Full-Time Nomads Are Slowing Down. That Is How They Balance Work and Travel

Full-Time Nomads Are Slowing Down. That Is How They Balance Work and Travel

American digital nomads spent an average of 6.4 weeks in each location in 2025, up from 5.4 weeks in 2023, according to the annual digital nomad study by MBO Partners, a firm that tracks independent work. Over the same period, the number of places the typical nomad visited in a year fell from 7.2 to 6.2. The report describes the pattern plainly: rather than visiting a large number of places, nomads are opting to stay longer at fewer destinations.

The shift says something about what it takes to hold down a job while living on the move. The early image of digital nomadism was constant motion, a new city every week and work squeezed in between flights. The people who have done it for years have mostly abandoned that model. Their experience, and the survey data behind it, point to a few practical habits that separate a sustainable arrangement from one that ends in burnout.

Who is doing it now

The population is large and increasingly made up of salaried employees. MBO Partners counted about 18.5 million American digital nomads in 2025, roughly 12 percent of the U.S. workforce. About 11.2 million of them held traditional jobs with an employer, up from 10.2 million a year earlier, while the number of independent workers fell to 7.3 million. Before 2020, independents were the majority.

That change matters for how nomads organize their days. An employee has fixed meetings, a manager and colleagues in a home time zone. The flexibility that a freelancer can take for granted is narrower, and the cost of a missed call or a dropped connection is higher. It also helps explain the move toward longer stays, which make it easier to keep a stable schedule.

The problems are predictable

The same study asked nomads about their biggest difficulties. Being away from family and friends and financial stress were each cited by 26 percent, personal safety by 25 percent, travel burnout by 23 percent, working across time zones by 21 percent and loneliness by 19 percent. Between 19 and 22 percent of nomads return to a more settled life each year.

Remote workers who stay put report overlapping complaints. In Buffer's 2023 State of Remote Work survey, 33 percent of remote workers said they stayed home too often with no reason to leave, 23 percent cited loneliness, 22 percent said they could not unplug and 19 percent named working across time zones. Travel can ease the first problem but tends to worsen the others, which is why the balance has to be managed deliberately.

Rhythm over rigid routine

Experienced nomads tend to describe their schedules as rhythms rather than routines. A fixed nine-to-five rarely survives a change of time zone, but a predictable pattern usually can. That might mean a block of focused work every morning, meetings clustered in the hours that overlap with a home office, and afternoons or evenings kept free for the city.

The more useful rules are the ones that protect work from travel and travel from work. Common examples include fixed core hours that colleagues can rely on, no travel days during the busiest weeks of a project, and evenings or weekends that are kept clear of work entirely. These limits do not remove spontaneity. They make it possible, because the work is not hanging over every outing.

Longer stays make these rules easier to keep. A week in a new city is mostly spent finding groceries, a gym and a place to work. A month or two leaves time for a normal working week, and the cost of settling in is spread over more days.

The workspace is not optional

The most common practical failure is underestimating the workspace. A bed, a sofa or a small café table can carry a day or two of work, but not months of it. The minimum for most remote jobs is a stable internet connection, a desk and chair at a reasonable height, enough power outlets, natural light and a quiet place to take calls.

Before booking, it pays to ask for a recent speed test and photos of the work area rather than relying on a listing's description. A backup connection, usually a local SIM card or a mobile hotspot, covers the inevitable outage. Coworking spaces and libraries serve as a second location when the apartment is not enough, and they also help with the isolation that shows up in nearly every survey of remote workers.

Separating the place where one works from the place where one sleeps is not only about posture. Nomads who manage it describe a clearer end to the working day, which makes the time spent exploring feel like time off rather than time stolen from a deadline.

Health and downtime

Burnout appears in the MBO data as a reason people leave the lifestyle, and it tends to build slowly. The usual protections are unremarkable: regular sleep, exercise, meals that are not eaten at the desk, and breaks taken away from the screen. Some nomads build in full days with no work at all in each new location, which gives them time to see the place without guilt.

Social contact is the harder part. Coworking memberships, local sports clubs, language classes and nomad meetups all help, as does staying long enough in one place to form repeat acquaintances. Calls with family and friends at home need to be scheduled across time zones just like work meetings, or they tend not to happen.

A slower model

Taken together, the evidence favors a slower form of travel built around monthly stays, a dedicated workspace and clear limits on working hours. It is less romantic than the early image of the lifestyle, but it is the version that people sustain.

For nomads planning stays of a month or longer, RentRemote lists furnished apartments in cities including Lisbon and Mexico City, many with a dedicated work area.