Why I Stopped Being a Digital Nomad

I stopped being a digital nomad after almost 7 full years on the road, quite a while ago now. I’ve had almost 6 years to get used to the idea of not being a digital nomad or full-time traveller, and honestly, it still hurts at times. I miss it. Just as I miss my home and family in the UK. But there are a few things I need to explain about why stopping our digital nomad journey was probably for the best.

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Stopping Being Digital Nomads

This post shouldn’t be about why “I” stopped being a digital nomad, I should be “we”. We were a digital nomad family of 4, the kids were on the road from age 6 (the younger child) to about 16 years old (the older child).

Those years were amazing, and I have no regrets. There were a few negatives of travel, I wrote about them here, but they were minor, and at the time, we didn’t think about them.

Briefly, the benefits of a digital nomad lifestyle were, more family time and connection, travel experiences and learning for all of us, freedom from the system, and the ability to spend time in the places we loved most. We were “worldschooling” all of us, not just the kids.

Encyclopaedic knowledge of travel destinations and how to travel are the basis of this website, and I can still make a living with those tools today.

I don’t make nearly as much money from this site as I used to, thanks to AI and Google changes, but it’s still a good amount. We would struggle to travel as a family on my income in 2026, not least because the kids are grown, need their own beds in hotel rooms, and eat a lot.

Travelling with small kids is far more budget-friendly.

These big kids have jobs today, and when we travel, they do contribute to the cost, although we don’t ask them to; they help. So this is how, in part, we can treat ourselves to fancy hotels like The Fullerton, rather than a budget shoebox room in Singapore today. If you only stay a night or two rather than a week or two, the price doesn’t hurt as much.

So, we did almost 7 years, and we stopped. This post covers why we stopped, how to adjust and some of the benefits of ceasing to be nomadic.

We Were Forced To Stop Being Nomads

It wasn’t our choice; it was lockdown. We couldn’t get out of the country or into most. We absolutely did not want to stop, and it was a horrible time. But, in retrospect, it was maybe the right time.

Stopping Being Nomadic Allowed Exams and Jobs

I was a bit delusional, thinking that my kids would follow me into the world of websites. It’s easy to me, I enjoy it, and I thought that obviously, they’d want that too.

Being a travel blogger allows us to travel and allowed us to be nomads.

It turns out that the kids have no desire to make websites at all.

They both got regular jobs and are happy swapping their time for a wage. I did that for 20 years and hated it, maybe in a few years they’ll think like me, but for now, they want to do the normal thing.

That said, they are part-time jobs, so if they want to take a trip, they can tell their bosses they are unavailable, as can my husband. They all have freedom.

They have UK passports; they would be able to work in the UK, but nowhere else in the world. They need to make money and haven’t even thought about digital nomad jobs (teaching, etc.) other than what I do, blogging. They don’t want to do that, and that’s OK.

They also sat exams and passed well. I didn’t consider exams to be important, but as we were stuck at home, why not? That piece of paper is good backup, maybe, one day, if they decide on a particular career path.

We Were Able To Try Something Different, A New Lifestyle, By Stopping Travel

I think that trying out various lifestyles and places to live those lifestyles is a very good thing. We all need to find a passion and pursue it with purpose. But how do you know what your passion is if you don’t try new things?

Those passions change with your stage of life. Having kids is a big change, they were my #1 passion, then came educating them, then travelling with them.

Then writing about travel became a passion later, this website, my 3rd child.

And then we couldn’t travel, so we had to pick something else.

Gardening, animals, homesteading, preserving, cooking, sure, let’s try that for a while. We thought it would be good for all of us.

It’s almost 4 years on the farm now. I’m not sure if it will be forever, but it’s been yet another cool experience. We write about that at tropicalfoodgarden.com.

I’m starting to think that retiring to Asia might be a good idea further down the line, or going home to the UK. Who knows what the future will bring?

There is no rule that says you have to pick a path and stick to it for a whole lifetime. I refuse to do that.

We Stopped Travel and Swapped It For a Cozy, Functional Home

I’m quite a homebody, which may be surprising. I love to renovate, decorate and refurbish. I also enjoy cooking and providing for my family.

Having a homely home is rather nice.

A well-equipped kitchen is a joy, but it was never one I missed on the road.

Living out of backpacks is just fine, it was a non-issue. Fewer possessions bring you less work and less stress, certainly fewer expenses.

So while living in guest houses and small hotels, 4 to a room, is just fine by us, so is our small home in the country. Both are good choices. You just have to pick which will suit you, for your current stage of life.

You Have To Change Your Outlook If You Stop Travelling

Stopping, particularly against your will, going cold turkey, is really, really hard.

There has been a slow transition to a different outlook.

The 3D world of commute, work, food, weekend, chores etc, isn’t for us, we were never going to slot back into that box.

We had to make life such that what we had was the dream.

I can go outside now and be blissfully happy with my garden and animals. I need nothing more. It doesn’t feel like a Groundhog Day kind of life at all, it is joy.

So while I still adore the change of scene and exciting experiences of travel, constantly giving me my dopamine fixes, different things can give me that now. It comes from within.

We Stopped Being Digital Nomads Because Of The Kids

Much as I’d love to keep my kids young forever, that’s not reality. They grew up and developed different needs.

So while in 2020 everything was still fine for us on the road as a family, a year or two later, things may have crumbled. Our family dynamic may have been negatively affected.

Because what happened when it did, I think we managed to ride out those transition years from child to young adult more smoothly.

It’s something to think about. Will your kids age-out of family travel, and will that cause rifts? I wrote a post about the best age to travel with kids, and one about travel with teens, but it didn’t include the 18-21 years. They would have been different.

While I still travel a lot with my young adult kids today, I don’t think full-time would work now. They prefer shorter trips, and then get back to normal life and work.

We did manage to give the kids some great experiences and opportunities during those lockdown years. They were volunteering, taking various non-academic, useful courses, attending an online school and living a different kind of life.

All life experiences build who you are.

We Had To Stop Being Nomads Because Blogging Isn’t a Reliable Income Stream

If I had the limiting belief that I’d never be able to support a family as I blogger, I wouldn’t have done it. I knew nothing about it at first, but I taught myself and had great success. I thought I could do it, so I did.

Limiting beliefs aren’t part of my makeup. I remember a neighbour telling me that we couldn’t move house just for 6 months and walk away with a profit on the renovation. I said, “Watch me.”

They said we couldn’t travel with kids. I said, “Hold my beer.”

From 2020 onwards, most bloggers got hit hard. People were losing 50%, even 90% of their income within a few days, and there was nothing they could do to get it back.

I could have changed my mindset and resolved to blogging being futile with no hope for a successful future, but I didn’t. I’m still persisting intentionally, and a new site that I started in 2024 has been a big financial success for us.

I always thought that I could ride out the darkest days and be successful again, without pivoting to being an influencer or course seller. I’m not a huge fan of influencing generally. I’m more about helping if I can.

So don’t have limiting beliefs. If you think you can do it, you can. Start doing it now.

Had we not had to stop full-time travelling in 2020, and come home, we may have found ourselves in severe financial difficulty, stuck in a hotel room somewhere while my blogging income plummeted.

Instead, we were at home, and my husband, and later, my son, were able to find paid work to get us through the collapse of the travel industry.

Those lockdown years allowed us to survive financially from other income streams. It was probably meant to be.

We Stopped Being Digital Nomads Because The World Has Changed a Lot

So many changes in the last 20+ years! Our first RTW (round the world trip) as a young couple was way back in 2001. We enjoy traditional ways of life, villages and undeveloped places. We like old-school backpacker travel on rickety buses through untouched places, seeing different ways to live. Those untouched places are disappearing everywhere in the world.

Bali is almost unrecognisable today. While we still enjoy staying in Ubud, digital nomad central, Canguu, isn’t a place we’d want to be.

Digital Nomad Visas are appearing in many countries, which sounds like a headache we don’t want; we were happy with tourist visas.

Bangkok changes constantly. We wrote a few years ago about how the Khao San Rd had changed. There has been more change in the last year, and we need to go back and see what it’s like now. We will, soon.

Chiang Mai is still Chiang Mai, we love it, with more fancy guest houses and hotels and fewer traditional wooden buildings. Its ancient temples and city walls keep it more protected.

Everything has changed. People tell me crime in London is terrible now, although we’ve never experienced this, and we’re in London regularly visiting friends and family. But maybe it has, is it still safe? I think it is. Maybe the press are stirring up division with sensational headlines.

Some countries are more unsafe today, some are too digitalised. Some places are too polluted.

For us, with memories of how the world used to be, it can be shocking.

So there is less appeal today in visiting certain places. We recently visited Ninh Binh Vietnam, that post is almost ready to publish, I would never go there again, it’s just not what it was.

Don’t Let Us Put You Off Starting Being Digital Nomads

It’s an amazing lifestyle; if you want to, do it. See if it’s for you. We did it for a very long time and loved it. These are just some thoughts on reasons to stop.

Have a great day! As we’re not on social media, the comments section on this blog is all yours, what are your thoughts?

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