{"id":3414,"date":"2025-12-28T13:14:30","date_gmt":"2025-12-28T13:14:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/badvibes.live\/?p=3414"},"modified":"2025-12-28T13:14:30","modified_gmt":"2025-12-28T13:14:30","slug":"i-travelled-the-world-as-a-digital-nomad-its-a-miserable-lie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/badvibes.live\/?p=3414","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I travelled the world as a digital nomad \u2013 it\u2019s a miserable lie\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Tom Slater was staying in a hut on the dreamy white sands of a beach in\u00a0Ko Pha Ngan Thailand<\/a>\u00a0with no plans for the day, no responsibilities and no commitments.<\/p>\n

He had friends around him and the sun was shining. But even so, he could feel the black fog descending yet again.<\/p>\n

\u2018I was in paradise<\/a>. The biggest choice I had to make that day was what I was eating for lunch, and I just felt empty and unfulfilled,\u2019 Tom remembers.<\/p>\n

The 52-year-old had spent his life travelling from continent to continent,\u00a0disconnecting from the digital world<\/a>\u00a0while taking opportunities as they arose and making money where he could. But the lifestyle left him thoroughly depressed.<\/p>\n

\u2018I was dogged by this constant sense of unease. I wasn\u2019t happy and I didn\u2019t know why,\u2019 the online coach and mentor, tells\u00a0Metro<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Growing up in St Andrews,\u00a0Scotland<\/a>, Tom often got into trouble and clashed with his father, who was a successful academic. So he dropped out of\u00a0school<\/a>\u00a0at 17 with just a handful of qualifications to his name and a plane ticket.<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/div>
Tom\u2019s father bought him a one-way ticket to Australia with one objective: \u2018Go and become a man\u2019 (Picture: Tom Slater)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u2018I didn\u2019t have any money so my dad bought me a one-way\u00a0trip to Australia<\/a>\u00a0with \u00a3150 and said: \u201cGo and become a man\u201d. I think he was just desperate. He didn\u2019t know what to do with me,\u2019 he remembers.<\/p>\n

Tom was both terrified and hungry for adventure, but when he got off the plane and headed for the job centre, he was dismayed to find that the nation was in the grip of the hottest winter on record and the farming jobs he\u2019d assumed he could get, were posted as being \u2018not for foreigners\u2019.<\/p>\n

Having never travelled alone before and not having a clue how to cook, the teenager soon ran out of money and ended up drifting up to the north, sleeping rough and hunting for work.<\/p>\n

He found himself a job with a travelling funfair, setting up the dodgem track. \u2018I slept in the back of a lorry and woke up with diesel oil all over my body. I felt out of my depth and really homesick. I thought I\u2019d made a huge mistake. But at the same time, I was enjoying the freedom,\u2019 Tom remembers.<\/p>\n

His fortunes changed when he found a job picking cantaloupes and worked for four months straight until he had enough money to fly out of Australia and to the Pacific Islands, where he had a wild time exploring the jungles of Indonesia.<\/p>\n

Nine months later, Tom came home \u2013 long-haired, skinny and unkempt. His parents thought he\u2019d got everything out of his system and was ready to go to university, but their son had his sights set on\u00a0Borneo<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/div>
While his peers headed to uni, Tom disappeared into the jungles of Borneo chasing something wilder (Picture: Tom Slater)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Tom\u00a0got a grant with the World Wildlife Fund with a botanist friend\u00a0and started traveling with the Iban tribe as they travelled through the rainforest collecting medicinal plants \u2013 even discovering one unknown to western science.<\/p>\n

\u2018I was living in the jungle hunting and eating bush animals having this big initiation. It was incredible; like travelling back in time. I matured a lot. We were eating deer, snake and monkey, which are pretty horrible. Very chewy; sinewy and muscly. We caught them with a poisoned dart and\u00a0blowpipe.\u2019<\/p>\n

But for the first time, Tom was happy. \u2018I had this romantic idea that I could just vanish into the jungle and be involved in a really simple culture where I didn\u2019t have to get a job or be berated about not going to university,\u2019 he remembers.<\/p>\n

After a few years of travelling\u00a0across the globe, Tom thought it was time to come home and join the rat race back in Scotland.<\/p>\n

\u2018At 22, I got a job in an office pushing a trolley around handing out photocopies, getting files and distributing pencils and Tippex. I had to wear a suit and I f***ing hated it. We had to go to these stupid team meetings once a week where we were given these motivational speeches. There were posters on the wall that said \u201cTeam Work Makes the Dream Work.\u201d It was soul destroying. I hated it. I left after two months.\u2019<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/div>
Funding his nomadic life with odd jobs, Tom traded stability for escape (Picture: Tom Slater)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Tom was one of the earliest digital nomads; people who travel through most of the year while working remotely. He would come home for months at a time before heading off again, funding himself through job in call centres, scuba diving and film making.<\/p>\n

Using his earnings, Tom went searching for adventure again and spent his 20s and 30s travelling the world, settling in Egypt, Malaysia, Indonesia,\u00a0Honduras, Thailand, Guatemala, Mexico, India and other far-flung spots, following the hippy trail and making new friends.<\/p>\n

But despite these dazzling locations and life-changing experiences, dark shadows followed Tom. He would find himself bored and gloomy even though he was scuba diving all day every day.<\/p>\n

\u2018There were periods where I literally didn\u2019t get out of bed for three months, apart from to eat. That was a real struggle,\u2019 he remembers. \u2018There was just exhaustion in the body, you can\u2019t move \u2013 the curtains are shut.\u2019<\/p>\n

On one trip back to see family in Scotland Tom asked for help from his GP who suggested medication \u2013 but he didn\u2019t want pills, he wanted to fix what was eating at him.<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/div>
Despite living a life only dream of, Tom couldn\u2019t escape a growing sense of emptiness (Picture: Tom Slater)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At the same time he started to see commercial success. In Varanasi, India, he worked with street kids and discovered a bank run by children for children. The bank manager was eight and the security guard was five \u2013 so he started to pitch a documentary idea. Film executives loved it and money came rolling in from production companies across the world; he\u2019d amassed approximately\u00a0\u00a3110,000\u00a0to make his movie.<\/p>\n

\u2018I thought I\u2019d found my thing. Everyone was saying how talented I was. But I just felt so much stress\u2019, he recalls. He\u2019d also witnessed friends in the industry feeling unhappy despite achieving amazing things \u2013 like his friend Malik Bendjelloul, a Swedish filmmaker who won a host of prizes, including an Oscar, and went on to end his own life.<\/p>\n

\n
\"65th<\/div>
Tom lost friend and Oscar-winning director Malik Bendjelloul to suicide at just 36 \u2013 a moment that marked him deeply (Picture: Frederick M. Brown\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u2018It made a lot of people, including myself, think more deeply about what I was doing and why I was doing it,\u2019 he explains.<\/p>\n

Eventually, Tom abandoned the filming project \u2013 despite being offered another \u00a330,000 to stay on \u2013 and came to England where he settled in a house share with people in their late teens and twenties. By this point, he was knockin on middle age and still didn\u2019t know what he was doing with his life.<\/p>\n

\u2018I was nearly 40, my relationship at the time had ended, my film project had collapsed and I was in this house share. I looked around and thought: \u201cWow. I\u2019ve really made a massive mess\u201d,\u2019 he remembers.<\/p>\n

Tom isn\u2019t the only digital nomad to discover the lifestyle isn\u2019t it\u2019s all cracked up to be. Recent research has found it can be a tough life, with one in three struggling with their mental health, according to bunq\u2019s recent Global Living Report. Nearly 1 out of 5 (19%) of respondents said that missing loved ones is the hardest part of their lifestyle.<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/div>
Tom\u2019s epiphany came when he realised he hadn\u2019t been exploring the world \u2013 he\u2019d been running from himself (Picture: Tom Slater)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In a bid to fix his problem, Tom resisted the urge to take off again and instead started learning about somatic therapy, a practice that focuses on how emotions appear within the body, through friends.<\/p>\n

He started to practice himself and had an epiphany; that he hadn\u2019t been travelling or exploring so much as running away.<\/p>\n

\u2018I realised I\u2019d felt so lost. I was trying to get away from my problems, and every time I slowed down, I felt s***,\u2019 he remembers. \u2018So I was alone a lot, I didn\u2019t stay anywhere long enough to establish any kind of intimate partnership and I just didn\u2019t know what to do with myself.\u2019<\/p>\n

Tom continued with therapy until, for the first time since he was a teen, he felt the fog lift. Then he decided to start using what he\u2019d learned to help others and for the past ten years has been coaching others through his business Sapience, holding retreats to help others find peace.<\/p>\n

With the depression long gone, he started travelling again. This time he could enjoy the sun and new sights fully, because instead of escaping his past, he was building a future.<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/div>
Years of solitude as a digital nomad taught Tom one thing \u2013 peace doesn\u2019t always come from chasing a dream (Picture: Tom Slater)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Tom now regularly witnesses people who, from the outside appear to have it all, but like he did, feel lost and depressed. His experiences have taught him that material success and the trappings of wealth don\u2019t always bring happiness.<\/p>\n

He explains: \u2018Among my clients, I have seen a lot of people who are very successful, who have made a lot of money, who still feel crappy. They\u2019re living in a huge house that feels empty. Or they think if they get all this stuff, they will feel great. And they don\u2019t. I\u2019ve got a number of billionaire clients who feel this way.<\/p>\n

\u2018I blame this idealised lifestyle that is being sold today. This ultimate optimisation thing that says you have to work yourself to the bone, just push through and never give up.\u2019<\/p>\n

But the digital nomad life is a social media lie, insists Tom. People are sold experiences that don\u2019t match up to reality because Instagram and the like promotes influencer lifestyles that are heavily curated, filtered and edited and that by no means represent real life.<\/p>\n

\u2018This culture of crushing it is really unhealthy. We\u2019re wondering why so\u00a0many men die by suicide<\/a>\u00a0and why there\u2019s so much depression, so much medication and one of the reasons is all this pressure to succeed,\u2019 he adds.<\/p>\n

Today, Tom is settled in South Devon, but plans to move to the States with his partner soon. He has no regrets over his adventurous past or the struggles he has experienced.<\/p>\n

\u2018I have never owned a house, had a mortgage, a car or an overdraft. But doing what I do now, I have so much purpose and community. I work for about four hours a day and have a thriving business working with amazing people,\u2019 he says.<\/p>\n

\u2018It took me 20 years to realise that you can\u2019t outrun unhappiness. In the end, I just stayed still until happiness found me.\u2019<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tom Slater was staying in a hut on the dreamy white sands of a beach in\u00a0Ko Pha Ngan Thailand\u00a0with no plans for the day, no responsibilities and no commitments. He had friends around him and the sun was shining. But even so, he could feel the black fog descending yet again. \u2018I was in paradise. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3416,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t