In April 2019, Yung Yi-fu, 27, a YouTuber with 185,000 subscribers, published his first video on YouTube—“Nepal Mountaineering ABC”. His short escapades into the landscape of tourism snowballed into a full-time career as he garnered more subscribers.
“At that time, I didn’t realize I was a digital nomad,” Yung said, “I just happened to start a YouTube channel when people couldn’t travel abroad during the COVID-19 pandemic,” he said.

Digital nomads refer to people who rely entirely on the Internet to earn income, thereby breaking the strong relationship between work itself and time at work and moving around the world. According to Pumble, the number of digital nomads worldwide will exceed 40 million in 2024.
“Digital Nomadism represents an attempt to ‘escape the cubicle’. These people create personalized and innovative life journeys and lifestyles,” said Olga Hannonen, a visiting researcher of social science at the University of Eastern Finland who studies lifestyle mobilities.
“I have been to 66 countries up to now,” Yung said. “It’s fun for me to adapt to a different pace of life and make new friends whenever I go to a new country.” He plans to live in Ethiopia, Japan, and Turkey in the future.

Hu Yicheng, 25, is a postgraduate student in Hong Kong. Once an employee for a well-known Chinese internet company, Hu left the company after it made a personnel adjustment.
She originally wanted to take a break before returning to work, but she met a recruiter from a foreign company by chance. “He introduced the concept of being a digital nomad to me and said it could give me a work and life balance,” Hu said. She started working there for marketing duties.

Hu once went to Dali, a city in Yunnan popular among digital nomads for its beautiful natural scenery, convenient transportation, and low cost of living. She was impressed with the friendly atmosphere.
“They held regular activities for us so that we could get to know other digital nomads working in different jobs and work together in the shared office area,” Hu said.
Hannonen said co-working spaces often satisfy the social needs of digital nomads.
“Such joint nomadic conferences and other activities can be regarded as examples of lifestyle-based social bonding that have replaced conventional ones, such as residential neighbourhoods, traditional workplace communities, and even nation-states,” Hannonen said.
According to a study by Nomad List, digital nomads change countries on average every seven months, and they stay in a city for about two months.

Digital nomadism also brings financial benefits to local communities. Hannonen said that Barbados, an island country in the south-eastern Caribbean Sea, created its one-year visa for remote workers, which helped the government collect 6 million dollars in fees and generated at least 100 million dollars worth in tourism revenue. In 2024, more than 60 countries such as Japan, Malaysia, and South Korea have introduced “Digital Nomad Visas”.
For digital nomads, this lifestyle provides the freedom to live and work in a relaxing atmosphere.
“We can have better control of our lives, which gives us more freedom,” said Hu. When she chats with her colleagues, they discuss many different topics, but they also share their travel experiences. “I feel my life is much more diverse than it was before,” Hu added.
But digital nomadism has its drawbacks. According to MBO, 27% of digital nomads were financially stressed, 26% missed their families and friends, 24% worried about their personal safety, 23% said different time zones made work difficult and 21% had travel burnout.
Hu admitted that the reversal of day and night under different time zones was tough, “It affected my quality of sleep, and I am always tired,” Hu said.
As a Youtuber, Yung too has his challenges. He recalled once being robbed in Mexico. “This is the first time I’ve ever met a burglar who tried to stab me,” he said, filming his injured arm.“ I still can’t believe that my first experience with stitches happened in Mexico,” he said.
There can also be a blur between work and play. “Many people ask me whether it is enjoyable to film videos,” he said, “Sometimes I get really tired, so I would tell myself to put down the camera for a while and just travel.”
“If you ask me if I have any deepest impression, I can’t really tell you anything special, but really, experiencing different things every day is a very precious memory,” Yung said.
《The Young Reporter》
The Young Reporter (TYR) started as a newspaper in 1969. Today, it is published across multiple media platforms and updated constantly to bring the latest news and analyses to its readers.

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