“WFH”—an acronym that was almost non-existent until 2020— is now the most popular trend globally with the pandemic affecting the lives of every nation and social class, forcing us to Work From Home. After decades of investing millions into the tech industry to make smaller computers, powerful smartphones, and whatever the heck 5G is, there is a sort of beauty to humankind’s obsession with tech now that we can work remotely.

It sort of a delight in a way when you think about it: years of competition and advancement has prepared us for a pandemic of this magnitude. But even before the word COVID-19 was carved into our minds, entrepreneur, writer, influencer and surfer Kristin Wilson has been working from home and advocating remote work for the past 18 years.

Now, Wilson is lending her knowledge to help people, relocate and live better lives without being stuck in an office space. An “advocate” of WFH years before the pandemic, she has worked as a digital nomad and has preached its benefits through her writing in Medium, and Quora, as well as her YouTube channel Traveling with Kristin, and podcast, Badass Digital Nomads.

Though it has affected travel for most of the world, she acknowledges that this pandemic pushed the lives of everyone almost a decade into the future. “Well you changed, literally overnight,” Kristin said, “because before the pandemic happened, I was estimating that it would be at least another 10 years before the majority of companies accepted the possibility of remote work and work from home for their employees.”

“I was kind of acting as a remote work advocate to not only help individuals work remotely but also to prove to CEOs and companies and small business owners that their employees could work from home and that it would be a win-win for everybody. When the coronavirus happened, I was like ‘Okay my work here is done.’”

Making Your Own Path

Even back in her middle school years, she knew that she was not meant to be stuck in an office space.

“In middle school, the personality tests and the career tests, well I actually would fail those,” she said, “like I would get the results back and it would say, like, ‘Error message, could not fit you with a job’ and then all my classmates would be like, ‘Oh, I’m going to be a doctor, I’m going to be a firefighter,’ you know, all of the like cliche jobs and mine was just like, I had too many different interests to fit into any job profile. So fast forward to when I was in college, the anxiety of choosing a major was like the same thing. And the only thing I knew that I liked to do was to travel.”

Now that she’s achieved the work-life balance that she has dreamed of, Kristin has made it her life duty to help others see the beauty of life outside the workplace and even assist them in moving to new places.

“I’m just on this path to share everything I’ve learned about creating your own job, working remotely or living in foreign countries, and just living life on your own terms.”

Building Your Roots

Though technology has closed the distance of communication, this globe-trotting entrepreneur acknowledges that our electronic monitors are not a good enough alternative to genuine human connection.

Which is why she wants people to make connections and build communities, through “slow travel” which means staying in a foreign country for more than a just week or even a month.

“I even had the T-shirts that say Slow Obsessed With It,” Kristin said, “because when you travel really quick, you meet a lot of people, but the relationships are all on this acquaintance level and it can feel really shallow, sometimes, but also you can go really deep with people quickly and have like this soulmate-connection.”

She predicts that when the travel bans are lifted and the effects of the pandemic have simmered down, she foresees that there will be a “global migration” and people will realize what they’ve missed while being away from the office.

In the end, Kristin emphasizes that other than sightseeing our most important experience in our global journeys is the connections with people that we make, and at times our realizations may overwhelm us, that she has this to say:

“As human beings, you still need that core group of friends that you can rely on and that core community,” Kristin says, “and if you start to feel like you’re disconnected or that you’re really alone in the world, [you] just kind of step back and go back to your roots a little bit. [this could mean that] maybe it’s time to go home.”

More from Kristin:

• Follow her work at https://medium.com/@kristinmwilson
• Subscribe to her weekly remote work and travel podcast, Badass Digital Nomads: http://bit.ly/DigitalNomadPodcast
• Traveling with Kristin: https://youtube.com/travelingwithkristin
• Digital Nomad TV: https://www.youtube.com/digitalnomad
• IG @travelingwithkristin
• FB @TravelingWithKristin
• Twitter @WheresKristin