanks to my Spain website which has grown enormously in the last 12 months. It now receives over 60,000 monthly pageviews, earns a significant amount from affiliate income (far more than Eternal Expat!), and has a growing and active email list full of people who want to learn more about travel to Spain.

My YouTube channel continues to grow. By the end of the summer, it seems like I will just about hit 50,000 subscribers which feels like a huge milestone.

I am creating more US content, which is an adjustment. YouTube always makes you suffer a little bit when you change topics in some way and since I have never made videos about travel in the US before, the views are slow to come. But this happened when I moved to Lithuania and started making content about Europe.

Now many of those videos have well over 50,000 views, some of them have over 100,000. I am confident that with time and consistency, the views will increase.

The Bad

Have you seen the price of gas in Seattle?!

Ok, jokes aside. The cost of living is very high in Seattle compared to anywhere I have lived as an adult.

With that has come more stress to make sure that I am continuing to grow my business, especially financially.

This business has always fluctuated. There are great months and less great months and every now and again there are bad months.

I am working really hard to make sure there are no bad months and that has meant letting go of one of my writers who used to consistently write about the Riviera Maya in Mexico.

I’m so much more business-minded this year with my websites and my YouTube channel, which in some ways, takes away from the creativity and fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants chaos that usually drives my decision making.

Amidst these decisions, Google has changed the blogging game forever. If you’re not up to date on what has been happening for the last 9 months or so, Google search has completely changed its algorithms.

For many bloggers, this has meant utter destruction to their entire income structure. For me, it has been slightly less devastating thanks to the foresight to create a second website last year.

But it has definitely shaken me and forced me to look at different ways that this business can make money. For too long, I have relied very heavily on display ads which you see throughout this blog post (and every other blog post on this website).

But when Google is no longer bringing people to my website, there are a lot fewer eyes on those ads. Which means a significant loss of income.

I feel like I am slowly coming out of the other end thanks to patience and a few more Google updates that have worked in my favor as well as focusing on other methods of income like sponsored content and affiliate income.

What’s Next?

I am trying to find more balance (how many times in the last 8 years have I said this?!).

I have a few travel plans in the works for the next 6 months, but mostly I am enjoying life in Washington. I am enjoying having friends to have after work drinks with or try out new restaurants. I am enjoying beach days and local hikes.

I am looking forward to spending the rest of the summer in this region of the country before I hit the road again in September.

I am also focusing more on building up my websites as much as I can and creating fun and helpful travel videos over on YouTube.

I am trying not to be distracted by shiny new like Instagram reels (I have spent the last 60 days making reels and I now have FEWER followers than I did before), other YouTube channels (I am a glutton for trying new things), or any other projects that aren’t already part of my business.

Let’s see what the next 12 months have in store.