Alivewithad

A newsletter where you learn how to become a digital nomad from people who have been doing it for years.

Read Time: 3 min

Hey, this is Anirban, and welcome to the first edition of alivewithad, where you’ll learn how to become a digital nomad from people who have been living the lifestyle for years.

In this edition, I interviewed seasoned digital nomads and asked them about their travel journeys.

Now, let me introduce the first guest of my newsletter!

Light, Camera and Action 🥁 👟🧗🏻‍♀️

Nomad of the Week is 🦘 Sajida Siddiqui

Say hi to Sajida👋🏻

She’ll introduce herself to you.

Hi, I am Sajida Siddiqui ( Also Known As travelwithsajida by my Instagram travel community!)

I’ve worked as a developer for 5+ years in Bengaluru and then switched to full-time freelancing and content creation to build my life the way I want to live.

Nomad Story:

Q. How did you become a digital nomad

I was working as a software developer in a leading Fortune 500 company. Initially, the job was exciting, the work kept changing and was interesting but slowly I kept losing interest in it and found myself doing nothing fun or creative which really took a toll on me.

So while doing my 9-5, I started my Instagram travel page and began sharing about my travels from around the world, especially India. I love to write ever since I was in primary school and so I started writing travel blogs on my website as well.

I realized that the activity of doing research (which I actually loved doing during my engineering days), studying market trends, learning and implementing content strategies for myself, and writing made me quite excited and the joy I got by creating the finished product - be it a reel, feed post, articles, blogs or even stories was enough to make me tired yet happy.

So I deep-dived into it and during Covid, I took the leap of faith in myself and left my job to pursue freelancing in building personal brands for other professionals along with building my own brand on Linkedin while continuing my quest to share travel stories on my Instagram.

I wrote this within a sentence or two here but the whole journey was quite stressful yet rewarding.

There were highs and lows in terms of finances, overall health and the uncertainty of things but something in me kept believing in myself and I kept making small yet consistent efforts to figure out what I want and achieving it.

I actually went on a solo trip to Mumbai where I met many people (I stayed at a hostel in Colaba) and took time to understand the world outside the corporate world, how it works, what I can do to change my mindset from an employee to someone who can run her own business and similarly traveling to other destinations made me look at my world in a different perspective.

Q. Highlight your favourite destination and why

Sharing just one favorite destination is impossible for me. Each place I visit has had an effect on me which is quite unique and beyond any comparison.

But yes, if you ask me the most stunning natural beauty I’ve ever seen then it would definitely be either Kashmir or Switzerland.

They both are quite similar in terms of natural beauty. I just wish for the government and tourists in Kashmir to make efforts to keep it clean because that’s the only factor which makes me rank Kashmir at No.2 and Switzerland at No. 1

Q. The biggest challenges you’ve faced on the road

Traveling as a woman, I’ve to be quite careful and unfortunately plan my travels accordingly.

Any “Safe” stay, hotel, restaurant, locality, or transport is always a bit expensive and yet offers no guarantee of being completely safe.

So it’s a matter of trusting your intuition and choosing things to the best of your understanding while planning trips.

This has always been the biggest challenge for me - to try and be safe, always be on alert mode while traveling which somewhat kills the joy of being spontaneous and exploring the unexplored and simply just being care-free. That’s a privilege I’d love to have.

Q. How do you balance your work and travel

To be honest, I am not good at balancing work and travel. Sometimes, travel itself is my work so at those times I am good at it but my work definitely suffers when it’s a short trip of say 2-5 days.

Having a schedule while traveling is important to maintain a work-travel balance.

And it’s only possible if we travel slow i.e stay at least for a week at the same place and explore around your work schedule.

So I’ve been slow traveling for my past few trips and making myself feel comfortable with balancing work and travel together.

Q. Have you developed any unique skills or strategies while being nomadic?

Yes!

• Slow Travel

• Working in noise (Still getting used to it)

• Filming in public

• Knowing how to start conversations with strangers as an ambivert.

• Trusting myself over listening to others who haven’t been on the same path as me.

Pro Tips from the Nomad:

• Productivity tip:

By making a schedule and trying to stick to it. I assume that I won’t follow it for 2-3 days so I make my schedule accordingly. This makes me not feel guilty about missing certain tasks each day.

• Travel tip:

Plan for a week, not every single day. I’ve a weekly things to-do list which gives me enough time to complete my work.

• Tech/tool recommendation:

Explore places early in the morning - It has 2 benefits: No crowd at popular spots and getting to catch the sunrise which definitely does boost our mood!

Favorite Digital Nomad Resource:

( Go-to app, website, or a resource that helps you stay connected, manage finances, and find accommodation)

My favourite travel hack is to follow the steps I’ve written in my travel guide to the T to have my entire trip planned within a few hours while getting all the deals I possibly can on it! 

I’ve curated it based on my years of experience traveling around the world and I keep updating it as and when I find a new useful step or hack so I love it. If the readers want to have a look, this is it - https://topmate.io/sajida/724589

Google Workspace works best for me. And the inbuilt notes app on my laptop. I try to keep things as simple as possible.

I’ve curated the entire list with steps on how and where to implement them in my travel ebook. 

Different budgets require different strategies to book and plan our trips so that’s explained in the ebook as well.

Apart from that, readers can follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/travelwithsajida/

to stay updated with everything new I try!

To manage finances as well, I use Google Workspace. It’s easy to use for me. Many people do use Notion for it as well. 

I would love to thank Sajida for her contribution to the very first edition of my travel newsletter.

Make sure to follow her and learn from her.

Nomad FAQs

I’d suggest this person visit Lapland, Finland.

Now you can ask me why?

Well for three reasons

1. Santa Claus Village

2. Husky Safaris and Reindeer Rides

3. Northern Lights Viewing

Freelancer business growth

Diversify Your Business

If you're only offering Done-For-You (DFY) services, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity to expand your reach and revenue.

Consider creating:

• Digital Products (eBooks, checklists)

• A Newsletter (the only audience you truly own)

• Courses

These additions will help you diversify your income, creating a flexible side hustle that can be scaled to fit your needs.

Nomad gear guide

Nomatic Travel Backpack

This is specifically designed for digital nomads.

This backpack features multiple compartments to keep your tech organized while being compact enough for carry-on travel.

Work from anywhere deals

Digital Nomad Visa

Professional whose work can be performed remotely and who intends to live in Brazil and has a minimum monthly income of US$ 1,500.00 or an available balance of at least US$ 18,000.00.

Living a nomadic life isn’t easy, and it probably never will be.

But with the right people to follow and the right resources, everything becomes possible.

Thank you for reading the first edition of ‘new’ alivewithad!

I’ll see you next Sunday with another guest. Until then, keep travelling and keep exploring.

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