Travelling as a digital nomad can be expensive. Yet it costs more when you are privileged to travel and not take advantage of the opportunity, a Dubai-based digital nomad told me over a weekend chat in September.
“There is a lot more to see in the world when you let go of [proclivities] you are already used to,” he said. “When people travel, it’s for the show and glam; but when you travel to experience the really random things, that’s where the experience is.”
*Ayodeji is a Nigerian senior software engineer at Miro, the Netherlands-based startup behind the popular online whiteboarding platform, who, this year, decided he wanted to be a digital nomad for the rest of his life.
An eye for a better quality of life
Ayodeji began building a foundation in tech from a young age. An avid gamer, he started programming in 2013 in his teens, hoping to build video games someday. By 2016, he was working remotely for US companies. He began his backend development career with US-based Oktium, a video calling app, before brief stints at Qwertee, an e-commerce platform, and Eze, a YC-backed B2B IT gadget procurement platform.
In 2019, he joined a tech fellowship with Andela, the Nigerian unicorn, which he said “marked the beginning of his career.”
“[Before Andela], I’d worked remotely all my life, so [Andela] taught me a lot about soft skills to thrive in the workplace,” said Ayodeji. “It was a 6-month programme where, as a team, we worked on a real project. That simulation really helped to launch my career, as I identified technical skills I needed to improve.”
Ayodeji always had one goal: to work with global companies, and to do that, he knew he had to cut his teeth learning how to stay dynamically relevant in tech, and importantly, improving his leadership skills.
“I’ve wanted to travel for a pretty long time,” said Ayodeji. “I wanted to move to places where I could avoid thinking about the basic things like electricity and internet; my fastest route to doing that was stacking up money.”
After his Andela training, he resumed targeting foreign jobs; he joined Homevision, an ops tool for appraisers. In 2021, at Butter, a Copenhagen-based remote-first virtual collaboration platform that was acquired by Miro four years later, he led the company’s tech team. That role changed everything for him.
A freelance visa and a way out
Now based in Dubai, Ayodeji first travelled out of Nigeria in 2021 on the freelance visa, which allows professionals to live and work in the UAE without employer sponsorship.
The visa is usually tied to a freelance permit from one of Dubai’s free zones, such as Dubai Internet City or Dubai Media City, and is open to professionals in fields like tech, media, design, and education. It gives holders the right to live in the country, open a bank account, and take on projects from multiple clients. In 2025, it remains one of the most popular options for remote workers, though new applications are temporarily paused while the UAE reviews its residency system.
At the time, the freelance visa cost Ayodeji about $3,000 (excluding flight), and the process used to be a lot easier, according to him. But today, income benchmarks—about AED 15,000 ($4,000) per month for the green visa—and tightened travel restrictions have made it slightly harder for some African nationals to secure.
Ayodeji stayed a full year in the country working remotely. Dubai, he said, was “a lot of fun” in the first couple of weeks—and maybe up to a year—but that thrill faded. While he loves the UAE and the sense of stability, freedom, and low tax responsibility it offers residents, Ayodeji needed an outlet for his expression.
That outlet came in the form of a work-sponsored trip. In 2022, Butter planned an offsite in Malaysia and was flying in teammates from different countries—an invitation Ayodeji initially wanted to turn down.
“Being Nigerian, you don’t really hear a lot of good stuff about Malaysia, even though it’s a really good country,” said Ayodeji. “You mostly hear about the racism and how they treat black people and Nigerians specifically, so naturally, I was a little bit concerned. Most of my teammates [at Butter] were Malaysians, and I was a little scared of that trip and didn’t want to go.”
Yet after his colleagues convinced him otherwise, Ayodeji budged. Malaysia, for him, had a certain je ne sais quoi that he liked so much; the people, the food—especially the food—and the connection he made meeting some of his colleagues for the first time after working together for nearly two years.
Speaking with some of them unlocked something he wasn’t used to in Dubai, where he sat in his $1,500-per-month apartment clacking away on his keyboard. He was missing adventure.
Ayodeji returned from that trip and decided to embrace the nomadic lifestyle. Today, he travels across several countries in Southeast Asia and looks to extend his adventures to the Eurasian climbs soon.
“In Nigeria, we have this level of materialism, that we always have to make the highest amount of money we can to be happy. Visiting South East Asia changed me,” he said. “People there live simply and happily. It made me rethink everything.”
Travel for depth and experience, not for show
One thing Ayodeji argues about is the “lack of depth” many Africans travel with. They try to experience a new place, while still trying to keep the “game settings” as close to the conditions they’re used to back home, he said. A high-flyer who has travelled to several countries where he doesn’t even have a pixel to show for his adventure, Ayodeji reclines to find comfort in the little micro interactions.
He says his best friend is a Grab driver—the ride-hailing app popular in several Southeast Asian countries where he’s been, like Thailand and Vietnam.
“In Thailand, I told the [Grab driver] to take me anywhere,” said Ayodeji. “The trip that was supposed to be fifteen minutes became a twelve-hour journey. We shared conversations and food. He refused to accept money from me. It was something I’d never experienced before.”
Nomadism, for Ayodeji, is how he stays curious about life. It’s what keeps him from getting stuck in one way of thinking. He says being on the move forces him to pay attention and to find meaning in small, random moments that most people rush past.
When asked about how jet lag from frequent travelling, loneliness, and instability push many nomads to eventually seek structure again, Ayodeji said that is not something he worries about. He waxed philosophical about spontaneity, drifting with the tides, and embracing the uncertainty that comes with it. It felt, to me, like a modern echo of the hip idealism that defined 60s America.
Ride a bike up Mount Bromo, try the food in Phuket, and feel the sun hit your face as you lose track of time, he argued passionately. Yet that, for Ayodeji, is what it means to truly live.
Three things keep him grounded in the nomadic life: the freedom to choose where he wants to be, the connections he makes with people who start out as strangers, and the new perspectives he gains from seeing how others live.
Travel is not merely work or an escape for Ayodeji. Being present, open, and willing to see the world as it is, not as a backdrop for pictures.
‘Biases should have no place in the world we dream’
Despite his bubbling optimism and adept handling of people, Ayodeji still cringes at the existential biases that plague travellers of his archetype: Nigerian, strong accent, weak passport. He has lived it in the most ordinary and painful ways.
When he was in Nigeria—and before he became Ayodeji the traveller—he lost a European job. The company turned him down because of how he sounded on a call.
“The email said they couldn’t understand me,” he recalled. “It wasn’t about my skill.”
People still face some of these biases, and it’s hard to build any real leverage when you can’t land roles that provide you with the buffer to travel freely, said Ayodeji. And as a nomad, there have been times when his passport simply closed doors. Some embassies demanded police reports or guarantors; others never bothered to reply.
Yet that hasn’t stopped him. While he remains rooted in Dubai for the tax incentives the country offers, he has found a way to make his nomadism work. He plans his travels months ahead, scheduling flights and visa meetings before they become a necessity.
“Today, I’m a resident in the UAE,” he said. “To maintain that residency, I have to not be outside the UAE for more than six months. So I’m usually outside for five months at a time, then I spend the next month in Dubai applying for visas and booking flights for the next five months. But sometimes, travelling for me is completely random too.”
He no longer rents an apartment in Dubai, only a small storage unit that costs $80 a month, where he keeps his things. When he returns, he stays in an Airbnb. It’s a system that allows him to stay mobile without feeling unmoored.
But living without roots comes with trade-offs. When your life fits into a suitcase, the safety nets that come with stability, like health insurance, have to travel with you. For Ayodeji, that safety net is Genki, a travel insurance platform designed for digital nomads.
“For people like us, insurance isn’t a formality,” he said. “You can be anywhere in the world, and something can go wrong. You just need to know someone will pick up the call.”
According to Safe and Not Sorry’s nomad insurance calculator, coverage for travellers in their twenties starts at around $45 a month, depending on the region.
Ayodeji finances his travels from his remote job at Miro, supplemented by freelance gigs and careful budgeting. He doesn’t live lavishly, but he also doesn’t deny himself the small joys of discovery.
“It’s not as expensive as people think,” he said. “Once you stop paying for comfort and start paying for experience, everything changes. I want more Africans to travel for depth, not for show. To go somewhere new and really see people, not just places.”
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Editor’s note: *Ayodeji’s name has been changed upon request.
