r/digitalnomad

Anybody do Korea? I know it's not as inexpensive to live, and therefore as highly prized among digital nomads, but I'm interested in the language and culture, so I'm considering going. I read that overall, it's comparable to probably a mid-sized American city--or even cheaper--and I currently live in Los Angeles, so it would represent a real cheap drop for me. Anybody have any insights or thoughts on living well but inexpensively there? Has anybody tried it?

Hey all, i’ve been slo-madding with my remote job and i finally have a month in Rio coming up, very soon. How has it been for other digital nomads? The language barrier makes me a bit nervous, i hope my spanish helps me a bit. What activities do you recommend to meet other nomads? Is it really as dangerous as they make it seem? I’ve done Colombia solo before, comparable?

Thanks for any input!

Just curious as to what people travel with. I always contemplate this, I use to think I could take off with a bag and my laptop and be good to go indefinitely as long as I had a place to do laundry. Just want to know from the pros on what they rely on the most and how much do you travel with.

Looking for relocation recs for a married couple in their 30’s looking to eventually settle down in LATAM. We’re looking to travel as digital nomads this Fall with the goal of finding a good place to establish residency and we’re focused on Latin America.

We piloted Medellin and the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica last year. We’re also considering Belize, Brazil, and Mexico.

We’re in need of reliable internet to take zoom calls on camera and we’d like to keep our monthly budget to $2.5k. We’re really hoping to find a place where we can become a part of the community over time.

Are there any other places in Latin America we should put on our radar?

Genuinely asking because dc pops up less than cities like Austin or Denver in nomad conversations but I'm curious if there's a case for it. Working remotely full time and just want a good base with culture, food, things to do, and decent furnished housing options that aren't insane.

How does dc actually hold up for someone without a specific reason to be there vs. just choosing it as a quality place to spend a few months?

Hi everyone, if I was on Croatia's digital nomad visa and wanted to get a tax residency certificate, am I able to do so? I will spend 183+ days in the country.

I ask this, as, my understanding of the tax implications of the digital nomad program in Croatia is that holders do not pay tax for non-Croatian sourced income, although they are subjected to all other relevant forms of taxation (ie. capital gains). Thus, if I spent, say, 9 months in Croatia and severed any other tax residency ties elsewhere, and had to report capital gains tax, I would need to file for said taxes even if my income is exempt/0% via foreign sourced income.

The main reason I want a tax residency certificate or equivalent is due to my home country, where having proof of a tax residency certificate is more or less essential for proving that I am no longer subjected to being a tax resident in said home country. Additionally, I want proof of tax residency for banking related activity.

Any thoughts are helpful.

I feel like Canada, Australia, and New Zealand share a lot in common as they are all British influenced post-colonial settlements that are universally known most for its great outdoors and natural beauty. Culturally, there's undoubtedly a lot of more overlaps than shocks.

Cost-wise, they all seem quite similar in terms of accommodation, food, transport, etc. but it does seem like NZ is the hardest country out of the 3 to get around without renting a car despite it being the smallest of the 3 by far.

On the flip side, I could probably see all of NZ in one extended trip just by gradually making my way down from the North to South islands, but I'm 100% sure I can't do that with Australia and Canada where I must pick one region to focus on.

If you were to do an extended trip in any of these, which one would you choose?

A U.S. citizen DN here. I found this U.S. expat tax preparer last year that filed my taxes with the FEIE exception that gave me a huge tax refund. I did my search before contacting him. The guy is legit, he has a business and a decent website.

So I asked him to do my taxes this year too, but it sounds like he is over his head with orders. When I submitted all the documents through his website (back at the start of March) he sent me an automated email that he’d file an “automatic IRS extension” on my behalf. At the time I didn’t pay attention to it, but now I’m somewhat concerned because the April 15 deadline is approaching.

Had anyone have this happen before? It’s my second time using a tax preparer to file taxes.

PS. The only reason I used this guy is to help me file for FEIE. Otherwise I always did my own taxes before that.

I am currently in vietnam but there is no good way to find a serviced apartment for monthly rental. What does everyone use? Its mainly on FB marketplace or airbnb (which is overpriced)

Hey everyone,

I’m planning to spend some time in Southeast Asia (June-Aug) and looking for a 1–3 month base (not fast travel).

Main goal: keep it under $1,000/month (rent + basic living) while still having a good lifestyle.

What I’m looking for:

• Decent apartment (studio/1BR, not luxury but comfortable)
• Good transport / walkability
• Gym nearby
• Healthy food options
• Reliable internet

Places I’m currently considering:

• Kuala Lumpur
• Da Nang
• Bali / Lombok / Uluwatu

Would love quick insights on:

• Which of these actually fits sub-$1k/month comfortably?
• How’s the weather June–Aug (dealbreaker or manageable?)
• Which would you personally pick for a 1–3 month stay?

Currently working remotely due to the Middle East conflicts.

My office are only releasing us for wfh one week at a time, so can’t really plan for anything long term.

I’m thinking of spending some time in Spain.

Possibly; Granada / Nerja

Has anyone spent time in either? What was your experience like?

Thanks!

Are there other Spanish cities you’d suggest? Trying to keep costs low so avoiding Barcelona/Madrid.

I was planning to go from Osaka to Cebu April 19, for a few weeks. With the oil crisis going on, I see news articles that's it's all going very poorly there.

Can anyone on site share what the experience is like right now? Is there a risk of getting stranded?

I'm thinking about redirecting to Bangkok early, but I hear it's not great there either.

I’ve been looking into this lately and wanted to get some real input.

As someone outside the US, I keep seeing people talk about setting up a US LLC to get better access to payments, work with international clients more easily, and generally operate more globally.

On paper, it makes sense, but I’m not sure how much of that actually shows up in real day-to-day work.

From what I understand, the main benefits seem to be:

• Better access to certain payment processors
• More credibility with US clients
• Cleaner separation between personal and business finances

But I’m still unsure about things like:

• Ongoing compliance and admin
• Tax implications as a non-US resident
• Whether it’s even worth it at a smaller scale

Curious to hear from people who’ve actually done this, did it make a real difference, or not as much as expected?

I'm wondering if I'm the only one that does this. Back in Hong Kong, I usually pay about almost 2000 USD / month for rent.

I travel around in Asia, hopping around different hotels, taking various flights. I'm trying to keep track of these flights and hotels, trying to keep it around that baseline of 2000 USD / month, to make the "nomad" life make sense.

Anyone else doing the same, or have a better system for this? Right now I kind of just have an excel sheet.

Here's the graphs of where I've lived since 2022:

https://x.com/hopeseekr/status/2040771753916408277

Here's the tool:

https://ai.autonomo.codes/feie/

Paste directly from your spreadsheet, like

1/1/2026	01/10/2026	Bogota	Colombia
1/10/2026	02/01/2026	Merida	Mexico
2/1/2026	04/05/2026	New Cairo	Egypt

And you'll get those pretty graphs and your FEIE compliance windows, for American tax payers.

Traveling full-time with a heavy prescription is a logistical nightmare. Between hoarding months' worth of contact lenses, dealing with dry cabin air on long-haul flights, and staring at a laptop screen for 8 hours a day in random airbnbs, my eyes were constantly fried.

I recently based myself in seoul for a month and decided to finally look into medical tourism for vision correction. I wanted to share the logistics for any other nomads passing through Asia, because the ROI on this has been a massive game-changer for my daily routine.

1. The Tech & Why Korea:

I originally looked into Lasik in the US, but the downtime was too long for my work schedule. Korea is heavily pushing SMILE Lasik (and the newer SMILE Pro). It’s minimally invasive, meaning you don't get the severe dry eyes associated with traditional Lasik, crucial if you stare at screens all day. Plus, the cost is about 40-50% cheaper than in Western countries for better, newer machines.

2. The Timeline (Nomad friendly):

This was my biggest worry because I couldn't afford to take a week off work.

Friday morning: Walked in for a 2-hour comprehensive eye exam.

Friday afternoon: Got the SMILE surgery. The laser part literally took 10 seconds per eye. Saturday: Woke up with 20/20 vision. Slight haziness, but zero pain.

Monday: Back to working on my laptop full-time with blue-light non-prescription glasses.

3. The Language Barrier:

If you are worried about navigating medical stuff in a foreign country, don't be. I went to a major place called BGN eye clinic because I heard they have an entire in-house English department. A dedicated translator walked with me through every single machine and stayed in the operating room. Zero stress, zero miscommunication.

Takeaway:

If you are doing the digital nomad stint in Asia (especially Korea, Japan, or Taiwan), highly recommend carving out a weekend to get this done. Waking up in a new time zone and just being able to see without fumbling for glasses is the ultimate travel hack. Happy to answer any questions about the recovery process while working!

I run AI influencer accounts. fictional characters, AI generated content, Fanvue subscription income.

the reason it fits the nomad lifestyle so well: everything runs in the cloud. ComfyUI on RunPod, content scheduling from anywhere, Fanvue handles all the payment processing. all I need is a laptop and decent wifi.

there's no client work, no timezone dependency, no calls I have to be available for. the income is tied to the subscription count not to my hours.

the setup phase takes a few weeks of focused work. after that it's maintenance mode — a few hours a week to keep content going and grow the social following.

it took me longer than I expected to figure out the character consistency side of the AI pipeline but once that was solved the business model made sense pretty fast.

curious if anyone else here is doing something similar or has built income streams that work this well remotely.

When you work with clients or coworkers who speak different languages and have different accents, how do you communicate with them? I don't remember how many times I've nodded along on a call when I didn't understand what was going on. Is there really a good solution to this, or do you just have to get used to it?

As the title says.