Can you be a digital nomad with no skills?

For many people, being a digital nomad is a dream that seems unattainable because they feel unqualified or otherwise unable to earn money online while travelling.

To be a digital nomad, you need some basic internet and computer skills. Beyond that, you’ll need skills that you can monetize online. The good news is that there are many such skills and in most cases they can be learned entirely online for free. A few examples of those skills are writing, translation, marketing, software development and video editing.

Whenever you see people say you can start making money online with no skills or experience, the first step is usually to learn a skill. Don’t be discouraged though, learning a new skill can be enjoyable and in many cases you can start making money relatively quickly.

In this post I’ll let you know why we need skills, how you can get started, which skills are most valuable and give you step by step instructions on how to reach your goal.

Why you need skills

If people could make money with no skills, everyone would be doing it! It’s best to understand that high demand, low supply skills will (usually) earn the most money.

I know that’s probably not what you want to hear, but in the end it’s a good thing for us. Since many people aren’t willing to put the work in to learn new skills, the competition (supply) remains low, meaning we have more opportunities!

Ultimately, to make any money you need to provide value to somebody. Would you want to pay somebody to work for you when they have literally no skills? I doubt it.

What skills you need

If you are reading this, you probably already have two useful skills:

1. Know the basics of using a computer and the internet.
2. English fluency.

Being fluent in English is especially helpful and gives you an advantage over much of the competition around the world. (It isn’t required, just very useful.)

Basic computer skills are unavoidable if you want to be a digital nomad since you’ll be making most of your money with a computer.

By basic skills, I really do mean basic. Mostly just being able to create accounts for various services and figuring out how to accept money.

With these, you have the building blocks to specialize in something and start earning money online.

Specialized skills

Without anything else, it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to monetize basic computer skills.

The truth is that there are so many options for what to specialize in - I’m sure it’s possible to make money doing almost anything online if you put in enough effort.

That being said, there are some tried and true ways that are popular with digital nomads. I’d recommend starting with one of these if you have no other ideas.

Best skills to learn as a digital nomad

Writing

Writing is a great skill to get started earning money online since there is plenty of opportunity for freelance writers.

Many companies need copywriters (copywriting is writing for advertising or marketing) for their websites - think about us and product pages. People running blogs also need people to write some of the posts.

The nice thing about freelance writing is that companies can’t as easily buy quality work in low income (cheaper) countries because the people living there usually aren’t fluent in English. For you, that means less competition and higher pay!

Software development

Software development (coding) is becoming more and more necessary in the modern world as more things become digital. Because of that, there’s plenty of opportunities for software developers.

If you’ve never tried coding before, you should try it out for a while before deciding to commit to being a software developer. Some people won’t enjoy it. (Don’t pursue it if that’s you.)

What kind of software you want to specialize in is up to you but my favorite is web development because I love the openness of the web compared to other platforms.

If you do blogging or email marketing I encourage you to at least learn HTML and CSS. Since they are used as the building blocks of websites and emails, (yes, even when using solutions like WordPress) having a basic understanding of them can help a lot. Don’t sweat it if you aren’t interested though - knowing HTML and CSS definitely isn’t required unless you actually want to do web development.

Blogging

Blogging is one of the most reliable ways to start earning passive online income.

The awesome thing about blogging is that you don’t need to work for other people. You are your own boss!

While that’s a huge positive, it also comes with responsibility - you will ultimately need to manage your blogs like a business when they start earning money.

Unfortunately, blogging is one of the things where resources for learning how to do it are generally pretty bad - especially for SEO related things. There are loads of scam artists that will lure you into their expensive courses that won’t even help you.

I strongly advise you to never buy expensive courses from these people! Stick with free resources as much as possible - they are out there!

Writing, software development and blogging are the three I think are best and by no means the only options. If you want to do something else, all the power to you!

How to learn new skills online

Learning online is awesome. There are loads of resources and you can do it in your own time, at your own pace.

If you prefer video content, YouTube is the best place to start.

You can learn enough for writing, software development and blogging to start earning money with YouTube alone - completely free. The key here is to make sure that you apply what you are learning and put it into practice. Don’t get into a habit of procrastinating by watching YouTube in the name of learning.

Remember, you don’t need to buy expensive courses! Eventually you might want to consider paid courses but even then, stick to ones that have a reasonable price.

If you don’t like learning through videos, you can just search for learning resources on Google.

At the end of the day, learning resources are easy to come by. More importantly, you will require hard work and consistency for success. You should develop a system that you can realistically stick to.

My advice:

• Set aside some time each day that you will dedicate to learning a new skill.
• Set small, incremental learning goals so you don’t feel overwhelmed and give up.
• After a while, you can transition that time into working with your new skill and making money. Don’t worry if this starts out small - it will grow if you stick to it.
• Eventually your online income will be high enough that you can quit your day job and really commit to growing your online business.

If you manage to increase your online income enough that you could live off it, you can become a digital nomad whenever you want!

You don’t actually need to get to that point to become a digital nomad though. Another good option is to save up enough money to live as a digital nomad (maybe in cheap countries) for a year or so. During that period you can fully dedicate your time to developing the skills to start your online career.

Be sure to treat that year as time for personal growth though. If you treat it like a holiday, don’t be surprised that you don’t end up with the results you wanted.

Conclusion

Ultimately, we need to provide value to somebody to earn money. Obviously then, we need to develop skills that are valuable to other people. Fortunately, those skills can be learned online and, if you stick to it, can start earning you an income relatively quickly.

If you are still feeling overwhelmed, I encourage you to follow my advice and split up the journey to your goal into small, bite-sized pieces that aren’t so intimidating. As always, I wish you the best of luck!