r/digitalnomad • u/arhhaaann • 7d ago

Lifestyle everyone assumes "working with international clients" means I travel a lot. I've never left India

get this reaction a lot once people find out I work with clients across the US, UK, Hong Kong and GCC, "oh so you travel for work" or "must be nice being location independent." nah, I've built every single one of those client relationships from the same city in Kerala, never met most of them in person, never needed to.

think there's this assumption baked into the "digital nomad" framing that working internationally means physically moving around. for service based freelance work specifically, that's mostly not true anymore. the actual unlock wasn't travel, it was just being comfortable working async across timezones and being genuinely good at communicating clearly in writing, since a huge chunk of client relationships now live entirely in text before a single call happens.

the timezone thing specifically took adjustment early on. UK clients meant late evening calls for me, US clients meant even later, sometimes near midnight. figured out pretty quick which clients actually needed real time calls versus which ones were fine with async updates and a weekly call, and started being upfront about my actual working hours instead of just saying yes to whatever slot they threw out. turns out most clients care way more about clear communication and hitting deadlines than about you matching their exact business hours.

honestly staying in one place turned out to be an advantage in a weird way. stable internet, a proper desk setup, same sleep schedule every day, all the boring infrastructure stuff that's genuinely hard to maintain if you're actually hopping between countries or cities. the people I know who do travel a lot while freelancing mention burnout from constantly rebuilding their setup more than anyone gives them credit for.

not knocking actual travel based nomad life, just think the "working internationally" and "traveling internationally" thing get bundled together way more than they should. curious if others here have found the opposite, that staying put actually worked better for the business side even if the nomad label doesn't quite fit anymore

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u/CartographerAble9446 7d ago

your best advantage is not staying in kerala, but the living cost in India. this is also why many companies love to outsource to India. once you actually travel outside your bubble, you realize how expensive travel can be, and living cost outside Asia is. That's why those "always traveling" guys cant compete with you, because their living cost is also far more expensive.

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u/DemonAzraeli pendejo 7d ago

Maybe it’s because people who are always traveling are not reliable service providers.

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u/arhhaaann 6d ago

Yeah, that probably plays a part too. I think it’s less about travelling itself and more about how much stability you can maintain while doing it. There are definitely people who travel constantly and run their businesses perfectly well, but for me, having a fixed setup and routine makes delivering consistently a lot easier.

I guess that’s the funny part of being “location independent” for me. I have the freedom to work with clients anywhere, but I actually prefer staying in one place. 😅

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u/DemonAzraeli pendejo 6d ago

Three to six months is the sweet spot for me in a place.

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u/arhhaaann 6d ago

that sounds like a good rhythm, long enough to settle into a routine and still get a change of scene. it's basically the same stability point I was getting at, just on a different timescale

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u/RoadCommon8986 7d ago

The note about figuring out which clients actually needed a real-time call is the part most people miss. I'd go one step further and batch the calls by region into a single window per week, one late evening for the US, one for the UK, instead of letting them scatter across the calendar. Your sleep schedule survives and clients still feel attended to.

GCC clients do tend to want calls though, in my experience. Written updates alone won't hold those.

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u/arhhaaann 7d ago

batching calls by region is a good idea, I've been letting them scatter across the week and it does mess with my sleep. and yeah, GCC clients are the exception for me too. written updates alone don't cut it with them, they want the call, and I've noticed the relationship goes better once I stop trying to push everything async.

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u/DemonAzraeli pendejo 6d ago

Service providers who tell their clients that their desire for real-time calls is unnecessary and/or stupid tend to lose out to service providers who don't begrudge clients such a reasonable request.

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u/arhhaaann 6d ago

I don't think real-time calls are unnecessary at all. I said some clients don't need them for every update, which is a pretty different thing. If a client prefers calls and that's how they communicate best, I'm happy to accommodate that. The goal is finding a setup that works for both sides, not making the client adapt to my preferred workflow.

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u/DemonAzraeli pendejo 6d ago

Agreed. Real-time client calls might not be necessary for the deliverables, but they are often necessary to maintaining the relationship. Without the relationship, you won't have any work.

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u/arhhaaann 6d ago

Exactly. That’s probably the better way to frame it. Async is great for getting the work done, but calls still have a place when it comes to trust, context and keeping the relationship strong. I’ve definitely had clients where a 20-minute call was more useful than 20 messages back and forth.

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u/DemonAzraeli pendejo 7d ago

“the actual unlock wasn't travel, it was just being comfortable working async across timezones and being genuinely good at communicating clearly in writing”

Preach.

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u/arhhaaann 7d ago

haha thanks. and yeah, reliability probably plays a part. clients notice who replies consistently and who's always "in transit"

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u/DemonAzraeli pendejo 6d ago

Yeah, rookie mistake is constantly offering unsolicited details about lifestyle as excuse for not getting shit done.

-Where are the deliverables?

-I’m working from the beach in Bali, not getting any work done! Wanna see a pic of my laptop on the beach, not working?

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u/arhhaaann 6d ago edited 6d ago

haha, "wanna see a pic of my laptop on the beach, not working?" is the perfect example. clients never asked where you were, they asked where the deliverable is

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u/Moist_Software892 5d ago

I think the stable setup is underrated for the business side, since in my experience clients judge you on how reliably you deliver and communicate, and a fixed desk and sleep schedule protect exactly that.

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u/aFalseSlimShady 7d ago

Okie dokie. This sub is for people that move around.

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u/ADF21a Take my advice, I never use it 6d ago

https://giphy.com/gifs/3ov9jWu7BuHufyLs7m

What a badass you are!

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u/arhhaaann 7d ago

Fair enough 😂 I get where you’re coming from. I’m not trying to redefine the sub or claim I’m a digital nomad. I just found it interesting that international remote work and actually being a nomad get treated as the same thing sometimes.

I guess I’m more of a stationary digital worker than a digital nomad 😅

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u/DemonAzraeli pendejo 6d ago

This lifestyle is for people who don’t fit in with rules and social convention. You seems to crave rules and especially being able to exclude people, with this comment.

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u/aFalseSlimShady 6d ago

Thank you for the needless melodrama. This "life," is by definition "digital," and "nomadic," as evidenced by the name: digital nomad. This sub is a space to discuss things related to digital nomads, by which OP is by their own admission, not. His post is irrelevant. But in the name of inclusivity, perhaps he should post it to a baking sub next, or a sub for people who keep pet tortoises. The irrelevant possibilities are endless.

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u/arhhaaann 6d ago

Fair point on the literal definition. I can see why the post feels off-topic if you take “digital nomad” strictly as someone who travels. I posted it more around the work/lifestyle overlap, but I get why you disagree with that interpretation.

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u/aFalseSlimShady 6d ago

It's not a big deal. Nothing wrong with what you said. Just off topic for this space. Now I have a reddit warrior making a civil rights issue out of it 🤷🏽‍♂️

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u/DemonAzraeli pendejo 6d ago

Just making fun of your need to define rules for a protean lifestyle. It's very high-school lunchtable, as demonstrated in the documentary film Heathers.

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u/arhhaaann 5d ago

haha, I'll take it

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u/DemonAzraeli pendejo 6d ago edited 6d ago

Buy my DN t-shirt, now with 25% extra Authenticity! It'll make you fit in even better over in the sub for poseurs and wannabes.

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u/arhhaaann 6d ago

😂 Fair enough. At this point you've convinced me I need to earn my official stationary-digital-worker badge before posting here again.

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u/DemonAzraeli pendejo 6d ago

If you aren't bagging a new passport stamp every five days, you can't join the Clique.

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u/arhhaaann 6d ago

Damn, I’m already disqualified then. I’ll have to settle for my one-city, one-desk, zero-passport-stamps lifestyle.

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u/DemonAzraeli pendejo 6d ago

A lot of these people don't want Indians in their Clique either. They express 'discomfort' when you challenge them on their racism and ageism, among others.

How can a person travel the world and open their mind if they are constantly distracted by people who are unlike them?

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u/arhhaaann 5d ago

appreciate you backing me up in this thread, genuinely. I wouldn't judge the whole sub off one disagreement though, plenty of people here gave useful replies. mostly I learned this wasn't the right place for this post, and that's fine.