Your Digital Nomad Questions Answered
"Traveling – it leaves you speechless, then turns you into a storyteller." - Ibn Battuta
March 24th, 2025
📍Denver, Colorado, USA 🇺🇸
Greetings from the wilderness!
I drove down to Denver this morning for my final days in Colorado before heading to Bucerias, Mexico, for April. After getting frost nip while chasing the auroras in Iceland, exploring northern Europe in the gray of winter, and trudging through the snow at 9200ft of elevation in the forest in Colorado, I’m very ready for a healthy dose of sunshine, sand, and saltwater.
As a digital nomad, I get asked the same questions often: (1) What do I do professionally that allows me to travel so much? (2) How can I afford to travel so much? (3) What do I pack? (4) and Do I ever get lonely traveling alone?
If you’ve ever wondered these questions, you’re in luck because I will try to answer them in this week’s love letter.
A picture of me from a previous trip to Puerto Vallarta.
What do I do professionally that allows me to travel so much?
The answer to the first question should be evident if you’re reading this letter. During recovery from life-threatening burnout, I started Loto Wellness Collective as a passion project to share my healing journey.
I have been an entrepreneur building businesses for 20 years, which I love, but this profession has also contributed significantly to my burnout. After multiple successful endeavors and immense challenges (like building nonprofits in the heavily regulated cannabis industry), Loto is an opportunity to dismantle my idol of self-reliance while learning how to build a company with God as my business partner—building without burnout.
While being an entrepreneur is not easy or for the faint of heart, it allows me to control my own time and curate a lifestyle that makes it possible to work from anywhere in the world. For those of you who started with me back in 2018, hosting holy yoga classes in the garage of Denver United Church, you know that it’s taken me all of this time to take my passion for healing and turn it into Loto Wellness Collective—a multi-media enterprise that hosts digital and in-person experiences around the world.
My hi-rise home for 12 years
How can I afford to travel so much?
Let me start by saying that travel is not cheap, but neither was living in a hi-rise in downtown Denver. To live this nomadic lifestyle requires a steady paycheck, a tight budget, a lot of advanced planning, and big sacrifices.
I could not afford to live like this and still be paying Denver housing prices, so I had to give up my entire way of life (and home that I greatly loved) to be able to travel instead. It meant I had to give away and sell most of my things, and everything left now lives in a storage unit. It also means I have to stay with my family and friends when I’m back in Colorado.
During lockdown, God planted the desire in my heart to travel the world. I didn’t know when it would happen or what it would look like. I just knew I wanted to experience much of it and couldn’t wait until retirement to make that dream a reality.
So, I was able to prepare for this transition long before I booked my first trip. I started accumulating points with my Marriott Bonvoy AMEX (taking advantage of the epic reward point “sales” during lockdown). Utilizing rewards points accumulated through making everyday purchases like groceries and gas on my AMEX has been a game-changer.
While staying in 4 and 5-star hotels is luxurious, those points never seem to go far enough when I’m living abroad for months at a time (and hotel rooms don’t usually have kitchens, forcing me to eat most of my meals out). So I also stay in an Airbnb and house/pet sit through Trusted Housesitters to save money on dining and lodging.
Mixing up my stays this way helps me stick to my strict budget but also requires advanced planning. In addition to travel visas and booking flights (not to mention vaccines and insurance), this is one area where I have to be really flexible, organized, and plan ahead.
When I had to drag my suitcases through deep snow to the rental car counter at the Iceland airport
What do I pack?
Over the last ten months of living out of suitcases, I’ve learned to be satisfied with less while prioritizing my actual needs over my hopeful wants. Since I only have a 45-50lb weight allowance for most of my clothing, shoes, and toiletries, I must be very discerning and strategic in my packing.
While I salute those travelers who can live fully out of a single backpacker’s pack, this 43-year old woman needs to travel with a three-piece set of luggage: my Beis backpack, carry-on roller, and checked roller (in a beautiful maple brown color). Packed inside my large checked roller is my monogrammed train case (which fit’s full-sized bottles) that keeps all of my toiletries organized.
Lost or late baggage is an unavoidable part of travel, so all of my bags are equipped with QR code smart ID tags and Apple AirTags with fabric mounts. That’s also why I always pack a pair of clean underwear, a change of clothes (and a swimsuit if I’m headed to the beach), jewelry, cosmetics, and medications into my carry-ons. I also add some of my weightier items into my carry-on roller since (depending on the airline and destination) I usually have another 50lbs of weight available to me (my Beis rollers even have built-in weight indicators in the handles).
Packing for Europe back in January
I really love my Beis backpack because it has multiple pockets, a padded laptop section, a trolley pass-through on the back (that fits over the pull bar of my roller), is expandable, and features an external water bottle sleeve. This bag carries my Bible (yes, a need for me is a physical Bible and not just an app), my iPad Pro, MacBook Air, Bose headphones, journal, my lightweight reading glasses, and a travel gadget organizer.
Some of my go-to gadgets for travel (worth the added weight) are:
A travel power strip/extension cord (I never know how far away my workstation will be from an electrical outlet)
A 100w universal power adapter (powerful enough to charge my laptop)
A travel laptop riser for my mobile workstation
An inflatable chair cushion (for long hours working at a kitchen table)
A USB ring light (for the often dark corners I have to work in)
A selfie stick tripod with a remote control (a must-have for solo travel)
A charging station for my bedside
For this oceanfront trip to Mexico, I’m bringing my Kindle Paperwhite, which I pre-loaded with sun-glare-free beach reads from Kindle Unlimited.
Packing for Europe back in January
I always pack more underwear than I think I will need and bring a luggage scale, Immodium, Tylenol, Tide Sinks laundry detergent, a Magic Eraser, Tide Stick, and a camping laundry line to air dry my hand-washed clothes.
And let’s be honest, I’m in my 40s, and some things feel like necessities to me now that I probably could have done without if I had traveled like this in my 20s. Not only do I need to support my posture while working at my computer, but I also need to be mindful of my physical health and overall wellness while on the road.
Because I’m not on permanent vacation—like so many people misunderstand this lifestyle to be—and still want to keep my health top of mind, the next tier of items are for my physical health (because I don’t have a gym membership) and dermatologic well-being:
A collagen/magnesium powder (added to my nighttime tea)
Seed pre+probiotics (supporting gut health is a top priority)
A pink quartz gua sha tool (used with oil daily for lymphatic drainage)
A Silicone cupping set (which my PT has me using on my post-op scars)
Bio Oil (great for cupping my scars and IT bands)
A Fancii USB lighted travel mirror
A charcoal facial sponge (no more washing off makeup on white facecloths)
Therabands cut to various lengths for my workouts
Massage balls (for digging into tight glutes after long flights)
An earth-friendly travel-sized foam roller (for my IT bands)
Red light therapy pad (reduces inflammation)
My favorite silk Carolina K jumpsuit
Traveling with all of these extra items means I have to be wise in the limited clothing options that I pack. The majority of clothes I bring are non-boring basics (Athleta’s travel collection and Pact have great options) that mix and match well to create multiple outfits, and can ideally be hand washed and air dried (things that don’t need an iron and I can use Downy Wrinkle Releaser spray on). Then I throw in a couple of statement clothing pieces (I love jumpsuits) and accessories to mix it up. My favorite accessory is always a brimmed hat, usually from Gigi Pip, that I clip onto my carry-on roller.
This fashionista (I used to own a fashion styling company in San Francisco) loves her sleepwear, so I always pack a Lunya washable silk nightgown or pajama set, robe, and slippers.
Only after all my necessities are packed do I add some final luxuries, like a travel-sized bottle of Osea Vagus Nerve Pillow Spray, a Blissy pillowcase in a hard-to-miss color, and my side-sleeping Save My Face anti-wrinkle pillow. I also like to travel with a wooden cross and a framed picture of my first skydiving trip (to remind myself that I can do hard things).
I keep my packing lists organized using the Travel List app on my phone. After every trip I also assess what I used and what I could do without next time. Not surprisingly, I regularly use all of the items I’ve listed above.
A sunset pic of Los Arcos from a previous trip to Puerto Vallarta
Do I ever get lonely traveling alone?
Traveling solo is not for everyone. I’ll just say it’s good that I love my own company and I enjoy copious amounts of contemplative time alone with God. I am not bored easily, and I also schedule regular (weekly and monthly) Zoom calls with friends and family. So while I may be traveling alone, I’m never lonely. This lifestyle certainly works for my introverted side.
My new friends from the expat commune in Mexico
However, I’m an ambivert, meaning I am both introverted and extroverted. It’s a good thing I am also very outgoing, personable, and brave. When researching places to stay for longer durations, I look for English speaking options that include some type of co-working space or built-in sense of community, like the permaculture eco commune in San Miguel de Allende.
And this trip, I’m excited to spend time with my friends who live in Puerto Vallarta (who I travel to visit regularly). I’m also elated that one of my adventurous girlfriends from Colorado will be coming down for a visit. But that's the exception, not the rule. I usually travel to places where I know no one and stay for months at a time.
When I was researching the nomadic lifestyle, I specifically looked into ways people on the road were combatting homesickness. What I’ve discovered for myself, and from the wisdom of so many others, is to slow travel. Rather than packing everything into a short timeframe (like I did across Europe in January), I prefer to stay somewhere for 1-3 months, enough time to meet people and get to know a place and culture better.
While traveling long distances and seeing multiple countries in one trip can be fun, exciting, and more cost-efficient (fewer long-distance flights), there is something special about staying somewhere long enough to become familiar with a place and its people.
This digital nomad looks forward to practicing my Spanish, calling Mexico “home” again, and sharing stories from my month-long adventure with you all.
With Love,
Jennifer
P.S.- What else do you want to know? Drop a note in the comments 👇
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