As office life beckons again, the pandemic’s digital nomads weigh benefits of a return – By Elaina Patton (NBC News) / July 6 2021
Covid-19 opened up the possibility of a nomadic lifestyle to entirely new groups of people. Now, many of them don’t want to go back.
For the past year, Jeromy Sonne has been on the road with his wife, Kelsey, and their 2-year-old son, Emmett, living and working in short-term home rentals from Airbnb.
Sonne, 31, founder of marketing startup Decibel, was working remotely from rural South Dakota when the pandemic hit. After a few months of lockdown, the Sonnes found that being cooped up at home in a small town wasn’t working, so they put their belongings in storage and started traveling. They began in Utah, in Provo and then Salt Lake City, and then headed to Vermont, Texas, Hawaii and Montana. Most recently, they extended their travel abroad to Panama and Costa Rica, where they’re currently living.
Jeromy Sonne, his wife Kelsey and their 2-year-old son Emmett have lived on the road for the last year. They arrived in Costa Rica on June 15 and will stay in Tamarindo for six weeks.Monica Quesada Cordero / for NBC News
They have stayed in locations for four to six weeks on average, which allows them to get to know the places and take advantage of monthly discounts. Usually, they book two bedrooms, which makes traveling with a toddler on a sensitive sleep schedule more manageable, even if it’s more expensive. But so far they have kept expenses at pre-pandemic levels, which includes average monthly lodging of under $2,500.
“I think there’s a misconception among some people that you have to have this huge amount of money to be able to pull this off,” Sonne said.
