{"id":569796,"date":"2023-04-10T21:47:20","date_gmt":"2023-04-10T18:47:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/i-left-canada-to-live-as-a-digital-nomad-in-istanbul-heres-why\/"},"modified":"2023-04-10T21:47:20","modified_gmt":"2023-04-10T18:47:20","slug":"i-left-canada-to-live-as-a-digital-nomad-in-istanbul-heres-why","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/i-left-canada-to-live-as-a-digital-nomad-in-istanbul-heres-why\/","title":{"rendered":"#I left Canada to live as a digital nomad in Istanbul. Here\u2019s why."},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u201cWhat if you just moved anywhere in the world and worked online and lived like a king, instead of living like a schmuck somewhere like New York?\u201d asks Jordan Bishop (Photographs by Adnan Khan)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Like most young Canadians, my dream has always been to find a career that makes me happ<\/a>y and gives me the financial freedom to live my best life. There was a time when that was possible in Canada, but it doesn\u2019t feel like that anymore, with the cost of living skyrocketing and salaries stagnant. For a lot of Canadians, the magic combination of a job you love and a lifestyle you love is the kind of fiction you see on TV.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s especially true if you love city life. I grew up in Blackstock, Ontario, a small town of fewer than 800 people, an hour\u2019s drive northeast of Toronto, but my heart has always been in big cities, and I had no problem sacrificing to live in them. In Toronto, while trying to get an online business off the ground, I rented university dorms to live in. During an internship in New York, I shared a 250-square-foot apartment with a depressed, out-of-work roommate addicted to video game<\/a>s. During the days, I went to my internship at a career-coaching company, earning less than minimum wage. At nights I wandered the city, reading and contemplating what I wanted out of life.<\/p>\n

It was then that I read a book by Timothy Ferris called The 4-Hour Workweek<\/i>. It shattered everything I thought I knew about work, lifestyle and how to live. What if you just moved anywhere in the world and worked online and lived like a king instead of living like a schmuck somewhere like New York? In my last year at Wilfrid Laurier University, I got a job with a local tech startup that operated totally online, and decided to try it myself. I left Canada for good in 2014, when I was 22 years old, to become a digital nomad\u2014someone who takes advantage of modern communications technology<\/a> to work from anywhere with a decent internet connection.<\/p>\n

When I first started out, I was travel<\/a>ling around the world, living out of my backpack and running a travel blog that made me just enough money to buy my next plane ticket. I supplemented that with travel writing, which didn\u2019t pay much, but it gave me enough to live. I would spend summers in Berlin and winters in Buenos Aires or Chiang Mai. I met the most amazing young people from around the world, who inspired me with their global perspectives.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s backpacker life\u2014kid stuff. In 2018, at the age of 26, I decided to settle down and build a business. Not by going back home, but by relocating to Istanbul, Turkey, where I could live in one of the world\u2019s great metropolises without breaking the bank. The cost of living in Istanbul is cheaper than in Toronto or Vancouver\u2014or, for that matter, Edmonton, Winnipeg or London, Ontario. How could Canada compete?<\/p>\n

Today, I live in Istanbul\u2019s historic Galata district, a short walk from the ancient Galata Tower. My apartment is a beautiful one-bedroom with high ceilings, which costs a fraction of what it would be in most cities in Canada. It isn\u2019t palatial, but it\u2019s not a shoebox either. I can walk out my front door and be at Istanbul\u2019s seaside in five minutes. Or in a rooftop bar with stunning sea views in two minutes. Or in Cihangir, Istanbul\u2019s hipster central, teeming with bars, caf\u00e9s and restaurants frequented by other remote workers, in 10 minutes.<\/p>\n

The low cost of living in Istanbul meant I could take the next step and expand my business, a personal finance blog that provides financial guidance to readers, mostly Canadians. The site generates revenues in dollars and euros, while my expenses are mostly in Turkish liras. That\u2019s allowed me to hire staff who provide content, and it\u2019s helped me build my business to the point where I\u2019m not just living month to month, but putting money aside and planning for the future, while still enjoying a lifestyle that makes me happy. I\u2019ve even finally been able to write the book I\u2019d been meaning to write, about innovative problem solvers and the creative techniques they use, which I self-published in 2021. Doing any of this in Canada would have been nearly impossible\u2014I almost certainly would have instead followed a safer and more traditional corporate path to a nine-to-five office job.<\/p>\n

It may sound decadent, like having my cake and eating it too, but most people living like this are from relatively humble backgrounds, not privileged children of wealth traipsing around the world. We\u2019re young people just starting out on our career journeys, who do it not only because it buys us a better lifestyle, but because it gives us freedom to take the kinds of risks I did. I think of it as a more respectable\u2014and exciting\u2014version of living in your parents\u2019 basement: you lower your cost of living, which increases your risk tolerance significantly. You can be creative, and you can pursue your passion projects without the fear of falling behind financially.<\/p>\n

In Canada, I would be paying three times as much for the same standard of living, and there wouldn\u2019t be much left for risk-taking. I certainly wouldn\u2019t be able to afford to rent yachts with friends, or take full-day cruises up the Bosphorus Strait, or travel for weeks to exotic places (I\u2019m planning a five-week motorcycling adventure in Vietnam). Instead I can live a dream life with an incredibly diverse group of friends, a Turkish girlfriend and a rhythm in my daily routine that isn\u2019t soul-crushing.
\n\"\"In the past couple of years, the post-pandemic proliferation of remote working opportunities, plus the spiralling cost of living in Canada, have made this kind of lifestyle even more popular\u2014but even though it benefits people like me, I know, it\u2019s not all upside, especially for the locals. Digital nomads tend to congregate in specific neighbourhoods, like Istanbul\u2019s Galata, Mexico City\u2019s Roma Norte or Lisbon\u2019s Alfama. These are usually the nicer, more historic areas, and in my case, the charm of my neighbourhood has begun to wear off. It used to be full of regular Turkish people, living their lives. The gentrification that\u2019s come with people like me moving in has changed that, partly thanks to the pandemic, and also partly thanks to the war in Ukraine. Young, educated Russians, especially tech workers, who were worried about being drafted into the Russian military, have flooded into the city. Housing prices have spiked as apartments have been converted into Airbnbs. Local businesses have started to cater to foreigners.<\/p>\n

Within just a few years, Galata has become mostly tourists and remote workers, and lost some of its charm. I could just say: \u201cOkay, I\u2019m out of here,\u201d and go live somewhere else, somewhere that feels more authentic. But that would just be spreading the problem: when people chase after authenticity, they end up destroying it. I\u2019m already seeing this in Turkey. Parts of Istanbul are becoming too expensive and too gentrified. In some ways, you could say the affordability crises in countries like Canada, which have pushed so many digital nomads abroad, have followed them to their new homes as well.<\/p>\n

Last month\u2019s earthquake in Syria and Turkey really brought home how devastating this can all be for poorer people. As housing prices go up, the poor\u2014and even the middle class\u2014find themselves displaced to cheaper housing, which is often poorly constructed, or hasn\u2019t been upgraded to be earthquake resistant. When an earthquake hits, those are the most dangerous places to be.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure what can be done about it, especially because some governments are jumping on the trend. Spain just passed a law that offers remote workers a two-year residency permit. Other countries are making similar moves, capitalizing on an easy way to inject their economies with dollars and euros. But how do we minimize the costs to local economies? I don\u2019t believe in government intervention, myself\u2014I think the free hand of the market can ultimately fix this. My hope is that over time, the negative impacts will diminish as market forces find an equilibrium between the cost of living and wages. I\u2019m not an economist, but this is my hope.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, my plan is to stick it out in Istanbul and see where things go, but I\u2019m also not sure if Istanbul will become my permanent home. That\u2019s the thing: there\u2019s no such thing as permanence when the whole world is open to you. Wherever I go, I know it won\u2019t be back to Canada.<\/p>\n

\u2014 As told to Adnan Khan<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n