New to Digital Nomadism // Interview with Outsite Member Derek Rein

Outsite Member Derek hails from Bavaria, and writes software for a US company in the autonomous drone space. He describes himself as a "free spirit" and has traveled to many of the Outsite locations as a part of his nomadic lifestyle.

Derek took some time to chat with us about his travels and his experience at Outsite... 

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Outsite: Tell us a bit about yourself. 

Derek: My parents named me after a good friend of theirs who also was a famous yoga teacher in the eighties back when yoga was still very niche. I guess they planted some sort of free spirited seed in me which to a certain extent inspired my nomadic lifestyle. Also professionally I am growing a lot as being nomadic makes it easy to deliberately and serendipitously connect with interesting people and mindsets. My biggest passions are staying up to date with what’s going on in the world, exploring new places and understanding the energies that prevail in those places, and all kinds of sport. I combine all three of them all the time for instance when I ride my bike around a new place while listening to an audiobook or the Software Engineering Daily podcast. 

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How long have you been nomadic and what inspired this lifestyle change? 

 I’ve been nomadic for about half a year now. I assumed that working remote allows me to still create value in my profession which I care about a lot while also satisfying my desires of exploring new places, meeting new people, and connecting to a different set of like-minded professionals. All of that has been true so far so I am certainly not planning on reversing my decision any time soon ;)   

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What has been the most challenging part so far? 

 I love exploring new places and to me that also means connecting with people in those places and not only folks who travel there as well. Especially in more remote places I struggle with that. It takes a bunch of courage to make serendipitous connections happen. 

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Any crazy/fun stories you'd like to share? 

 I recently bought this silly looking visor that I had been wearing for a while and a few friends mocked me in a nice way about it. One day I ran out of a coffee shop not knowing that there was a closed glass door gating the exit. I full on ran into it. The noise was brutal. The entire coffee shop was shocked assuming that I would end up with a concussion or at least somewhat injured. But the visor had protected my face and nothing happened to me. Everybody in the coffee shop was relieved and laughed when I explained that the visor had saved me. I also told my friends about it. Maybe the story made its way into their subconscious and they will see strange looking fashion with different eyes now that they know that it could be life saving. 

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How does Outsite fit into your current lifestyle? 

 Outsite has great coverage of the US west coast which is great for me. I can always trust that the locations are well located in their areas and that I can do sport nearby. Plus there’s always interesting people that you can but don’t have to connect to. I love all of that! Any advice for 9-to-5 workers looking to make the leap to nomadism? Don’t hesitate too much about bringing the topic up at work. At the end of the day people care about you providing value. If you believe that your job allows you to provide the same amount of value when you’re remote then you should be able to convince work about that. But be aware that you will be living lifestyle optimized and not career optimized as you will miss out on some of the chit chat and gossip in the office. I still go back to the office every couple of weeks and I also enjoy that. You can follow Derek on Instagram, Twitter, and on his YouTube channel: DerekTV. 

Ready to start your own adventure? Learn more about becoming an Outsite Member - recently featured on Product Hunt!

Words: Annie Brown // Outsite Fangirl

Photographs: Outsite & Derek Rein

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