Digital Nomad Life During the Coronavirus Pandemic

Travel writer and digital nomad Lauren Keith shares her experiences during the coronavirus pandemic, and what a “stay at home” order means when there’s no place to call home.

“There’s no place like home.”

Being from Kansas, I have most of the Wizard of Oz memorized, somehow still my state’s main cultural reference point. However, as the coronavirus pandemic unfolded, that sentence has taken on a profoundly unsettling meaning. There’s no place like home, but what occurs if you don’t have one, particularly with countries’ borders closing all around you?

Last September, I chose to become a digital nomad, departing from nearly a decade of life in London, leaving behind friends, pubs, and all my worldly possessions. For over six months, I’ve been on the move, traveling from Saudi Arabia to Samarkand to San Diego, only stopping in London to repack for my next adventure.

As both the US State Department and the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office issued warnings to their citizens to return home immediately, concerned friends, diligently hashtagging all their social media updates with #stayhome, urged me to conclude my travels and head back. “And where is home?” I would respond. “Where is ‘back’?” Thousands of digital nomads and long-term travelers like me are on the road, displaced by choice, with nowhere to return to. I understand that I write this from a position of extreme privilege: I willingly chose to forgo my permanent address while countless others must contend with circumstances beyond their control, adding to their existing burdens during these trying times.

The few options before me felt insurmountable. Should I bankrupt myself in London— a city I adore, known to consume the meager income of a freelance travel writer in an instant? Do I return to the US, where my family would accommodate me but I would lack health insurance in a country notorious for its prohibitively expensive medical expenses? Or should I continue my travels for as long as it seems permissible?

If only the decision were as effortless as clicking my heels.

Adhering to my original plans—before both of my home countries recalled their travelers—felt like the most sensible choice both financially and logistically. I specialize in writing about the Middle East and North Africa, and I had an incredible two months in Turkey, Tunisia, and Lebanon scheduled—not much booked, fortunately, in hindsight. In mid-March, I flew from London to Cappadocia, a region that appears otherworldly at any time, but exceedingly surreal now. The tourist season was still two months away; thus, the main visitor hub of Göreme was in a state of semi-hibernation, further muted by a late-season dusting of snow on its fairy chimneys. I observed as Turkey began to limit flights from Europe, and the continent started to close its borders.

In my newly established routine of spending hours scrolling through news updates, I discovered that flights between Turkey and the UK were being cancelled on March 17 at 8 a.m. It was March 17. I checked the time: 10 a.m. Well, that’s decided. A few hours later, my hotel informs me that I’m the only guest, so breakfast will be delivered to my room the next day.

I hopped in a taxi to explore Cappadocia’s remarkable remote valleys. The car contained the faint scent of kolonya, a perfume with 80% alcohol content that has become a popular disinfectant. The driver offered me a spray as we sped over the empty snow-covered roads. We began chatting about the state of the world, and he prophesied that the upcoming tourist season was dead on arrival, over before it even started. He dropped me off to visit an ancient underground city and rock-hewn monasteries as well as painted dovecotes, with nary a soul in sight. It felt like the end of the world.

A few days later, I flew to Istanbul after enjoying a final hotel breakfast, soundtracked by the TV’s karaoke channel where a young singer crooned, “We can’t go back to the way we used to…” I thought it prudent to be in a major city in case things went terribly awry; any repatriation flights would depart from here, and I also needed a kitchen in case of a lockdown. Now I’m settled in an Airbnb in the neighborhood of Beyoğlu, and my onward travel has come to a standstill. I’m stocking up on groceries at a supermarket where I hardly understand the language. Did I buy milk or yogurt or sour cream? Guess I won’t find out until I pour it into my morning tea.

Having vacationed here in 2014 and 2017, Istanbul isn’t entirely foreign to me, so I’m attempting to view this extended stopover as a quasi-annual visit. I took a weekend walk down İstiklal St, which typically welcomes a million visitors each day, but it now felt reminiscent of an early Sunday morning before stores opened. I wasn’t alone; the antique tram still chugged down the center of the road, often empty, while a few bored vendors sat behind their fire-engine-red carts loaded with roasted chestnuts and simit (crispy, circular bread).

At times, this lockdown life doesn’t appear hugely different from the typical digital nomad experience: I work from wherever I happen to be (yet I certainly miss the coffee shop crawls of new neighborhoods). Moreover, I heavily rely on the Internet to create a semblance of normality, whether it’s through Skyping with friends and family, downloading audiobooks, or practicing yoga with my favorite instructor in London via Yogaia, which offers both live and recorded video sessions. The larger questions I must confront remain a few weeks away: as freelance opportunities diminish, how long can I financially sustain this lifestyle? What happens when my 90-day tourist visa expires but the global situation remains unchanged?

For the time being, such concerns aren’t worth dwelling on. Regulations in every country are constantly shifting, and no one can predict what the world will look like tomorrow, much less eight weeks from now.

Consequently, even during trying times, there is truly no place like home. Home is wherever I happen to be at this moment.