Some folks have been querying me regarding the “nomad” comment a few entries ago. It seems to confuse some people, who tend to think that my desire to live everywhere indicates: a) a lack of motivation and a strong propensity for slack or b) that I somehow managed to win the lottery. But our generation started a movement

When I speak of living “in the world,” I’m not talking about hippy-style hobo living, or dusted-out-style bumming around. Nor am I talking about the noble elite, who get to live wherever they want for however long they wish due to the fact that they fulfill the primary condition spelled out in most nations’ residency visa policies: independently wealthy. What I’m talking about is a new millennium phenomenon that’s a growing cultural trend and definitely something to consider in the ever-present wrist-wrestle between quality of life and the race for the prize.

Trav and I have discussed it a lot. In fact, Trav has a nice definition and blurb about what he terms Neomodicism:

Neomadicism will be the enduring social contribution of our generation: The creation of the Traveling Class—not the pampered jet set, but a demographic without a home, whose roots are not on the road, but are the road itself. A whole segment of the modern world’s population has learned to sustain itself without a base. This population will grow until, one day, people who live in one place will seem charming and quaint.

Worldliness is common these days. At any meeting of educated folks in their late twenties, you’re likely to overhear a story that begins “during my layover in Seoul…” People who are truly citizens of the world will end up being the result. Already, we have the Australians, who are, due to their Commonwealth status, seemingly endless appetite for travel and unending leisure, the world’s most nomadic citizens. And while some may feel that Australians are not the worldliest of folk, by an elitist definition of the term, anyone who has done any degree of travel can attest to the fact that Australians are everywhere and absorbing everything.

We all know somebody who did the “Prague Thing” in the early ‘90s. Buck Wiley and his expat posse did the Russia thing in the late ‘90s. Modern Nomads do not move to Italy, renovate villas and stay there, and they don’t do the San Miguel de Allende scene for more than a few months at a time. It’s the fact that the Nomad is on the road, not somewhere else to stay for a while, that appeals to the Nomad. The Modern Nomad is not an expatriate.

Since I live in Atlanta, I witness a large group of people, usually who work for a large airline or are family members with somebody who does so, who travel frequently. Tied to the Man in most cases, they must maintain a base of operations and only travel as time permits. People in this category are avid, if not fanatical travelers, but they are not Modern Nomads.

Tourist Visa Residency

Given the tight labor markets and the ever-shrinking ability to work as an expatriate, most Modern Nomads are bound by the limits of the tourist visa, and arrange their travels accordingly. To live in Vienna, for example, one can do it for about six months legally if you do the shuffle: 90 day entrance visa combined with a 72 or so hour stint in a non-EU country to grant you a second 90 day entrance visa. If one tries to extend it, the Polizei may nab you as an illegal.

Low Materiality

Given the constant movement, Modern Nomads possess little, and need little. Imagine if you will, in the case of somebody like me, who is employed in technology. I could travel with a backpack, a cellular phone, and a laptop computer equipped with WiFi and work from just about anywhere. Barring time zone restrictions and coordination of individuals across several continents, it would be no different for me to work in that fashion than working from home, which I frequently do.

In a related note, pets and, by extension, children, complicate the lives of Modern Nomads. Pets are subject to pesky quarantines in many situations, and children, it is often believed, thrive in stable environments. That is not to say it’s impossible to be a Modern Nomad with either or both, but your nomadic sphere would most likely be limited to a single nation. Really, that’s not such a bad restriction, as just about any nation I’ve ever been to possesses adequate national beauty and culture to keep one occupied. Still, something about the single-nation Nomad seems less romantic and less, well, nomadic.

That being said, the Nomadic life is not out of the question with children. Just take a look at Carla Sinclair and Mark Frauenfelder, two freelance authors who just moved to the tiny South Pacific island of Rarotonga with their two young daughters.

Constant Virtual Presence Replaces a Contiguous Physical Presence

If your parents miss you, they can look at your pictures on your website. The immediacy of technology these days, with e-mail, Instant Messaging, weblogs and digital multimedia capabilities allows the Nomad to keep everybody fully abreast of their current life.

Even professionally, a Nomad can maintain a constant virtual presence. Interactive paging and wireless Internet technologies make even the most charming streetside park bench a viable workplace. Assuming one’s clients or coworkers accept the Nomad’s lack of physical position and focus on the quality of the work produced, then there’s really no problem. Of course, coworkers tend to get envious of people who are not required to be “in the cube” on a daily basis, so this is something to consider in the Nomad’s strategy.

Portable Skills

As I mentioned before, possessing technical skills could potentially enable me to work from anywhere. If I could hook up the situation correctly, I could work on somebody’s technology platform housed in San Francisco as I sipped my Chai in a café on the streets of Bangalore, India, for example. Assuming my employer was an American company, there would be no labor complications and, given the fact that I’d be generating economy locally, I would probably receive little hassle from The Man in any given country so long as I adhered to their laws regarding immigration and fulfilled all of the tourist visa requirements.

Writers, economists, and the self-managed classes could all pull this off fairly reasonably, assuming they could land gigs at sufficiently enlightened organizations.

Cultural Elasticity

Modern Nomads adhere to their national origin and identify as such, but tend to associate more with a cultural class. Many may say they live in an “expat” community, or blend in with “young people” in their current homeland. Depending on the country of origin, the degree to which the Nomad identifies with it varies. However, almost all Modern Nomads share a cultural curiosity and a desire to be considered a citizen of the “world.”

The Modern Nomad tends to follow trends on a global scale and is able to keep abreast of culture via the Internet, contacts in other places, and frequent, extensive travel. You’re likely to see a Modern Nomad in Seattle, sitting in a hipster café and using their iBook to post to their travel blog while sporting a t-shirt for the hottest French electronica act and wearing slippers that are hot in Nakameguro this week.

Being a Modern Nomad is the cultural equivalent of being of mixed blood. You’ll notice that many parents of military children have been turned against racist thoughts when their son or daughter came home with little brown baby. This is something that, in my opinion, is going to save the planet (or at least the country). As lines between groups blur, so do divisions.

Do as Nick Does

Probably the most famous Modern Nomad who is not some euro-trash jet-setter or Trustafarian prep school kid is Nick Currie, AKA Momus. In just three or so short years, he has lived in Tokyo, Paris, Berlin, New York City and spent considerable time in London, Scotland (his native land) and various points between.

Mister Currie is the paradigm of the Modern Nomad. His trade is portable, since he is a writer and musician. His cultural elasticity is evident to anyone who reads his web site – Japanese one moment, Parisian the next. And his site is how he maintains his constant virtual presence. He maintains his relationships via updates on his websites, e-mail and frequent travel. Momus travels with his laptop, a few clothes and then acquires music once he gets where he’s going.

The Modern Nomad life is something to consider when one is constantly assaulted by the culture of our day. The constant push to increase efficiency, work harder, buy more, consume more resources, earn more money and the never-ending cycles that entails are enough to consider the lifestyle alone. But given that we, as a generation, were raised rather leisurely, with lots of free time, a television keeping us abreast of the world outside, and comforted and encouraged to indulge our dalliances, we became in essence, dilettantes. In essence, the fact that we’re the leisure class, even despite, in many cases, what most Americans would call “wealth,” also comes into play.