'I've Lived in 20 Countries Over Four Years'

Last September, I ran out of pages in my passport. At the renewal office, someone generously called it "well-loved" because, by then, the cover had almost completely worn off.

In the past four years alone, my passport and I have been to over 40 countries, and I have lived in half of those places for more than a month. "Where next?" has become a familiar question from my friends. Sometimes, this is asked with a tinge of jealousy, but more often than not, people are simply curious where you will go when you can go anywhere.

In the age of Covid and The Great Resignation, more people are mobile and working on-the-go than ever before. Work-from-home has become work-from-anywhere, and millions of Americans are quitting their jobs every month, often because they crave freedom—be it creative, professional, geographical, or any combination of the three.

Taking a one-way flight

I started my nomadic journey when I quit my job and booked a one-way flight from San Francisco to New Zealand, which was on my bucket list. The plan was to buy a campervan and spend a year driving around, perhaps stopping for a few months to work on a winery or dairy farm.

I worked on two farms in New Zealand, where I got food and accommodation in exchange for four hours a week of volunteering. I worked at a boysenberry farm and a permaculture farm. We also slept on a dairy farm where we got to see the cows get milked in the morning through the machines.

The idea of waking up to a new backyard everyday seemed so romantic, but after three months of sleeping, cooking, and washing dishes in the back of a used van, I was ready to live somewhere with enough space to stand—and to have a bathroom of my own.

China, where my grandparents live, was an obvious choice for my next destination. In addition to home-cooked meals, and catching up with friends and family, I learned about the venture capital scene in Asia, particularly how fast everything happens.

For the next three months, I expanded my network on LinkedIn, which is one of the few social media sites allowed in China. I joined online communities, toured factories, and struck up conversations with everyone from a co-working desk-mate to the lady painting my toenails.

Rather than a nomad, in Asia I was just a typical 25-year-old Chinese girl. I went to raves where everyone wore costumes themed from the Han Dynasty. I binged on popular Chinese reality television, which seemed oddly familiar. I ordered my groceries through a local WeChat group run by the neighborhood gossip, who happened to be my aunt.

Learning from different cultures

This was more than tourism; it was an education. You can read about living in another culture, but you can't truly experience it unless you do it. I vividly remember a hospital waiting room as crowded as a rush-hour subway car, and grocery shopping as an automated delivery pick packing system whirred over my head.

Suddenly, I was thinking a lot about what could be done locally and what could be exported to other places, and the bucket list was out. Gaining business insights became my reason for traveling.

So, I traveled to Japan, just a short flight away but, culturally, a different world. My uncle had told me that if I wanted to see China's future, I should go there. Japan has one of the world's oldest populations, and he thought maybe I could find solutions to China's aging society.

I left Japan without any silver bullets, making my way to Israel and Palestine. My inspiration was a founders' dinner in Shenzhen, China's technology hub, where I'd met a man who led the Chinese delegation to Tel Aviv's tech conference. Though many don't realize it, Tel Aviv is a major research hub and also the world's most expensive city. When he offered me a ticket, I knew I couldn't refuse the opportunity to understand how a country of less than 10 million people—not even one percent of China's population—had become a top incubator for tech startups around the world.

From there, I went to Kenya, where a college friend's firm was leading infrastructure investment for China's Belt and Road Initiative; then to Vietnam, which is one of the fastest-growing, and youngest, economies in the world. The journey continued to Mumbai, New Delhi, Nairobi, and Ghana.

In the four years since 2018, I have lived for over a month in 20 countries: Canada, New Zealand, Australia, China, U.S., Japan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Egypt, Greece, Croatia, Jordan, Israel, Kenya, Mexico Colombia, Turkey and France.

Everywhere I have been, I have found myself asking: "What is unique about this place that we can take inspiration from?" The solutions my uncle sought have eluded me, but questions have spawned new questions and inspired me to keep searching.

The benefits of a nomadic lifestyle

People ask me if the digital nomad life is lonely. While it can feel untethered, one meets too many people to ever feel alone. I now travel to places not to check them off a list, but because I already know a local who has told me I must come and check out something more interesting than the place before. Usually, I have a question that makes my heart race so fast that I have to get to the bottom of it.

In living this way, I also represent a new trend. Rather than dropping in for a week or less, travelers like myself are staying in a country for one to three months in order to experience life there as a local. This helps me experience culture on a deeper level, learn from others how to live in a different way, make the most unexpected discoveries, and stay as long as the place brings me joy.

A month-long stay in Nairobi surprised me with the best Chinese food outside of China and the best mobile payment system outside of WeChat. Living in Mexico City blessed me with the time to learn salsa. In Honolulu, I learned to surf; in Madrid, to relax at the pace of Spanish life. I book my next plane ticket based upon the serendipity of what I learn, the people I meet, and the new questions I have about the world.

A question that I am often asked by strangers on the internet, as well as my own grandmother, is how I can afford to live a nomadic lifestyle. I tell them that it depends on your skills, your bank account, and the trade-offs between money and freedom you're willing to make, as well as if you've kept your current job. Back in New Zealand, for example, I worked as a picker on a boysenberry farm. Friends have worked in restaurants or picked up informal gigs to support their travels.

When I read of leaders like Marc Benioff, Lord Dyson and Elon Musk criticizing office expats like myself, I no longer bristle. Perhaps my fellow nomads and I are missing out on building relationships at the office, but we are learning other skills. We may not be finding all the answers, but we are discovering the right questions.

Ivy Xu is founder of Prequel, an innovative life skills company.

All views expressed in this article are the author's own.

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