[hdus001]

I have been toying with the idea of trying out the digital nomad lifestyle for a few months. I'm in my mid-'40s, married with no kids, so this could very well be one of the mid-life crisis posts. I'd be looking at travelling solo, as my wife's job (Dentist) doesn't let her take a few months off and travel. I work in IT and have been working from home for a few years now. We are both Australian citizens with OCI, settled in Sydney.

I am considering a few places popular among digital nomads like Japan, Spain etc, but lately been looking to India as an option. Keen to explore this option more. It'll also be easier to sell to the wife as my solo trip as anywhere else she'll want to keep for holidays together for later.

I have an OCI, so a working visa in India isn't a problem. (My employer requires valid working visas for any country that we work from, and the max time allowed overseas is up to 3-4 months as beyond that there are tax/legal issues)

I was thinking of buying a reliable SUV, then driving from my parent's home in Trivandrum to Goa, then to northern areas Himachal/Manali, Rishikesh, perhaps exploring a bit of the Buddhist trail places, spending a few weeks in each place in homestays or similar. From a bit of googling, looks like there are cafes or coworking spaces that cater to such folk. And rely on mobile 5G if needed. To be honest I am more keen on parts of the North and/or North East as those are the regions I've not been to. I'd like to keep away from big or crowded cities as much as possible and prefer places with natural beauty, historical places etc. The idea is to stay put at a place Mon-Fri (working 4 am-12 pm), and explore/move around to the next place in the weekends.

It's very early days, but keen to hear from people who have researched this or done something similar.

Do you reckon this is safe and feasible?

I speak Malayalam, but not great with Hindi, though I can manage to understand say 30% of a conversation (picked up mostly from my wife and her family). Is language likely to be an issue in those areas?

The main attraction for me would be the opportunity to do a trip solo and to explore some great places in the country. (and potentially making a lot of colleagues very very jealous )

[Rehaan]

I'm not even sure what the term "Digital Nomad" implies anymore...

These days everyone has a laptop, and the question of whether or not you can work remotely is usually answered as a fairly binary response.

Mobile data these days is good enough to conduct virtually all business anywhere (except extremely low-latency or extremely high bandwidth / high availability requirements).

Cafes are good enough office spaces, at least for me.... and in most places you wont be judged for sitting there for a few hours staring at your laptop. (Of course, don't pick places that are super-popular and full).


Questions :
- Will you be able to manage the time difference?
- Are you okay travelling/driving all the way across the country by yourself?
- Do you know which car you plan to buy? New / Used? Are you familiar with Indian inefficiency?

Suggestions:
- Have dual-sims for max connectivity in all areas (eg. Vi + Jio). One can be a dongle if your phone doesn't support it or you want to also keep your Aus phone active.
- Make sure you have your work backed up to the cloud all the time (eg. dropbox). A damaged/stolen laptop is bad enough, but you really don't want to be totally crippled work-wise by losing the data too.
- Take a fall-back device like a tablet, if you have one.
- Don't overthink it!


Quoting a post I made a few years ago in this thread (Working from home? Show us your home office)

Originally Posted by Rehaan

Once upon a time it looked like this...


But then I traded my desktop for a laptop, which also gave me a new degree of freedom (and questionable take-it or leave-it home decor):


And with that geographic freedom came this:


And this:


But really, the ability to be productive anywhere!

[phamilyman]

You're grossly overthinking it. While rehaan covered the basics, in 2024, you can work almost anywhere. I would make the following changes:

1. Please invest in a Backup iPad plus keyboard. 50k but PEACE of mind in case your laptop conks off or someone spills coffee etc. I'm assuming your office laptop has bitlocker et al to protect against theft.
2. I have done a cross-country roadtrip like that in 2013 - supremely doable nowadays.
3. I am STRONGLY AGAINST working from CAFEs - you have no privacy and too much noise. But yes, lovely headphones like the RealMe Air 5 or wired like HyperX cloud core 7.1 do the job brilliantly should you still want to work from noisy sites.
4. I am in favor of working from a hotel room - just take a late checkout. Unlike 2013, when I needed to check tripadvisor and then call to confirm if they had a table worth working from - in 2024, most decent hotel rooms are quite nice and silent enough to work from.
5. I would buy a new SUV (think Nexon or Brezza, depending upon beliefs) and sell it off at the end of the trip. You are on a work trip of 3 months - the car must be rock solid, so buying used is simply out of the question.
6. Being the OCD paranoid nerd I am - I would recommend buying a 10k Vivo or Oppo phone and using it as a navigation device plus dongle. I would also buy SIMs from all four networks - airtel, jio, vi and BSNL. As a career consultant on the road 15+ days a month - I use the first three at various points. BSNL will help in places like rural TN or Kerala or Hanle. Pure insurance.

After that, my plan would be NO plan!!

Keep a live thread and let BHPians guide you or hang out with you :-)

Literally, take each day as it comes, experience it in its glory - stay as long as needed and then keep moving.

Some days you need to leave your planning, structuring scheduling brain behind and just be.

This will be the absolute best time of the rest of your life. Don't be caged by a spreadsheet when your job gives you that freedom!

[Axe77]

Rehaan and Phamilyman have covered most of the essentials. If your work doesn’t involve calls, then cafes might work (as long as you can handle the noise).

On the car, why buy? Why don’t you consider a short term lease or rental or similar. Negotiate the miles permitted perhaps if you think you’re going to exceed them but I simply wouldn’t deal with the hassle of buying and then selling a car for such a short duration. Even if it’s marginally costlier, it would make more sense to lease / rent IMO if you can negotiate a bespoke financially viable option for this route, rather than the headache and paperwork of buying a car. You’re also locking in a lot less up front capital this way, which can be deployed helpfully elsewhere for your travel itself.

[shipnil]

Esteemed members have already covered most of the points on connectivity and car. But I'd suggest to plan something for power backup for your laptop.

Last year I travelled in Sangla/Spiti region. The network coverage of Jio was excellent with good internet speed in all the places where I stayed, but power availability was anything but reliable. On one occasion, in Tabo, it was not there throughout the night.

[wheelspinner]

As someone in a similar boat, but abroad. You have some legal questions.

Do Digital Nomads need to have work permit in the respective country? As an OCI, are you allowed to work here legally, and would that make you a tax resident here?

[ninjatalli]

Most points have been covered so won't repeat.

1. I would carry a dual sim phone and have Airtel/Jio and BSNL Sims. Carry a dongle from the alternative of Airtel/Jio so you have all networks.

2. Rent a fresh (/relatively new) car, preferably Toyota or Maruti to be on the safer side. Hyundai, Kia etc as secondary but nothing beats the reliability and dealer network of the Japs. Strictly automaticis what I would push for, unless you are okay to handle the traffic as it comes.

3. Get additional insurance (rental agencies might offer as add on) and RSA cover. Better to have it and not use it.

4. Powerbank(s) and a dc-to-ac inverter for charging your gadgets on the fly.

5. Request a dashcam from the agency. Most might not offer but good to have if they do.

[am1m]

Originally Posted by hdus001

It's very early days, but keen to hear from people who have researched this or done something similar.

Since covid, I've worked remote from home in Bangalore and Mumbai, from different parts of Goa, a small town in North Karnataka, a couple of different small towns along the West coast.

Originally Posted by hdus001

I work in IT and have been working from home for a few years now.

More than anything else, a LOT depends on how accommodating your team and company management/clients are. Do you need to be always online with high-speed connectivity for impromptu video calls? Do you need to transfer large files or large amounts of data over a VPN? How flexible can you be with scheduling meetings? Will the team understand if you are experiencing temporary connectivity issues? Is your work the sort of work where you can connect, get all the input you need and then work in isolation? (That's the best for the digital nomad lifestyle.) Or does it require frequent collaboration, at different times during the day. If you have a micromanaging boss who needs you to be on call at any random time of the day, will be hard. And what is your backup plan if on the day of that all-important client presentation, the small town you're in has a 12-hour power outage and your main Internet line also goes down? Do you have a generator backup? Does you backup dongle have good connectivity? Have you identified a co-working space within driving distance that you can get to at short notice?

Originally Posted by hdus001

We are both Australian citizens with OCI, settled in Sydney.

NEVER disclose this while you are looking for places to stay, in restaurants, shops, etc. The asking price will double automatically! (Of course you'll have to tell the owners of the place you finally do decide to stay at, but no need to disclose this up front before finalizing.)

Originally Posted by hdus001

From a bit of googling, looks like there are cafes or coworking spaces that cater to such folk. And rely on mobile 5G if needed.

So mobile data speeds and connectivity have certainly revolutionized. But the quality and consistency is very hit or miss in the less populated areas. Weather is always an issue. For example, in Goa during the monsoons, expect your fiber cable to get cut at least once every couple of weeks because of falling branches. And because of the downpour, it's likely that it will take some time to get fixed. Outside of the 3 big towns in Goa, Panaji, Margao and Vasco, cell towers are scarce. So you'll have low speeds as a backup till your line gets fixed. Most smaller towns in Karnataka, power outages for hours are very common.

I expect the situation to be similar in the north-east.

Originally Posted by hdus001

The idea is to stay put at a place Mon-Fri (working 4 am-12 pm), and explore/move around to the next place in the weekends.

These timings are an advantage, as you'll get better mobile data speeds because of lesser usage at those times.

Originally Posted by hdus001

Do you reckon this is safe and feasible?

Safety is not something I'd worry about. Only reliable connectivity.

Originally Posted by hdus001

I speak Malayalam, but not great with Hindi, though I can manage to understand say 30% of a conversation

Hindi definitely helps, especially in the areas you are planning to visit. But thousands of visitors do travel all over the place, you should be able to manage communication just fine.

But overall, if your job offers you that flexibility, just GO for it! It is immensely rewarding to stay in a smaller town and near natural, unpolluted beauty for a few months at a time. The country (outside the big cities!) is gorgeous(!) and people are great. We've formed bonds with a couple of local communities thanks to our remote work stays there and every time we return, we feel like we're going to a second home.

Perhaps what might work better is using the nearest big city/town that has reliable power and connectivity as a base and then driving out on weekends. Like Delhi or Jaipur have amazing places around (and a lot of history within too!), so both could be a good base.

Check in to a hotel or air bnb for a week and test things out. Then if you plan on staying longer, look around and ask the locals for places available on rent. You'll get better deals that way, instead of booking everything in advance online.

Finally, just go with the flow, be flexible with your planning and if a place resonates, just hang around for a bit and form a connect with the local people. That's what will last and remain. Don't worry too much about what car. In fact the best places have the narrowest roads and bad parking, so the smaller the vehicle, the better. Don't over pack, we found that we could manage on months will far, far lesser stuff than we needed in Bangalore. Don't try to re-create your life in the city in a small town, that's missing the whole point! Try not to be fussy about food, if possible. The local fare prepared fresh will always be the best bet. The value of unpolluted air, open spaces, and no traffic hassles will add years to your life and mental well-being.

[Gennex]

Please do not make your plans in monsoon. The places where you want to go, it would be difficult to survive in heavy downpours. The internet and the power you can imagine your situation at the remote places of northeast.

[dileepcm]

Originally Posted by hdus001

keen to hear from people who have researched this or done something similar.

Do you reckon this is safe and feasible?

Doable - yes for sure. As far as time zone differences and your employer /team are onboard the idea, there should not be any problems.

I have worked extensively based out of India in last couple of years (also with an OCI for that matter), generally as a way to extend my vacation a bit.
I never did a road trip as such but I did travel while working and have worked out of rooms, hotels, friend's places, relative's farm houses, back seat of a car etc.

As many others already mentioned, two most important points are around
1. Internet availability - Ensure you have several back up options if you are really planning to go remote.
2. Power availability - I had power cuts that caused issues several times. Nowadays I carry multiple power back up options.


Rest of the factors like vehicle, destinations etc come down to pure choices. You could try something smaller and manageable first (say Kerala / Karnataka / Tamil Nādu) first and look back to see if the model works for you or not before planning further.

Originally Posted by wheelspinner

As someone in a similar boat, but abroad. You have some legal questions.

Do Digital Nomads need to have work permit in the respective country? As an OCI, are you allowed to work here legally, and would that make you a tax resident here?

It all depends on country and what passport you have. Post Covid, several countries started offering even digital nomad visas.
OCI holders are allowed to live and work in India without any further need of documents. It would make you a tax resident when your stay is beyond x number of days (180 I believe but not sure).

[Jaguar]

Originally Posted by dileepcm

Post Covid, several countries started offering even digital nomad visas.
OCI holders are allowed to live and work in India without any further need of documents. It would make you a tax resident when your stay is beyond x number of days (180 I believe but not sure).

I think India made it stricter. There was an advisory from our company stating that people will not be allowed to work from India even for short durations, like a couple of weeks, due to some tax implications. Many colleagues (Indian citizens working in other countries) who used to work from here for a few weeks and extend their annual vacation are no longer allowed to do so. So, it is better to check with a tax consultant and the company HR.

[download2live]

I might be wrong here.
One thing you might need to get some clarifications on is from the Australian Employer. The life cover provided by the company is usually limited to working in Australia. So if you are planning to work while travelling in India that might muddy things a bit.

[hdus001]

Thanks very much for all the responses. Very useful tips and just the sort of information/advice that I'm looking for.

It has been very encouraging reading through the comments and hearing about the experiences of people who have done this before.

Yes leasing a car sounds like a better option than buying and selling. In fact, the wife is questioning the driving part of it completely, her issue mainly being what happens if you're driving and happen to get into an incident in the middle of nowhere and can't speak the local language etc.

Originally Posted by wheelspinner

Do Digital Nomads need to have work permit in the respective country? As an OCI, are you allowed to work here legally, and would that make you a tax resident here?

Yes a visa with working rights is needed. In India, the OCI should be fine as its essentially a visa that lets you live and work indefinitely. Some other countries offer special work visas for digital nomads.

Tax residency usually is determined by the number of days you live in a country, as long as you keep to short timeframe of just a few months you'd be safe. There might also be restrictions by the home country too, as it is in my case. Many companies here claim several govt grants/taxbreaks (for research, capexable work etc) for which some eligibility criteria are related to the percentage of work that's done within the country vs outside, and therefore employers are super careful not to have staff spend too many months working from overseas. Also, the country that you're going to also matters. For eg, a colleague from Iran had his request to work from there denied, due to the country not being in the good books of the govt here and there being a lot of legal implications on data privacy etc.

Originally Posted by download2live

I might be wrong here.
One thing you might need to get some clarifications on is from the Australian Employer. The life cover provided by the company is usually limited to working in Australia. So if you are planning to work while travelling in India that might muddy things a bit.

Do you mean life/health insurance? Here it's something handled by individuals and not provided by the company. However yes I think I need to explore this aspect too further, companies are liable for what happens to employees during work hours, need to see what the implications are if the work location were overseas.

Originally Posted by Jaguar

There was an advisory from our company stating that people will not be allowed to work from India even for short durations, like a couple of weeks, due to some tax implications

Thanks. Would you know if the advisory was referring to tax implications in the home country the employee moved from (rather than tax implications in India itself)? Did some googling and the relevant tax residency criteria for India still seems to be 182+ days spent in the country.


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[dileepcm]

Originally Posted by Jaguar

I think India made it stricter. There was an advisory from our company stating that people will not be allowed to work from India even for short durations, like a couple of weeks, due to some tax implications. Many colleagues (Indian citizens working in other countries) who used to work from here for a few weeks and extend their annual vacation are no longer allowed to do so. So, it is better to check with a tax consultant and the company HR.

I do not think India made it any different. I know of companies (to an extended mine included) not allowing it at all or not allowing it beyond a couple of weeks because for them, its additional cost and complexity to deal with taxes across multiple countries as each country has their on rules for determining eligibility for taxations. Payroll processing is not a cheap affair for corporates.

As far as income tax rules in India is concerned, below is I think what the rule is.

"If an Overseas Citizen has stayed in India for more than 182 days during a financial year or for a total of 365 days within the preceding four financial years and at least 60 days in the previous financial year, they will be regarded as an Indian resident for tax purposes."

[GTO]

Everyone has covered the most important bases.

But, don't forget to invest in a light laptop with a great battery life. It will significantly improve your productivity on-the-go, or while "digital nomading". This is one of the best investments you can make. Light weight means effortless portability and long battery life means no looking for plugpoints. I recently got a Macbook Air 15" and it has made a serious difference to my productivity when I'm away from my desk. 10+ hour battery life means I don't even carry the laptop charger around anymore. I only charge it overnight while I sleep.

Microsoft is also betting big on ARM, so look out for efficient, light laptops only. Don't go for big, bulky ones or those with merely 4 - 6 hours of battery life.

Live Proof. In a far away land, in a different timezone, in the passenger seat of the car as I'm done with shopping, but the lady isn't:


1 more tip = Take accommodation with a kitchen and cook wherever / whenever you can. As a personality, I cannot eat outside food everyday, even when travelling. If I have to, one meal of mine is just fresh veggies + soup + salad or fruits. I need one home meal or one Indian roti-sabzi meal. Last I'd gone for an Alaskan cruise, I got fed up of eating western food 24x7. Befriended the staff which was majorly from India, and got my plate of simple Indian food every night (food they had cooked for themselves).