🪃 Are you a boomerang nomad?

Welcome to the Freaking Nomads Newsletter, your weekly dose of stories, insights, tools, and opportunities for digital nomads and remote workers building a life without borders.

Hey Freaking Nomads,

Last week, someone from my old 2021 digital nomad group chat posted a photo of an apartment with a caption that just said "home."

I sat with that word for a minute.

We all left within a few months of each other back then. Jobs went remote overnight, and suddenly staying in one place felt like such a wasted opportunity to go see the world instead.

For a while, that group chat was border crossings and coworking recommendations, all day every day. It felt like something we were all doing together.

Lately it looks different. Someone got a lease. Someone took a full-time office job, the kind with a badge and a desk that has their name on it. Someone moved back in with family for a while to stay close to their loved ones.

I’ve read somewhere about this term "boomerang nomads," people whose life arc curved back toward something stationary. Some stay stationary. Some leave again after a while.

The thing is, nobody in that group chat signed a contract promising to be a digital nomad forever. It was a chapter. Some people are just turning the page. No matter how sad I might feel that people are changing.

My friends confessed that what tripped them up was how much identity they'd built around moving. Leaving becomes who you are, until leaving is the only thing that still feels like you. So going back can feel like losing yourself, when really it's just choosing yourself again, differently.

If you're out here nomading and it still feels incredible, stay. If some quiet part of you is done, that's allowed too. And if you've already gone back, or you're circling the idea, I really do hope you don’t feel like you’ve failed at something. This life doesn't disappear if you leave it for a while. It'll be there if you want it again. And it's just as fine if you don't.

Have you gone back, or are you thinking about it? Hit reply, I'd genuinely love to know where you landed, and why.

Irene xx

Who is hiring this week? Here are some top roles to check out:

Whichever way this chapter goes for you, staying put or full-time traveling, your money probably hasn't caught up yet.

Years of moving usually means your finances end up just as scattered as you were. A bit of savings in one currency, client payments landing in another, a card that only really makes sense in the country you had it issued in.

We've been using Wise for exactly this kind of moment. What it actually does:

Move your money where you're going →

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We'll see you there, Freaking Nomads 👋