15 Must-Have Tools for Digital Nomads in 2021!

Want to make your travel more fun and productive? You are at the right place! In this blog post we cover 15 must-have tools for digital nomads for all your travel and work needs.

Disclaimer: This article was originally published on Remoteverse.com

A Harvard Business School survey has found 81% of people who have been working from home through the COVID-19 pandemic either don’t want to go back or prefer a hybrid schedule!

Even before the pandemic forced companies to employ remote working, The Economist had predicted that there could be as many as one billion remote workers by 2035.

It’s not a surprise that people would rather work from a beach in the Caribbean than slog behind a cubicle.

“Not all those who wander are lost.” — J.R.R. Tolkien

However, working while traveling brings a ton of challenges that people don’t expect.

This is why we decided to curate a list of software tools for digital nomads to make their nomad lifestyle a lot easier and more fun!

Read on…

15 Must-Have Tools for Digital Nomads in 2021

Working remotely and being a digital nomad is not easy, despite what the Instagram pictures might say.

To be your own boss, one needs to have zen-like discipline, concentration, and motivation.

Apart from always keeping yourself accountable for the work you do, you have to adapt to the challenges a digital nomad lifestyle brings.

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Every new place you work from — be it the beach, the mountains, or a busy city — draws a new challenge for you to adapt and conquer.

So here is a list of digital nomad tools that will support your travels and help you save time and effort!

For your convenience, we have divided this list of tools for digital nomads into different categories based on the areas of work they assist best.

Travel Apps for Digital Nomads

Here’s a list of tools that are going to assist you in your travel adventures:

#1. NomadList

Kicking off our list of awesome tools for digital nomads is Nomad List.

One of the most popular travel websites for digital nomads and remote workers, NomadList provides you a list of places to live, work and travel as a remote worker.

Nomad List compares different cities around the globe across various data points like cost of living, safety, temperature, wifi speeds, air quality, medical facilities, and much more.

Nomad List, thus, gives you an idea of where to travel next for your nomad adventure.

A great feature of Nomad List is its community of 17,000+ remote workers who meet each other, have conversations on their Slack group and log their trips for others to see.

In this way, Nomad List’s community makes it less isolating for a remote worker and help them make new friends who follow the same lifestyle as them.

Key Features of Nomad List:

• Dating feature to meet fellow digital nomads and catch up
• Get up-to-date COVID-19 travel information
• FIRE retirement tool to find places to retire early.

Pricing:

• Free plan with limited feature
• Paid plans start from: $79.99 one-time payment.

#2. RemoteYear

Remoteyear curates community-based travel programs, helping thousands of remote workers travel and work globally.

Simply sign up to RemoteYear, enter your preferences, and let Remoteyear take care of the rest.

Remoteyear takes care of the logistics — accommodations, curated experiences, workspace, travel between destinations, local teams, and health & safety assistance.

There are 4 different types of programs to choose from:

1. Retreats (1-week gateway),
2. Work & Travel programs (live like a local at your favorite destination for 1, 4, or 12 months),
3. Learn & Travel program (group learning activities to grow your skills), and,
4. Company programs (for companies looking to invest in their employees).

Once you take part in multiple Remoteyear’s programs, you are granted a “citizenship” to Remoteyear’s community.

The community members have their own Slack channel, exclusive discounts, meetups & events, and much more.

Key Features of RemoteYear:

• Different travel programs based on your preference
• Special program for companies
• Community of fellow remote workers to communicate and collaborate with.

Pricing:

• For a 1-month program: Advance payment of $850 and a monthly payment of $2000 or more.
• For a 4-month program: Advance payment of $3000 and a monthly payment of $2250 or more.
• For a 12-month program: Advance payment of $5000 and a monthly payment of $2250 or more.

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#3. Teleport

Next up is Teleport. Just as the name suggests, this website help nomads and remote workers teleport to their favorite city easily.

Teleport helps digital nomads explore different cities and countries and compare them in one click.

Simply click on the “start exploring” button and you will be presented with a number of parameters like low cost of living, low rent, quality of life, startup culture, jobs availability, city infrastructure, and more.

Once you have chosen the parameters important to you, Teleport will give you a list of cities you can potentially move to work remotely or settle down.

Teleport also offers many different digital nomad tools like:

• Teleport Sundial: to check different timezones of your distributed team members
• Teleport Zen: a platform to create your to-do lists
• Teleport Runaway: a platform to calculate the cost of setting up a business in a new city.
• Teleport Flock: a tool that helps your remote team pick up a meetup destination.
• Teleport Eightball: your salary comparison tool for different cities around the globe.

Key Features of Teleport:

• Quickly explore different cities for your next nomad adventure
• Compare the quality of life and city ranking for free
• Multiple tools to make remote work easier

Pricing:

• Free for use

#4. NomadRest

Nomad Rest is another great tool for digital nomads.

The platform curates only the best accommodation for digital nomads, entrepreneurs, digital nomads, and professional travelers.

Helping you find your “next home abroad“, Nomad Rest only showcases apartments, rooms, hostels, and Airbnbs that provide everything you need to work remotely while traveling.

Using Nomad Rest, you can book Airbnbs with up to 65% discounts if you are planning for longer stays.

Users can directly book from the Nomad Rest website and get their stay sorted quick, making it a great digital nomad tool.

Key Features of Nomad Rest:

• Find hotels, apartments, and Airbnbs with remote-friendly accommodations.
• Find co-working as well as co-living spaces around the world.
• Great discounts

Pricing:

• Free for use

#5. Tripit

One of the most advanced travel planner apps out there, Tripit is next up on our list of awesome digital nomad tools.

Tripit’s magic begins as soon as you make your first move for your travel.

When you book a flight/hotel/car or make your first reservation, simply forward it to plans@tripit.com and the app will automatically create your master itinerary

The best part about Tripit is its convenience. The app brings together everything you need for a great trip- your hotel reservation number, flight details, traffic details, and even how long the security lines are!

The pro plan lets you receive real-time flight status alerts, monitor flight refunds, give interactive airport and terminal maps, and more.

Key Features of Tripit:

• Create master itineraries and travel plans
• Access important info like flight and hotel details, even when you are offline
• Available for Android and iOS, and even for smartwatches.

Pricing:

• Free plan with limited features
• Paid plans start from: $48.99 annually.

Insurance for Digital Nomads

While digital nomads love adventure and fun, it can come at a huge cost, especially if you are not careful.

Thus, having travel insurance is a must.

Insurance can save you significant amounts of money on a doctor’s visit, especially in a foreign country where you aren’t familiar with the expenses.

Here’s a list of travel insurance providers that are going to assist you in your travel:

#1. World Nomads

One of the leading insurance providers for digital nomads is World Nomads. You cannot discuss digital nomad tools without mentioning World Nomads.

This travel insurance has been designed by travelers for travelers and covers a wide variety of items to make your travel easier.

Here’s a list of what’s covered in the insurance:

• Baggage delay and loss.
• Stolen passports
• Trip delays and cancellation
• Emergency medical expenses, doctor’s visit, hospitalization (including COVID).
• Overseas dental and pre-existing health conditions
• Accidental deaths
• Rental car damage
• Adventure sports and activities
• Tech insurance (camera, smartphones, etc).
• and more, depending upon the country you live in and the place you are traveling.

Since digital nomads live an adventurous life, World Nomads provide coverage for 220+ adventure activities.

You can buy World Nomads insurance before your trip, mid-trip, or can even extend existing insurance in case you decided to prolong your trip.

Key Features of World Nomads:

• 24X7 emergency assistance.
• Coverage for 220+ adventure activities like scuba diving, bungee jumping, surfing, skiing, mountain biking, and more.
• Baggage and tech gear coverage.

Pricing:

• No free plan
• Paid plans start from: Standard Plan is priced at $221 and the Explorer Plan costs $341.

#2. Safetywing

Another popular travel insurance provider for digital nomads is Safetywing.

You can buy Safetywing insurance even if you are midway through your travel journey. The insurance will automatically extend every 28 days until you specify an end date.

A great feature of Safetywing is that if you are abroad for more than 90 days, you keep your medical coverage for 30 days once you return to your home country (15 days if your home country is the U.S.)

Here’s a list of what’s covered in the insurance:

• Trip interruption and travel delay.
• Lost checked luggage
• Emergency medical and dental expenses.
• Hospital, ambulance, and intensive care
• Physical therapy and chiropractic care
• Accidental death & dismemberment (AD&D)
• Political or emergency medical

Notably, some exclusions include high-risk sports activities, pre-existing diseases or injury, or cancer treatment.

Key Features of Safetywing:

• Coverage even after returning to your home country
• Up to 2 children under 10 per family can be included on your insurance free of charge.
• Emergency dental and chiropractic care

Pricing:

• No free plan
• Paid plans start from: $40 for a 4-week policy if you 10–39 years old, $64.68/4 weeks if you are 40–49 years old, $101.64/4 weeks if you are 50–59 years old, $137.76/4 weeks if you are 60 or above.

#3. Travelex

Next up is Travelex. No matter if you are planning a long-term vacation or a short weekend getaway, Travelex has insurance plans for everyone.

Here’s a list of what’s covered in the insurance:

• Trip cancellation, interruption, and delay.
• Lost checked luggage and personal items
• Emergency medical and dental expenses.
• 24-hour travel, medical and concierge assistance.
• Accidental death & dismemberment (AD&D)
• Pre-existing medical conditions can be covered when the waiver is in effect.
• Adventure sports coverage
• Car rental collision
• Medical evacuation and repatriation.

Travelex has 3 different insurance plans (Select, Basic, and America) and boasts of a 98% claim settlement ratio!

In times of pandemic, Travelex provides COVID-19 coverage, although it might be a bit limited as compared to World Nomads.

Key Features of Travelex:

• 55 years of experience in the travel insurance sector
• 27×7 travel, legal, or concierge help
• 98% of claims paid.

Pricing:

• No free plan
• Paid plans start from: Get a quote from their website

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Productivity Tools for Digital Nomads

Being your own boss is tough. You have to set up your own deadlines and keep yourself accountable for fulfilling them on a daily basis.

If you are having trouble being productive, the following digital nomad tools are surely going to help:

#1. Notion

Notion is our go-to productivity tool for digital nomads.

An ‘all-in-one workspace’ for remote teams and digital nomads, Notion allows you to organize your personal as well as professional life handsomely.

No matter if you are creating a travel itinerary, curating info for your next travel, working on a new project, or creating your daily to-do lists- Notion helps you do it all.

The best part about Notion is that its free plan has plenty of features to get you started and organize your life effectively.

With a massive template library, you never have to start anything from scratch.

Notion has templates for travel planning, content calendar, task lists, mood board, reading list, and much more.

Key features of Notion:

• Free plan with tons of features
• Thousands of templates for every need
• Easy organization of information that boosts productivity

Pricing:

• Free for personal use.
• Paid plan starts from: Personal pro ($4/month), Team ($8 per user/month), Enterprise (contact sales for pricing).

#2. TickTick

Planning your day and knowing what to do is one of the most prominent things you can do to improve your productivity.

With TickTick, users can create new tasks, sub-tasks, set reminders, and can also share tasks with other users.

You can use your voice to add new tasks to your to-do list or take the help of Siri to do it for you.

Users can also convert their emails into to-dos, while the ability to add recurring tasks is a great add-on.

You can also create multiple reminders or enable an “annoying alert” for the most important tasks you don’t want to miss.

Key features of TickTick:

• Add due date & time information for a new task and TickTick will automatically create it into a reminder
• Mark and sort tasks in four different priority levels: High Priority, Medium Priority, Low Priority, No Priority.
• Multiple calendar views and the ability to subscribe to other calendar apps inside TickTick

Pricing:

• Free for personal use.
• Paid plan starts from: Annual plan for $27.99

#3. PomoDone App

Do you often find it difficult to concentrate for a prolonged period of time? You are not alone!

In fact, data reveals that the average American attention span is only 8 seconds. This is where the Pomodoro time management technique comes in.

With such a technique, you break down a task into time intervals, usually, 25 minutes in length, divided by short breaks of 5 minutes.

To make the process easier, there are some Pomodoro websites and apps that measure the work and break time for you. One such tool is the Pomodone app.

Simply create a free account and add your tasks. The app will then start a 25-minute timer for you to work on your task. Once the timer is over, you will have a 5-minute break to do whatever you want.

While other Pomodoro apps let you do more or less the same thing, Pomodone goes one step further.

The app allows you to connect your favorite to-do or task management platform (Trello, Slack, Google Tasks, Evernote, etc) and use the Pomodoro technique on top of those tasks.

Pomodone is available as a web app and also has Windows, Linux, Mac, Android, and iOS mobile apps.

Key Features of Pomodone App

• Connect existing apps like Trello and Asana and use the Pomodoro technique easily
• Chrome extension to create tasks from your browser
• Quick and easy to setup

Pricing:

• Free plan with limited features.
• Paid plans start at- Lite ($2.29/month), Ultimate ($4.01/month) 5 Licenses ($28.64/month)

#4. Stayfocusd

Did you know that checking social media and browsing news websites collectively accounts for about 2 unproductive hours per day at work?

If you always find yourself checking Twitter every 10 minutes into work, we have an amazing web app for you.

Stayfocusd is a chrome extension that blocks the websites you ask it to and stops you from getting sidetracked.

You can block all news/media sites as well as social media websites like Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, etc.

StayFocusd is a great tool for all of us working through our smartphones and laptops where it’s so easy to get distracted.

Rather than relying on your willpower, use a productivity app like Stayfocusd and focus on the work that matters.

Key Features of Stayfocusd :

• Block entire websites, subdomains, or even specific in-page content
• Easy to setup
• Maximizes productivity

Pricing:

• Free

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Co-Working Space Apps for Digital Nomads

While it’s fun to work from your hotel room/Airbnb/or by the pool, sometimes you need the discipline of office space.

A coworking space provides you just that and more.

A shared workspace, a coworking space offers cheap office space for those looking to get rid of the isolation of a home or coffee shop.

Here is our pick for the best apps to help you find the best coworking spaces around the world:

#1. Coworker

With over 5.5 million users, Coworker helps you find a coworking space in 172 countries and counting!

The platform has more than 18,500 coworking spaces in its database and over 300 new spaces joining every month.

From London to Tokyo, simply select the city you are in, add the date you want to book your space for, and voila! Coworker will provide you an exhaustive list of coworking spaces to choose from.

You can buy Coworker’s global pass and which offers 5000+ office spaces in 115 countries, providing you access to coworking spaces worldwide.

Key Features of Coworker:

• Find private offices, meeting rooms, virtual offices, and more
• Provides coworking spaces in over 170 countries
• Global pass providing access to office spaces in 115 countries.

Pricing:

• Free

#2. Workfrom

Next up on our list of awesome tools for digital nomads is Workfrom.

The platform has listed more than 16,357 of the best coworking spaces, bars, coffee shops, restaurants, and other workspaces for remote workers and digital nomads.

You can find places that are quieter, have faster wifis, has power outlets, is open till late at night, and more.

Workfrom also has a vibrant Slack community for remote and digital nomads to engage with each other and share their experiences.

Key Features of Workfrom:

• Block entire websites, subdomains, or even specific in-page content
• Easy to setup
• Maximizes productivity

Pricing:

• Free for use.
• Paid plans start from: $5/month or $50/year

#3. LiquidSpace

The last one on our list of amazing tools for digital nomads is LiquidSpace.

LiquidSpace calls itself the “first and only work from anywhere management platform”.

With over 18,000 available spaces and 10,500+ venue partners, LiquidSpace wants to be the go-to platform connecting workers and office spaces.

LiquidSpace is not only for people looking to work from coworking space for a day or a month but also for people who want to rent out their entire office space like real estate agents or property owners.

Key Features of LiquidSpace:

• Connects teams and professionals looking for space directly with space providers, venue partners, real estate professionals, and service providers
• On-demand as well as dedicated office space available
• Flexible booking terms and cancellation policies

Pricing:

• Free for use.
• Paid plans start from: Request Demo

Final Words

According to data, American digital nomads have grown by 49% from 2019 (7.3 million digital nomads) to 2020 (10.9 million digital nomads).

As the Coronavirus Pandemic has given a taste of remote work to millions of employees, we are pretty sure that figure is only going to increase from here on.

We hope that our list of awesome tools for digital nomads was useful to you. If you find it helpful, do share it with a fellow nomad and help them out as well!

Did we miss out on your favorite digital nomad tool? Do let us which app/website you would add to our list of tools for digital nomads by leaving a comment down below. Cheers!

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