Yair Sterman is a software developer and web designer, born in Israel. For our online interview, I found him in his home just back from an inspirational trip to a rural area in Hawaii for a couple of months. He is a very interesting person with a broad view of many topics. We talked about digital nomadism, preferred places to visit and what raises his interest in staying there.
Autor: Angela Ivanova
Hi Yair. How are you?
I just came back from Hawaii, where I stayed for a couple of months. Beautiful, amazing area! Speaking of rural areas, Hawaiians are very low-key, down-to-earth people, and very in touch with nature.
Since when are you actually a digital nomad?
It’s hard for me to say, but since about 2019. I started travelling with my wife without working around Southeast Asia. During our travels, a good friend of mine, Chai, asked me, “Do you know how to develop websites?” I said, “Yeah, it’s no problem. “And he said, “I have an idea we can try to make into a business”. So, we started – very, very loosely – just for a couple of hours a week while we travelled. And then it slowly grew into a business. So yeah, it was somewhere around 2019.
At that time, I didn’t even think about the term “digital nomad”. I have always known that I love travelling. I usually travel for long periods of time to really experience the place, not just as a tourist. I always knew this should be a part of my life, and then the opportunity came. Now, I can actually work while travelling. It just fits perfectly.
How many countries have you been to so far?
About 35.
What are your favorite destinations?
I like nature. I love seeing anything from huge mountains to beautiful beaches. I really try to avoid big cities, although I have been to a few great ones, which was an amazing experience, and I really enjoyed it. But what I especially like and prefer are trips to rural areas, staying in small huts in the mountains, or in bungalows on the beach, somewhere you could feel and breathe nature – those are my top destinations.
Now, many digital nomads stay in coliving places using coworking spaces. Do you prefer also such places, or do you like to be on your own?
In the beginning, I think all digital nomads go through this evolution. They usually start by staying in hostels, working from cafes or working on their own. But eventually, especially if you have a very busy business to run, you realize that you can’t rely on coffee shops, and flaky WiFi all the time. So, I usually try to find a good recommended coworking space and then find accommodation around that area.
Usually, coworking spaces, especially the type of coworking spaces I’m looking for, have a very strong and tight-knit community around them, which also helps you find yourself in a new destination, rather than just wandering the street alone.
So, you like to meet new people…
Yes, exactly. This is one of the most important reasons I love to travel.
Do you like to connect with some locals? Do you want to know how they live?…
Yes, yes, of course! By meeting new people, I mostly mean meeting the locals. First of all, they have the best recommendations for the place (laughing). They can tell you exactly where to go and where not to go, where the tourists are circling and where the locals usually go. Things like that…
I’m very interested in the local culture. It’s the best way to immerse yourself in a new destination – to see and feel how people actually live there. I think it gives you a very interesting perspective on your own lifestyle. You are used to living one way, and suddenly here in the new place, you experience a new way of life. You can learn a lot from the locals by talking to them and experiencing new places through them.
Great! This is like going out of the box.
Yes (laughing). Exactly!
Have you had any challenges in rural areas? Sometimes, people have issues with the WiFi or with the transport…
I’ve been to many remote areas. The most remote I can imagine was an island in the Philippines. We were kind of between two villages in a developing community, and there, the electricity would cut off during the day – it would go out at random hours during the day, then it would come back on, but somehow, I was able to work from there (laughing). I just figured out how to schedule my time around the blackout. It’s not ideal, and it’s not a perfect situation, but nevertheless, I really don’t remember having problems with the WiFi connection other than that.
The bigger challenge was actually finding these places and finding a place to stay there. They are usually very small and do not have many accommodation options. Once you get there, once you find the place, the job is very easy. But finding and getting there is the challenge.
For example, there are also many nice villages all over Europe, but no one knows about them, and no one knows how to get to them. But they are absolutely beautiful, with beautiful mountain views and great, interesting people.
And have you had any unnecessary bureaucratic barriers or issues that could be improved?
I think digital nomadism has really started to become mainstream in this age of COVID. It really took off and became a mainstream culture. So now you can see that many countries and governments are trying to catch up with it.
The problem is technical – you can’t work somewhere without a work visa. And getting a work visa in many countries is very complicated and difficult. So now all these countries are starting to come out with a so-called digital nomad visa, or a remote work visa. It’s a sort of adjustment to that distance between them. These remote workers are actually tourists but come for a long period of time and happen to work from their computers. So, we need to see more of that. We need to see countries coming out with better visa regulations, making it easier for digital nomads to get visas in order to travel and work remotely. Because at the end of the day, everyone gains from these people who come and work remotely in their countries. They just need to make it easier and more accessible.
The easier, the better. I like this point.
I’m sure many people have different views on this. I know in some places, many locals are against tourism in general or against digital nomads who come to live there.
But I think that the sharing of knowledge and work, by those who are travelling and meeting new people locally, bringing their culture and ideas to a different place and at the same time learning from the local culture is more important – I believe this is the way people should interact. We shouldn’t make travelling more difficult. We have to make it easier so that we meet more people, see different ways of life, become more tolerant and more observant of everyone else. This is how I believe the world should be.
Nice statement. I really like your words, and we can leave them as the end of our conversation. But let’s complement them with what inspires you most in travel. Is there anything else you want to share with everyone who will read your interview?
Travel more, meet more people! It is insincere to have an opinion about what is happening in different countries if you do not have a personal view of them. We need to interact with the actual citizens, not at the government level and not form an opinion through what we hear in the media or news. It’s difficult to have an opinion about someone else if you don’t have real experience of where they come from, how they grew up, how they live, and what their outlook on life and the world is. This is so important to us humans. If we want to be more connected, if we want to be more global, if we want to bring peace to everyone, this is the way.
Thank you very much, Yair, for this interesting conversation!
Learn More about Yair!
Website: digitalnomads.world
Facebook: www.facebook.com/thedigitalnomadworld
Instagram: www.instagram.com/thedigitalnomadworld
