When I started to write about my travels, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. While researching for articles about long-term travel, I eventually came across the term ‘digital nomads’. Here is a post on one of my first encounters with digital nomads. Today, one year after starting my blog, I find myself on a cruise ship with 200 digital nomads, crossing the Atlantic Ocean. This post is about why the Nomad Cruise event was not only an economically affordable and relaxing way to get from Colombia to Portugal, but also a very beneficial experience in terms of work.
The concept of digital nomadism
The concept of digital nomadism is straightforward. You earn your living online through remote work or freelancing jobs, travelling around the world as you go. Most digital nomads live outside of their home country for more than the half of the year, while others travel non-stop and have reached a location independent lifestyle with no fixed boundaries. The advanced version of a digital nomad is a location-independent entrepreneur. He/she runs an online business and manages it from anywhere in the world while being on workation. No wonder there was a huge demand for the Nomad Cruise event, as it’s just a smart way to combine transportation, work and vacation.
When I chose to leave my job in 2011 in order to see what else life would have to offer, I did not know about the option of becoming location independent or a digital nomad. It just so happened to work out that my skills as a PR/Marketing consultant are easily applied to remote work and freelance offers. In fact, I’m still amused by the fact that something that I started by accident, with no long-term intentions, now has an official term that also defines a steady-growing crowd of people. I talked to many other digital nomads during the Nomad Cruise and they all confirmed the same: we all started our ‘thing’ and later found out about the concept.
After almost five years of traveling and working around the world, either solo or with my partner, the decision to group up and get to know other digital nomads was big. As much as I like the idea of individualism, and don’t usually tend to participate in group activities or tours, this cruise though sounded just too perfect to not join! The package included two weeks of workshops, networking, partying, relaxing at the pool while cruising towards Europe for less than the price of a flight ticket. If you have the time to jump on board, it’s definitely a great deal!
Life on a cruise ship – luckily we went with Nomad Cruise!
This was our first cruise, and it likely would have been a completely different experience if it weren’t for the other digital nomads on board. Cruise ship life is rather dull and follows a constant repetition of this pattern: eat, relax, eat, get entertained, eat, drink, sleep, repeat. Not that this would be the worst routine to follow, but I prefer to be a bit more self-directed and active on my vacation. But this was not a vacation for us! We travelled intensely over the previous 9 months, from Mexico to Ecuador all by bus. So, this cruise was a nice break from constant moving. We could simply sit back and relax! 🙂
‘Workation’ on a Cruise Ship: the Nomad Cruise Program
Even though we enjoyed the relaxing part of cruise ship life, we were actually really grateful to get our main ‘entertainment’ from the many inspiring workshops, talks and networking events organised by the team of Nomad Cruise. There was a great deal of savvy entrepreneurs and freelancers amongst the participants who shared their knowledge and experiences on how they make it happen to work remotely while traveling the world.
It was refreshing to be among other people who embrace the location independent lifestyle, and think in a different way. It became very obvious to me that this type of lifestyle has a huge potential to attract more and more people over time. I think, for most digital nomads on the cruise, that this lifestyle is not just a phase, but has become the reality that they will keep up for a very long time, possibly for the rest of their lives.
This became especially clear in some of the workshops with topics like starting a family and how to meet the right partner while traveling full-time. One great idea that excites me a lot emerged from one of the workshops: a world school for nomadic couples in order to make it possible for them to keep up with their lifestyle and provide the best education for their children. I really hope that we will see such an option in the future.
In general, the workshops aimed to give solutions for the challenges digital nomads can relate to, are currently working on or may face in the future.
A few examples from the nomad cruise program:
- How to run your business remotely from anywhere in the world
- Fast Track Your Facebook PPC Success
- Financial Planning for Freelancers and Entrepreneurs
- Podcasting like a pro
- Write Your How-To EBook in Two Days
- Co-Living spaces and digital nomads – a love story
And then there were more abstract workshops where people came up with awesome ideas on how to solve some of the challenges nomads are facing, such as ‘How to keep your Flow’ or ‘Emotional Intelligence for Business and Personal Success’.
To sum it up, the whole idea of meeting like-minded people and spending time together, while working on topics related to real-life situations, made this cruise absolutely worthwhile. Whoever wants to jump on the next nomad cruise, there will be one in September 2016. If you are interested in networking events for digital nomads, check out this post about ‘Events No Digital Nomad Should Miss In 2016’.
Excursion Day on St. Martin in the Caribbean
A cruise wouldn’t be complete if you didn’t get to hop off at an exotic island! On top of getting a lift from Colombia to Portugal, we stopped at the Caribbean island of St. Martin. It was a really nice break before continuing another 10 days to cross the Atlantic Ocean. We enjoyed a few hours of Internet in a café by the beach (yes, the digital nomad in me without internet on the ship really missed it in the beginning). After that, we spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying our last dip in the Caribbean Sea. It was a perfect way to say goodbye to this part of the world.
Arrival in Lisbon
After 13 days of cruising, we couldn’t believe how quickly time had flown by. As early as 4:30 am on the 9th of June 2016, we crossed underneath the 25 de Abril Bridge to make our way to the harbour of Lisbon. We then had to wait another 2 ½ hours on the ship until we were able to disembark and set foot on European ground. We used the time to enjoy a final breakfast on the ship and take a few pictures in the morning sun. The skyline of the city was exciting to see after looking at the blue ocean for the past two weeks.
Have you ever been to an event like this? How was your first experience on a cruise ship? Would you go again? If you liked this post, please comment below and share it with your friends! Happy travels y’all 😀
19 replies on “A 13 Day Workation on the Atlantic with Nomad Cruise”
Digital nomad is a great concept. And this is so good that there is a good mix of relaxation, offline-productivity and networking! I bet you had a good time bonding with like minded travelers.
This sounds like a great idea for a cruise! Didn’t know there was a cruise specially tailored for nomads! May be worth checking out in the future!
Hey Tom, thanks for stopping by! For your info, there is a nomad cruise in December, but this time it’s the other way round: from Europe to the Caribbean…
That is such an incredible and worthwhile experience although being on a boat for that long would really test me.
I know what you mean, this was the only point that made me hesitant at first, but to be honest, time flew by and in the end it didn’t bother me at all. Plus, it’s also worth to check how many stops are included. Our day off the boat on St. Martin gave the long journey a really nice break!
This sounds so awesome! I need to look into doing this! Sounds like it was a good time and great learning!
Yes it was indeed, Tarah! The next one is in December by the way. But they leave from Spain this time and go through the Caribbean (I don’t know how many stops and on which islands) to the Dom. Republic… you can apply for that from the 24th of June on their website… Let me know if you go, will you! 😀
I went on a cruise ship once over ten years ago… this seems like a good excuse to go again!
Yes, go for it, it really is worth it! 😀
Um, I love this idea. I’ve never heard of the term Digital Nomad – though I feel like I lived that life for 5 years without knowing it was an actual occupation, lol. This cruise sounds like the best of all worlds when it comes to getting work done. Those learning points looked interesting – quite a few helpful sessions! Hope you enjoyed your “time off” 😉
Haha, this happened to me too! I heard about it when I was already 4 years into living like a digital nomad! 😀 And yes, it was a really perfect mix of relaxation, offline-productivity and networking!
Wait this is crazy! I’ve never heard of digital nomads, but this post makes it enticing… and they’re even teaching how to raise digital children nomads?! Would you consider raising your kids as digital nomads as well?
😀 Yes, Gabe, this is really a topic all digital nomads eventually have to ask themselves. And I really don’t see why not! Traveling is one of the best schools, why not show our kids different cultures, ways of thinking, diverse food and meet regularly people from all over the world!? If you liked that post, perhaps you’re interested in one of my other posts about digital nomads: http://www.jeyjetter.com/how-to-start-a-digital-nomad-life/ or this: http://www.jeyjetter.com/how-to-travel-full-time/ Would be great to know what you think! Perhaps we just found our next digital nomad in you 😀
Fascinating article! I knew that many people live on the road and work nowadays, but I wasn’t familiar with the term digital nomad. This sounds like a great experience.
Thank you Tonia, I am glad you liked it and now that you know of the term, you’ll see there is a whole new world opening up! It happened to me last year, when I started to get familiar with the concept (even though I had already been living for four years by that time), there are so many interesting article, websites, forums etc out there about this topic!! Have fun and perhaps I’ll see you on one of these events one day! 😉
I love this idea and I would certainly consider it, howevr initially i was torn because of the lack of internet.
However I would be forced to disconnect and concentrate on writing, setting up processes, going to the workshops and networking. As a digital entrepreneur and full time traveller this may force me to focus rather than bouncing ideas around and around
Yes, I agree, if you are in the middle of a project or your clients are dependent on your constant availability then it’s definitely worth reconsidering it. I heard, that some people got the unlimited data internet package on the ship and if you only used it for emailing and lite stuff it seemed to work for them. But uploading heavy documents/files won’t work…in the end you are in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean 😀 But switching off for 2 weeks was actually not that bad! I could get a ton out of the workshops and the new connections that I made, so I’d say it was worth it!!!
What a great idea! The only thing that’s ever come ‘close’ for me was my time as a passenger on a Container ship from Athens to Hong Kong. As I was the only passenger, I mixed as much or as little as I wanted with the crew…I ate with them, and with no internet, I could finally finish my debut novel!
I will certainly look into this more as it sounds lovely to be able to meet like-minded people.
Ha, this sounds like a great experience too!!! 😀 Yes, the people factor was really what gave this cruise its value! So, hopefully there are more great events like this in the future, not only on cruise ships…it could be on trains too 😀