FB Answers: More about Modern Nomadism and why I chose Dallas

At last. I am back in a city high in the mountains where there aren’t many bugs!

I have only been bitten ONCE right after my shower instead of 50 times (bugs love clean people).

I am definitely living in the mountains forever when I retire. The climate is better up here too…

On to the answers.

Working Rachel asks WHY DALLAS?!

I reply.. why not? Haha, just kidding.

Well for me, Dallas is a great compromise of many things. I am not really the type of girl who likes to stay in very expensive, sexy, busy cities. They stress me out and give me a headache.

I think I am more suited to small town lifestyles because I have done a 180 from a year ago, and now I want to take life easy but make the big bucks so I can retire early.

So here are my top 5 reasons why Dallas:

1. It is a good hub for IT work. It has recently diversified and in the recent 10-15 years, Dallas, San Antonio and Houston are great cities to work in for IT workers.

2. It is smaller than Houston. I don’t really want a huge city and lots of commuting, so Dallas is the right size, and a good place to raise a family.

3. The weather is better. The winters are not as harsh, and the sun is unrelenting, but so is the sun here in Portugal and I am seeing that I can handle it, if I am smart about staying in the shade, and avoiding being outside between the hot spots in the day.

4. It is cheap to live. Texas doesn’t charge income state taxes. With the kind of money I could be making, this is HUGE. The food is also of good quality and cheap.

5. It is centrally located in the States. From the Dallas Airport, you can go all over the States in a shorter period of time than if you are far on each edge of the coast having to fly all the way to the other corner of the States for work.

Hope that answers it.. I know a lot of people find smaller cities like Dallas to be boring, but to be honest, if I lived in NYC or L.A. it wouldn’t make a difference from living in Dallas because we don’t go out to eat in restaurants all the time, shop all the time, go to theatres all the time.. etc.

We are pretty boring as a couple, and night entertainment is low on our list of Key Things To Have in a City.

Concojones had some great points about my modern nomad lifestyle

1. Do you think flying back to your city each week would have made the experience better?

But that is what consultants normally do.

Well I didn’t fly back each week for the sole reason that I didn’t want to pay rent. If I flew back “home” each week, that means I had an apartment that I was paying for each month and the weekends would be spent there.

Or on the couches of tolerant friends who would soon stop returning your calls.

The whole point of staying in the new client city the ENTIRE TIME is that instead of the client paying for you to fly back each week, you are being compensated with hotel and free food on the weekends to STAY in the city rather than go home to your apartment that is empty 90% of the time while you are working during the week.

NO client would pay for you to keep your hotel room AND fly back, while feeding you in your home city.

The whole point was to literally live for free.

I didn’t pay for jack squat for 6 months, but if I went back each weekend, I’d have to pay for the 2 days per week in my home city — apartment per month, food per day. Granted, it isn’t a lot of money, but it is still money.

I also HATE flying. Even short flights annoy me. Security checks, disgusting passengers beside me, bad food, motion sickness, flying in first thing Monday to work a long day… and not having a real break on the weekends.

With flying back every weekend, you only have ONE DAY. You leave Friday afternoon, get back Friday night. Saturday is shot, running errands or lying on the couch eating slices of cheese on bread so that you don’t buy too much food so that you don’t leave it rotting in the fridge.

And then you fly back to work on Sunday (depending on the flight) or very early Monday morning.

It was much more relaxing to stay in the city for the entire weekend without having to rush for flights or book hotels for the next week, pack everything up every week… etc.

2. ….Or would have joining new associations in your new city would have made the experience better?

Not really. You aren’t in the city for long enough to make friends or join associations. Without a permanent home address there, it is hard to do anything beyond going to classes for yoga each week or something.

I GUESS it could have been a good alternative, but at older ages, it is getting harder and harder to make friends. Friends from an association are not easily made because they know you are only there temporarily. And they have their own circle of friends.

People aren’t really open to meeting new people as they get older, it’s something I am experiencing and actually doing. I don’t really want to make an effort to be good friends with someone who I know is going to leave in 3 months or less.

Projects also get cut short very quickly. I could go from a 1 year project to a 3 month project depending on the clauses in my contract. Everything is very temporary, and flexible. Nothing is set in stone.

3. How about living with a gf/bf while traveling?

I did that. They paid for my BF to fly to the city instead of my flying back, and since he was unemployed, he stayed there the entire project with me in the hotel, eating with me on my per diem.

It was less lonely, but really f*cking annoying because then you feel resentful that their unemployed ass is sponging off your own hard work and you feel like you have a ball and chain at home waiting for you, calling every 15 minutes and not wanting you to go out to dinners with co-workers on your own.

I don’t want to get into it, but I guess the best would be for a short period of time like a week or two to see your GF/BF and then to have them fly back home so that it doesn’t get as tiring for you to fly.

It might get boring for them too, to stay in the hotel for 2-3 weeks, waiting for you to finish work.