One of the biggest problems for digital nomads is finding love and then sticking to it.
Sure, you meet countless of people while traveling from one country to another, but you never actually stay long enough to bond with someone and develop a relationship. So HOW do you date as a digital nomad?
While on a regular date, you need to focus on what to do and what to say, this pressure disappears when you are travelling. Just BEING in a foreign country makes it easier to act freely and gives you much more interesting dating locations.
For example, you could visit the Taj Mahal, where the focus will be on something else, not each other. Thus, words are going to come more naturally and you can easily open up to each other.
According to studies from one of the top ‘group travel’ providers for young people, 1 in 8 millennial men actually want to find love while travelling, while 1 in 20 millennial women hope for the same.
Furthermore, all millennial digital nomads are also open to long distance relationships. This is because many of them turn into regular relationships after some time spent together while apart. According to the same study, 1 in 11 millennials found a partner while travelling, which showed that their top priority is travelling, followed by founding love.
A great way of meeting and dating other digital nomads is actually to download an app. You can find lots of apps, and no, we’re not talking about tinder..
Best dating apps for digital nomads (list)
Why use dating apps specifically for digital nomads?
Well, the answer is simple. While you will find all kinds of people on Tinder and similar apps, you are not going to have an easy time finding like-minded digital nomads.
Which means finding love on a different app will be with an added tension before the relationship even begins. So using special dating apps where, as a traveler you are going to find other travelers, your potential partner won’t give a second thought that you may be going to the other side of the planet soon.
1: Meet Me Outside
This is an app, that, as the name says, invites you and your potential partner to meet outside. And this is great when you take into account the amount of time each person spends texting and using their phone. Some outside adventure is a great kick starter for a new relationship.
So this app connects people, based on their interests and passions with an active lifestyle, and it also gives you some date suggestions that are based on your common interests. After you set up a date, you can shut your phone off and enjoy your common favorite activities, outdoors!
2: Miss Travel
On this app you can easily find someone who enjoys travelling as much as you do. When you meet someone on the app, you can send them a travel proposal where you mention your current location, the location you’d like to travel to, any possible date ideas and the type of a travel tip that you’d want, ranging anywhere from Adventure to Luxury and Romance.
And because it’s so practical, you can also choose who pays for the trip, or whether you’d like to split the cost, which will cut the awkwardness of having this conversation.
3: HowAboutWe
This is an app that allows you to suggest a date, starting with “How about we…” And if you can’t find anything to say, you can get inspired from the app itself or from the other people who post date ideas. When someone answers your question with your date idea, you have a date! The same thing goes when you answer someone else’s question.
4: Tour Bar
On Tour Bar you can test the waters with a potential partner before actually going out with them. Simply connect with a person who can show you the surroundings at your new destination and have a nice time together.
And if you hate travelling alone, this is one of the best apps for digital nomads where you can find a travel buddy. You don’t actually have to date anyone, so you can just see how you get along at first, and there’s no pressure for going on a date. If you have chemistry, you can then move on to actual dating.
5: Skout
The idea of this app is to get you to connect with a person that shares your passions and then to late nature take its course. Whether you become romantically involved or not is up to the two of you. You can either use this app to find a new friend, or a guide for the city where you’re travelling to, or even find someone in your own town! The main goal of the app is to connect people and bring them together!
6: Ninder
This app is currently in its beta version, but it sounds pretty promising. You can easily swipe photos of other digital nomads and when you find someone you like, chat to them, similarly to Tinder. However, Ninder connects to Nomad Trips and shows the location of the users. If you’re not in a hurry, the future of this app sounds very promising to the digital nomad community, so if you wait, you can see where it goes when it’s finished.
So as you can see, there are plenty of apps you can use to help you start dating other digital nomads. Digital nomads are different from most people and have a different mindset, so it’s important to bear that in mind when dating.
They often like to move on to other places and meet new people very quickly. Of course there are exceptions, and a lot of nomads like to just stay in one place they’ve found that they really like.
Digital nomads can be fickle and spontaneous
Let’s be honest about this, the type of people that travel around the world, moving on to a new place as and when they see fit are likely to be.. spontaneous at best.
This means they’re very likely to just change their mind at any given time. This can obviously make DATING a digital nomad quite a challenge. You might even be a bit like this yourself as a nomad.
You might just have short term ‘locationships’
A locationship is exactly what it sounds like, a relationship that only exists in one location. It’s VERY common to meet a fellow nomad in one place, and then find that they’re going on to another place in 2 months, and you DON’T want to go with them.
Sure, you can hook up and have fun while they’re in the same location as you but as soon as they move on, the locationship ends. for this sort of thing, it’s important to remember that you’re both going to be moving on, BUT there’s no reason you can’t stay friends!
Being a digital nomad can be lonely and it’s always very good to have contacts (especially other digital nomads) who you can talk to, call, message, and potentially meet up with later on!
Time is money, remember!
Another problem that nomads can have when trying to date and have a love life, is that time is literally money. Often nomads are freelancers, which means that every hour they’re not working is an hour they’re not getting paid.
Of course this is different if you have the elusive digital nomad passive income, but for most of us we need to be working to earn the money needed to travel. It can be difficult to work around that and find time to date, spend time with your partner etc.
It’s even harder when the nomad you’re dating is a ‘fake’ nomad and are only travelling around for say, 3-6 months on their parents money, and don’t have a business they need to work on! They won’t understand that you need to work in order to stay afloat, and they’ll want to spend all their time partying and exploring with you! Be careful.
Finding love on the road!
That being said, it’s very possible you’ll find someone you love to bits on the road, because you’re both dong the same thing! the best situation would be to find someone who’s also a ‘serious’ digital nomad and has their own business they need to work on. Ideally in a different industry so you don’t compete or step on eachothers toes.