You’re Not a Snowbird, You’re a Digital Nomad

Has this ever happened to you? You are going along, living your life, and suddenly a phrase comes into the zeitgeist meant to explain all your characteristics and all your choices, and to lump you in with people who are just like you.

We love to attach people to their generation group or lifestyle choices, give them snappy names and make assumptions about their values and behavior. It's a handy shorthand, often used by people who want to sell us things.

I've found myself pushing back against those labels lately, and here's why. For many years I've been taking advantage of my self-employed status to move around the country, changing my location to experience better weather or to trade urban condo life for a place with a backyard pool for a while. In the past few years, that kind of behavior has gotten a catchy name: it's called being a digital nomad.

You can hear about digital nomads everywhere these days — people who disconnect what they do from where they lay their heads at night, either with the blessing of a flexible employer or the unstable freedom of self-employment.

These are more than the travel bloggers who make a business out of their wanderings; digital nomads are the ones who keep the job or the gigs they have but change where they do it, sometimes seasonally and sometimes on a whim. Nomads are the new faces of fantasy for many these days. And they are young. Or are they?

Just when my lifestyle got a name, complete with You Tubers to explain it to you, it seems that I became something else. What changed? I got older. Now it seems I'm a snowbird.

Long before there were digital nomads, well over a million Americans and Canadians packed up their lives every winter and migrated south for the season, and they still do. When we think of the term snowbird, which has been around since the 1970s, by and large we picture people following a well-worn path year after year to common destinations somewhere warm.

We picture golf, and now pickleball. Yet the reality is that more Americans aged 65 and older work full time today than at any time since the 1960s, a Pew Trust paper says. Flexibility, in the form of greater self-employment, also increases dramatically with age, Boston College researchers report.

For the travel industry, at least, these worlds are colliding. Experts notice a rise in the number of younger people who do not require a conventional office to do their jobs and are not tied to a travel schedule limited by the school year.

Property managers offering tips to homeowners targeting this demographic suggest showing more photos of dedicated workspaces and demonstrable Wi-Fi speed. There are also indications that preferences for vacation rentals are changing, demand for a broader range of destinations, shorter stays and greater year-round interest on the upswing.

So, are you a snowbird or a digital nomad? And why should you care?

On the outside, to borrow from the comedian Jeff Foxworthy, you might be a digital nomad if:

• You find yourself packing as much technology as recreational equipment.

• You (or your travel partner) are getting tired of the dining table or kitchen counter serving as a makeshift workstation.

• You stay fully engaged in your volunteer activities or your hobby in a virtual way because now, after COVID, the options are so readily available.

• You'd gladly trade that extra bedroom for a well-equipped office with a pull-out couch.

• You are sensitive to noise levels not just because they disrupt your sleep, but because they disrupt your Zoom calls.

If this sounds familiar, here are a few ideas to make your home away from home do what you need it to do:

• Many vacation home listings now show photos of Wi-Fi speed tests; if yours doesn't, ask for one.

• Some owners will swap out a bed for a desk if you ask; on one of my stays, there was even a generous folding table that allowed us to reclaim our common area and quit shushing each other.

• If you are creating content or just want to look better on a Zoom call, vacation home lighting usually won't be ideal, so invest in your own lighting.

• Many destinations have places that will rent you a desk and, more importantly, a comfortable desk chair by the week or the month.

Beyond these logistical concerns, perhaps the most important part of the question is the internal one. Would claiming a different identity for yourself change your life? Maybe not. But will thinking of yourself in a different way give you some new ideas about how to approach your life?

What could be different if you thought of yourself as a digital nomad instead of a snowbird? You might vary your location from year to year, or even from month to month during your seasonal journey. Maybe you'll be encouraged to change a routine that climate disasters have made more challenging, and it will feel more exciting and less disheartening. Perhaps a little research will uncover new ways to stay connected to the things you haven't wanted to leave behind, even as you long for a change.

Sometimes labels divide us and limit us, but sometimes labels spark our imagination to consider new possibilities. As for me, this year I'm trading my Chicago to Florida routine for Southern Spain and points beyond. And next year, who knows?

Kate McEnroe is a (mostly) downtown Chicago-based solopreneur with a professional economic development consulting practice and a personal collection of passions and pastimes that have competed for the rest of her time for years. These days, the rest of her time is taking up most of her time. Read More