Backpacking in 2012 vs. remote work in 2024, I still miss the phone booths

I had to pick between keeping my old routine of co-working cafes in Chiang Mai or going full remote from a van in the desert. I chose the van life back in March, and honestly, the wifi reliability is a 50/50 gamble every single day. But what really hits me is how we used to plan meetups around a specific hostel lobby at 6pm, and now it's all Slack channels and timezone math. Last month I drove 3 hours to a town that was supposed to have a co-working space, and it turned out to be a closed laundromat with a 'coming soon' sign. Has anyone else traded the social chaos of shared tables for the quiet loneliness of a good cell signal, and do you ever regret it?

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sullivan.finley3d ago

The van life wifi gamble is real, and I feel your pain on the phantom co-working spaces. I did the same thing last year in New Mexico, drove an hour to a place that was just a guy's garage with a folding table. The trick is to call ahead before you commit to the drive, and also check the local Facebook groups for digital nomads, those folks usually know what's actually open. As for the loneliness, I fixed that by picking one town to base out of for a month at a time instead of moving every week, and I started joining a local run club just to get some human contact. The social chaos of hostels was fun, but honestly, the quiet lets me actually finish my work by 3pm and then go hike. You just have to build your own version of the 6pm lobby meetup, mine is now a shared lunch table at the same taco spot every Tuesday. No regrets, but the planning takes way more effort than it used to.