Using our highly-selective ranking system, we found the best US cities for digital nomads. So what are you waiting for? Pack a bag, bring a laptop, and let’s go explore. Nearly thirty years later, the term has come to mean something new again. The COVID-19 pandemic gave rise to work-from-home and reduced the need for many working professionals to have a physical office. Laptop computers, Wi-Fi, and smartphones have made it possible to work from just about anywhere nowadays, and digital nomads are highly mobile and “location independent,” as described in Digital Nomads: In Search of Meaningful Work in the New Economy.3,4 Many digital nomads view it as a lifestyle and commit long-term, but they don’t travel as often as you might think. (They’re different in that regard from van lifers.) In short, digital nomads have the freedom to travel and work from anywhere. With the increasing prevalence of remote work plus the ubiquity of mobile, wireless technology, anyone is able to become a digital nomad and move somewhere new. If you found the perfect place, don’t worry! There are five easy steps to fixing your Wi-Fi, and if that doesn’t solve it you can boost your Wi-Fi signal and run a speed test to check for problems. Of course, you may end up needing to switch providers, and we have a list of favorites to help with that. Now if you’re going to go off-the-grid nomad, there are a couple other things we suggest … For starters, in rural areas water, snacks, and a working cell phone are a must. You’ll want to find mobile hotspots if you’re traveling around, but satellite or DSL internet should work if you’re staying in one place. Finally, if you’re on a budget, we have some tips. Laptops and phones with long-lasting battery life are key, as are public Wi-Fi hotspots (Seattle has the most). Just like in the 1980s, you just need a remote-friendly job and mobile technology to make your dream of being a digital nomad become reality. But maybe none of those ten cities strike your fancy. That’s totally okay! We dug into our research and found the top 100 metro areas for digital nomads. With our list, you can move anywhere in the country and still find yourself with beautiful national parks, fast Wi-Fi, and an airport nearby. To find the percentage of available remote jobs, we searched Indeed.com for each metro. Each measurement was normalized on a 0-1 scale with 1 corresponding to the measurement that would most positively affect the final score and 0 corresponding to the measurement that would most negatively affect the final score. These adjusted measurements were then added together with the weights mentioned below to get a score of 100. Each metro was ranked based on the factors below:
Average Download Speed Mean (20%) - a faster speed positively impacts the score Number of Free WiFi hotspots (20%) - more available hotspots positively impacts the score % of available remote-friendly jobs (10%) - higher percentage of remote-friendly jobs within a 25 mile radius positively impacts the score. Data pulled from Indeed.com on 01/18/2023. Average monthly rent cost per square foot (30%) - lower monthly rent costs positively impacts the score Miles from Nearest Airport (5%) - closer airports positively impacts the score Miles from Nearest National Park (5%) - closer national parks positively impacts the score Average Annual Temperature (5%) - higher annual temperatures positively impacts the score Number of State Recreation Areas (5%) - more state recreation areas positively impacts the score
