Vargas' Podcasts

Powered by 🌱Roam Garden

Chronicles of Digital Nomading: Raleigh, NC

  • Blog Post Complete
  • Notes
  • Content {{word-count}}
    • I just left the last city before going back to my family's place in Long Island for Thanksgiving. Our final stay involved just four of us staying in Raleigh, North Carolina for two weeks, as most of the Covilla crew went back home for Thanksgiving early.
    • As always, I want to talk about my experience in Raleigh, followed by how this stay has changed my thoughts on community and the nomad lifestyle.
    • Raleigh, North Carolina
    • I was surprised to find out in February that Raleigh was one of the fastest growing cities in the U.S. based on hottest job market. Combined with some endorsements from a friend and a former employee, it rose near the top of my list of cities to visit.
    • __Morning Brew, 02/25/2020__
    • Unfortunately, Raleigh appeared to have been hit pretty hard economically by COVID. We saw buildings still boarded up and deserted walking around downtown. There weren't many young people walking around the streets, presumably because they've all gone back home with their families. We were told by someone from the area that Raleigh is a city that loves to congregate in group settings, all of which are shut down now because of COVID.
    • We were still able to experience some of the good parts of Raleigh. The most popular place in the city was this mile-long street called Glenwood South. The street was lined with different restaurants and outdoor bars. Each weekend night we went, it was as crowded as one could expect to be reasonable during COVID. The coolest place we went to was the Raleigh Beer Garden which felt like a two-story treehouse on the ground level with the walls lined with greenery.
    • We went on a couple of hikes at Umstead State Park. The hikes were flat and easy to do but had some nice rivers to walk along. We also went to Pullen Park, which was a public park that had some of its attractions closed like boating. We still were able to enjoy our day there playing spikeball on the lawn and making use of the tennis courts.
    • The thing to do in Raleigh is to visit the breweries. Even as someone who doesn't drink, I enjoyed the ambiance and food each brewery provided. My favorite one that we visited was Lynwood Brewing Concern.
    • Community Coliving
    • This was our smallest Covilla at only four of us.
    • This made some of the usual delegation of responsibility much easier to manage. The AirBnb we stayed at was also more comfortable than the previous one since everyone was guaranteed a bedroom spot.
    • In previous Covillas, most days involved each of us spending the day time working on each of our respective jobs until about 6 PM, at which point we tried to make a group decision on how to spend the rest of the night. In our second week in Raleigh, we tried a new approach to choosing night-time activities. Each night, a different person had full authority over how the night would be spent.
    • I think this led to more serendipitous and fun ways to spend an evening. With group decision making, often what gets chosen is the least common denominator between everyone's desires. With the new approach, we got exposed to doing things we probably wouldn't have done otherwise. My favorite of these nights was creating a ridiculous video on Twitter's worst feature.
    • I want to push more for what I'm now calling "Hyper-Cyclical Authoritarianism". The idea is that taking turns giving someone different full control over a decision is preferable to making group decisions. It's predicated on my belief that I'd rather do something that someone else is 100% excited about, rather than something that we both compromised to be 70% excited about. One area I think we could apply this approach is choosing Airbnb locations.
    • Outlook on Nomading
    • This trip made it obvious that cities will still be very adversely affected by COVID in the near term, more than I wanted to believe. As a result, I think I need to lower location of stay as a primary factor in choosing locations.
    • I tried a new approach to my work-life balance this stay that I want to implement for at least the next two Covillas. Every weekday at 6 PM, I went laptop off for the rest of the night. On the weekends, I tried to turn my laptop off by 1 PM.
    • There were two goals. The first was to be intentional about when I'm spending time with the community and when I'm spending time on myself. The second was by limiting the time on working on myself, I could be more focused on the few action items that are important, cutting away some fluff.
    • I think this was largely successful so far. I felt less guilt going to bed each day related to my involvement in the community. I was also more open to experiencing the city I was visiting which is one goal of traveling as a nomad.
    • I look back on the feeling of separating myself from the community to travel alone last month with some guilt. It was silly to think that the approach to reaching success is to spend every waking hour on the projects I'm working on. I'm beyond fortunate to have this opportunity to travel with a group of friends. My definition of success should include some level of both financial and relational success.
    • This week, I'm visiting family in Long Island for Thanksgiving. After that, it will be on to San Diego!
Chronicles of Digital Nomading: Raleigh, NC