What Does My Life as a Digital Nomad in West Virginia Look Like?
This morning I woke up to the dark.
I laid curled up in my sleeping bag for a couple more hours snuggling my blanket; then I finally got to rollllllling out of my tent—there was no more putting off the day.
I started off my by making coffee: I took out my pocket rocket and screwed it on to a small and round propane cylinder. Then I grabbed my Moka Pot—a silver device the height of a large cup—and filled up the bottom half with water up to the pressure valve; I fit a basket on top and used a small metal spoon to portion out pre-ground coffee from my favorite café in Columbus (Florin) that I flattened out with my finger slightly curved downward. I screwed on the top of the device.
Then I held a lighter to the top of the pocket rocket, and slowly let out propane until I heard the soft blue flame purring invisibly in the light of the morning. In five or eight minutes the water in the Moka Pot would heat up and pressure would build until it was too much and the water would run out pushing through the coffee grounds in the basket up through a spout spilling out into the top half of the container—and I would have coffee.
While I waited, I washed dishes from the night before using the last of my water to soap and scrub and rinse the dirty pot and pan and plate.
Once my coffee was brewed, I turned off and put away the pocket rocket.
I took out two small baggies filled with powders: one a rusty lemon color that smelled faintly of sweet dirt—Lion’s Mane; and the other a pure white powder that smelled of nothing—L-Theanine. I put a small spoon of each into a green mug, then filled it with the coffee and stirred.
I sat and drank my coffee slowly by the water.
After I packing up, I drove off to the library for my day of work leaving around 10:15.
I got done with work around 4:00, and went on a nice 2 mile hike before heading back to camp.
A wonderful young couple from Germany were staying at The New to climb, so I had roommates for the week. We chatted about climbing and life as we cooked dinner together.
Meet Daniel (right) and Alex (left)!
My dinner was fried tofu, zucchini, green onions, peppers, and soy sauce with some rice noodles.
We then had a fire to stare at until it got late (like 10:30) and they went off to bed in their car and me in my tent.
Turns out living out of a tent is still, well… living.
Of course, washing the dishes is an even bigger pain in the ass without a sink. And if I forget to fill up my water at a gas station on my way back then I just can’t do them at all.
But I do get to sit in the sun staring at the river with my coffee every morning.
This is nice.
Overall it feels less like I’ve moved “into the woods,” and more like I’ve moved to in Fayetteville, WV, and I happen to live out of my car.
I'll explain why.
Simple, Basic, Living
For the past two weeks I’ve been at a free National Park Campground in the New River Gorge that’s down by the river called Cunard. Down a dirt road from where I’m staying is a launch point for rafters that the tour companies use on the weekends.
The campground has 5 total sites, with 4 small ones right next to each other and a larger one slightly up the hill. There’s even picnic tables, a porta-potty, and a trash receptacle.
Here are the things making it possible
A tent, sleeping bag, pillow, and warm fuzzy blanket
A Canopy and chair (both cheap from Walmart) to chill outside when it rains
Coleman 2 burner stove, pots/pans, knife and cutting board, biodegradable soap
A Car: kind of essential for everything, sadly. I’d love to find a spot with a campground or land to sleep on that’s within walking distance of stuff
Optional stuff: A cooler, moka pot, gym membership, friends
The sites are 10 mile drive down windy roads out of Oak Hill down into the gorge. Oak Hill is 7 miles south down Route 19 of Fayetteville, the so called “coolest small town,” where all the fancy coffee shops and climbers are.
There’s no service at the Cunard Campground, so when I go home for the day I’m forced to totally clock out.
But during the day it’s just like living in town.
I have a gym membership at Anytime Fitness which is right next to the Kroger where I shop.
I commute to the library in Fayetteville every day where I sit for 5-6 hours clacking away at my keyboard pretending to work; sometimes I’ll work at a coffee shop instead.
It's surprisingly easy to live on a small patch of land if all the amenities of modern life are just within driving range anyways.
With all my modern amenities I feel a lot less like Eustice Conway and more like the average digital nomad.
And if I'm being honest with myself I think that was more the goal and motivation for myself here: I wanted to see what it felt like to work the remote lifestyle.
And since I'm not actually making any money yet the only feasible option was a spot with free camping…
I first started trying to spend 30 hours a week in the library or coffee shop. The gorgeous weather and beautiful scenery has taken its toll, however.
My commitment is slowly sliding down to 20 hours a week. And it may fall further…whoops.
This whole remote work and travel thing feels pretty isolating on the whole. But I’m sure this is something a lot of people experience.
Moving to a new city there is always the initial push of finding friends and communities to be a part of. And with a remote job there isn’t even the backbone of a working community. Plus I haven’t even really moved here.
I'm just a traveler staying for a bit.
It’s making me wonder if remote work is really what I want to do and develop. I’ll have to see how the rest of the summer goes.
Everyday I have the urge to go ask at one of the bars or coffee shops or restaurants if they’re hiring part time for the summer. I miss working with people and getting to know the area through the locals, and being part of that community.
But I have been able to make easy friends with the transients staying at the campground. There are plenty of travelers and climbers to chat with around here.
What do I mean when I say I’m “working?”
I’m a 50-50 partner for a small Real Estate startup that one of my friends started over a year ago (that is still “starting up”).
I source property and owner data online from public records, and organize it and upload it into our system. I also build systems and code programs to automate the collection.
I then track and tag the data as it moves through a predetermined marketing and outreach system that I’ve built and designed with the help of my partner
The goal of the marketing and thought-process behind the collection is to market to specific niches of people who are more likely to want to sell their house.
We then help them with whatever they need to do to sell their house, from helping clear out the place for walk-throughs and dealing with paperwork, to targeted outreach towards buyers that would make a good match with our sellers.
This second half of the process, the product we’re selling if you will, was done primarily done by my partner.
I’ve learned how to do a lot of this from Tyler Austin and his ReiSift masterclass, and through good ol’ problem solving trial and error.
Tim Ferris and his Four Hour Workweek is the driving idea behind the whole operation. Once we build something that works, we automate it and get out. And it’s all remote, of course.
The other path I could take with this skillset is freelancing or consulting.
I sell myself and my work to other entrepreneurs, businesses, or wholesalers, and get them a working system in exchange for money. The networking I could theoretically do all online through facebook and referrals.
It would probably pay for me to go to in-person events and find a community to infiltrate though; so it might be harder to do from the woods or Paris.
Plan B: Copywriting
Freelance copywriters get hired to write advertisements and brand messaging for businesses. It’s the talking to the customer part of the marketing that requires research, empathy, creativity, and a certain je ne sais quoi with language.
Copywriters can get hired to write websites, email campaigns, ads, blogs, newsletters, or social media posts.
The blog stuff is more content, but good writing is hard to come by. And at the early stages I’m kind of willing to write anything that people will pay me for.
I’ve been taking an online course and studying books such as Everybody Writes by Anne Handley, Bird by Bird by Anne Lammott, The Ultimate Sales Letter by Dan Kennedy, and some other random stuff here and there like podcasts and reading/transcribing other copy on swiped.co.
So what’s this Blog for, anywho?
This Blog is the very very early stages of a Personal Brand.
A Personal Brand is what it sounds like: a brand that is literally just a person.
This is only really possible due to social media; and it is not only possible but incredibly powerful.
The way Dan Koe presents it is that you find a problem in your life, then solve it. You document and share your process for solving the problem online and provide free value/advice/information for people that may be dealing with something similar.
You keep doing this and eventually get to the point where you have an efficient and systemized solution to a large problem.
You then build a product around this solution–an online course or consulting program for example–and make money helping other people solve the problem. But faster and better than you did on your own.
And your audience will be perfectly primed to sell the solution to; they’ve been following you throughout the whole process because they’re interested in the same problems you are, but now you have a way to help them!
You can also use your audience as proof of authority and skill to get hired as a freelancer doing things like ghost writing or copywriting.
Building and monetizing an audience, solving personal problems in your own life, tracking progress through journaling, sharing struggles and progress with a community, all in one neat little package.
Doesn’t sound too bad, eh?
Conclusion
I spilled soap and walnut oil everywhere in my car this week which kinda sucked. I gotta figure out how to not do that.
All in all living out of my car and a tent hasn’t felt very crazy different from living out of an apartment. It does however require being a lot more organized, comfortable with quiet solitude, and open to doing things one wouldn’t normally consider (like writing a blog post outside of a gas station).
The Crux of living has still been work. That’s just where I am in my life right now.
This would be true whether I’m in Columbus, Boston, or a campground in West Virginia. I think the subjective nature of experience means that our problems will follow us around wherever we go—but this can be a positive!
After all, the obstacle is the way.
Upward and onward my friends!
I’ll see ya next week
-Andy
***Orginially Written June 4th, 2023; Remastered March 7th, 2024
