The question that may immediately come to mind could be "but what is a digital nomad?" and this is already difficult to explain, but I'll try anyway.
Digital nomads are people who have an online job that they can do from anywhere in the world: the so-called "remote work". Taking advantage of their freedom, they go to live in different countries, marveling at beautiful places, exploring and immersing themselves in other cultures and traditions. Something I've dreamed of since I was at university and that (spoiler) has finally come true!
There are several jobs that allow you to have this autonomy. Mine, for example, is being a Digital Marketing Expert, that is, creating marketing strategies, focusing above all on planning advertising on Google and Meta platforms. But there are also many others, such as Social Media Manager, Web Writer, Graphic Designer, etc.
But let's get back to us, to the digital nomad that I am and to my great adventure that is about to begin, namely the trip to Asia that I decided to take together with my boyfriend Giuseppe.
It all started when, working in a multinational in Lisbon, we were not satisfied and fulfilled, and we began to think about our future. We immediately realized that we wanted to travel and explore.
What do we want to do? How do we want to be organized? What job do we want to do?
All these questions led us to the idea of being freelancers: acquiring our own clients, opening a VAT number and enjoying our freedom traveling around the world. At this point we had to choose: "where are we going?". This is an easy choice for me. In fact, I had just finished my master's degree in Chinese, and I feel comfortable touring Asia, including my beloved China in this new experience.
And now comes the best part: creating the itinerary! Luckily, Giuseppe and I have always been on the same wavelength and so we had a lot of fun thinking about our life in those places in the Far East. A continent which seems so wonderful and at the same time mysterious, full of a culture so profoundly different from ours but really intriguing.
Talking and talking, we came to the decision to start from Thailand, which, given its central position, is an excellent starting point to then move around the rest of Southeast Asia. We will choose later where to continue the journey.
And this is our situation at the start of the trip. The only certainty is that we will arrive in Bangkok on October 30, then we will move north to participate in some unmissable and splendid festivals on November 15 and 16. Then, probably, we will continue to Laos by land, assuming we don't change our minds, Cambodia and Vietnam.
But we will find out this along the way! Or, as Battisti also says in his song, we will only find out by living!
The fact remains that I absolutely wanted to go to China... and what better time than the Lunar New Year, which falls on January 29th?
So, to recap: we will arrive in Thailand, we will pass through Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, and we will arrive in China for the Chinese New Year, but we still do not know where or when. But perhaps this is the beauty of being a nomad. This trip will be full of improvisation, changes of plan, events that may not depend on us and that will affect our choices.
But isn't this, in the end, life?
We plan all the phases, the years, our future, but then what happens in between is a big question mark and what will happen could change our destiny a thousand times compared to our predictions. In the meantime, we live, grow, have a career, start a family and be part of everything that happens.
The important thing is to have people we love and who love us close by, so that we can face and overcome everything that life throws at us and rejoice in all our goals and all the beautiful things that happen to us.
So, let's start like this, extremely grateful for this beautiful journey, happy because it's something new for us, and very curious about everything that will be. Next time I'll write to you from Bangkok or somewhere in Thailand and they will be the first impressions of the journey of a new culture.
I can't wait to tell you about it!
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