15 Essentials Tools And Websites For Digital Nomads

For many of us, Digital Nomads seem to be living the life that everybody wants to have. They have total freedom, schedule their own working times, tasks and projects. Wherever you are in the world, everything can be turned into their home office.

Be it the Maldives or the exotic Caribbean.   All that glitters is not gold though! It takes dedication, discipline, focus, organization and careful planning to support your digital nomad life.

We listed a few tools that Digital Nomads use that will help you to communicate with your team, finish projects in a timely manner and having the right travel/work balance. That’s when you can start enjoying your remote work between palm trees.

Land Your First Job As A Digital Nomad

The first step for every digital nomad should be getting a remote job. If you do not have the contacts yet, the easiest way to land your first job is at one of the global freelancing platforms. They help you connect to businesses who are actively looking for professionals willing to do remote work.

The freelancing marketplaces ensure that the freelancers are being billed fairly by the hour with applications that track the working hours both easily viewable by the contractor and contractee. For this service, the marketplaces charge a fee based on the agreed hourly rate. Nonetheless, they are a great way to start a life as a digital nomad and start forming relationships.

Upwork

Upwork exists since December 2013 after a merger from Elance and oDesk. Elance has been in the market since 1999 and oDesk was founded in 2003.  

In March 2017 Upwork reported having 14 Million registered users in 180 countries with over $1B freelancer billings. Upwork has a fee ranging from 5% to 20% based on the agreed hourly rate between the freelancer and contracting company.

Freelancer

Freelancer was founded in 2009 and has over 21 Million registered users with highly requested jobs from different categories like IT &  Software, Design, Media & Architecture and Writing & Content. The marketplace Freelancer charges you a 10% fee which can be reduced with a monthly membership that costs you a minimum of $5 per month.

Hubstaff Talent

Hubstaff Talent is a fairly new freelancer platform as it was launched early 2017. Unlike Upwork or Freelancer, Hubstaff Talent does not charge any fees to either the freelancer or the business owner.

Their mission is to provide a platform that helps businesses to source qualified freelancers as well as support agencies to display their services to the world.

Project Management Tools – Stay organized

Now you got your first job and you are very cheerful, maybe even overwhelmed. With one single freelancing job, it is still very easy to stay organized. Once you have multiple clients, things can get chaotic. This list of tools will assist you to stay organized. You can manage projects and tasks for each client with a scheduled deadline.

It is smart to start right from the beginning with one of the project management tools as it will help you to easily integrate new team members if you need to distribute your growing workload to other freelancers. Here is a quick comparison overview of Asana, JIRA and Paymo.

Conference Tools – Keep in Touch with Clients and Team Members

You have all your projects and tasks perfectly organized and aligned – maybe even allocated the workload between your team members. Now you need to stay in frequent contact with your team to discuss solutions or new goals “face-to-face”. You will also need these tools to offer support to your clients in a more personal and professional way – not only emails.

These tools are very dependable and work properly for meetings, group collaborations and screen sharing. In most cases, you will also need these tools to offer support to your clients in a more personal and professional way – not only emails. These tools are very dependable and work properly for meetings, group collaborations and screen sharing.

Skype

Whoever is actively browsing the internet, heard of Skype already. It is an instant messaging platform with the capabilities to video chat with other users. It has been on the global market since 2003 and has now over 660 Million registered accounts. Skype offers landline and mobile phone calls worldwide for a surcharge.

Google Hangouts

Google Hangouts was introduced to the market in May 2013 and it is very similar to Skype. A very distinct difference is that landline and mobile phone from anywhere to the United States and Canada are free. Just like Skype, you are also able to share your screen with other people in the video conference call to support your argument with a visual explanation better.

Uberconference

Uberconference is a visual audio conferencing system with a Google Apps Premier Technology Partnership. The advantages of Uberconference are that it offers HD Audio, call recording and to be able to see detailed profiles of the callers from their Social Media profiles like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. The free version is limited to 10 participants in one call and with the Pro Version, up to 100 participants can join one call.

Cloud Services – Store Your Data Safely

If you are a true digital nomad, you will be in many different places around the world in a year. It is preferable to travel light – weight and reduce the amount of hardware that you carry around for your work. You do not need to carry costly and heavy HDD’s with you to store all your files. Here are some great cloud storage solutions.  Here is a comparison overview of Dropbox, Google Drive and Amazon Drive.

You do not need to carry costly and heavy HDD’s with you to store all your files. Here are some great cloud storage solutions with a quick comparison overview of Dropbox, Google Drive and Amazon Drive.

Other Digital Nomad Tools

You got all your work-related stuff sorted out now, but do not forget about your private life. Here I will explain a few tools that help you keep your travel itineraries in place, control your finances, keep note of important information or notes as well as how to market yourself as a freelancer.

Evernote

Evernote allows you to keep your thoughts and other information sorted. You are able to keep voice memos, store handwritten notes, attachments or even full web pages. Perfect to never forget anything anymore.

TripIt

TripIt creates one master itinerary for all your travel documents. It automatically transfers your email into the TripIt account across devices. From there you will receive all updates and reminder about your upcoming travels as well as directions and weather.

YouNeedABudget

You need to stay in control of your finances. As a digital nomad, you do not always have a regular income and therefore you need to be extra careful with your money. YNAB helps you keep a great overview of all your income sources and expenses.

As a side note – Try to stay active on several forums such as GrowthHackers, Inbound, Quora and Reddit. Find your niche and help other members with your knowledge. Over time your reputation increases and you can start to market yourself there to increase your potential client base. By then, you should not even be on the freelancing marketplace anymore to avoid their fees.

Always be available

Clients like it if you are quick in response. That does not mean you should be there for them 24/7 but also do not wait several days for an easy answer to your clients. Value them and they will value you. Therefore you must be sure to always have a stable internet connection wherever you are right now in the world.

SimOptions offers the perfect solution for mobile internet, calls and texts while working abroad. Feel free to take a look at our available packages for many destinations worldwide.