The World is on Fire. Is That Another Reason to Become a Digital Nomad?
In a world of unprecedented wildfires, floods, droughts, heat waves, and hurricanes, does it still make sense to own a home?
For the audio version of this article, read by the author, go here.
Brent and I have been digital nomads for eight years, but lately, we’ve been talking about buying a home somewhere — as an occasional “home base” and a place where we would eventually settle down.
A year ago, we spent two months in Valencia, Spain, to see if it might be “the” place.
Ultimately, we decided Valencia wasn’t for us. Then, later in the year, devastating floods struck the region. Two hundred thousand people were directly impacted, many losing homes, cars, and businesses. Two hundred and thirty-two people died.
What if Brent and I had bought property there? Would we have been impacted?
Los Angeles is currently battling unprecedented wildfires. Like the floods in Spain, scientists say climate change almost certainly contributed to the devastation.
All this has me thinking: the world is currently enduring unprecedented floods, wildfires, droughts, heat waves, and hurricanes — and the political and cultural instability that results from these things.
In such a world, does it still make sense to buy a home, especially at today’s possibly over-inflated prices?
Brent and I became nomads for philosophical and “lifestyle” reasons. But increasingly, I wonder if it isn’t simply a more logical choice.
As we’ve traveled the world, we’ve seen the effects of climate change firsthand virtually everywhere. In fact, it’s becoming eerie how often disaster strikes places not long after we leave — and a few times, even while we’re still there.
In 2020, we spent several months living in Boulder, Colorado, in part to visit our longtime friends Mark and Jean. They have a lovely home in the foothills of the city.
But they’ve also nearly lost their home twice in the past twelve years — first to major flooding in 2013, and then again in 2021, in a massive wildfire the year after Brent and I visited.
Here are other climate-related problems and disasters we’ve seen during our travels:
When we stayed in Grimentz, Switzerland, in 2019, we visited the nearby Moiry Glacier, which is shrinking and is estimated to disappear entirely within thirty years. Unfortunately, the glacier supplies water for the entire Anniviers Valley region — just as the greater Alps mountain range provides water for much of Europe.
In 2020, less than a month after our stay along the Columbia River in Lyall, Washington, wildfires struck Oregon on the opposite side of the river. The entire region was blanketed in thick smoke, temporarily making the air quality the worst in the world.
In 2022, a series of heat waves ravaged Europe, causing $40 billion worth of damage and contributing to the premature deaths of over 60,000 people. At the time, Brent and I were in Novi Sad, Serbia, and the month was brutal. During our stay, drought caused the Danube River — essential to the area’s economy — to drop to such low levels that it became unnavigable.
In 2023, we were in Bangkok, Thailand, during a heat wave that saw the city set a record high temperature of 41 °C (106 °F). But the record only stood until a second Asian heat wave the following year.
Scientists say climate change probably contributed to these events too.
Brent and I once even spent a year living in Los Angeles, where the most recent fires are almost certainly part of a terrifying “new normal” and are only likely to get worse.
All the things we’ve personally witnessed are why I’m increasingly less inclined to view the two of us as “digital nomads” and more as “climate nomads.” We’re not just more reluctant to ever buy property again; we’re also now factoring the effects of climate change into our travel plans.
We’re not the only ones.
One fellow nomad, Wendy Sewell, specifically left California because of the rising danger. “We left [in 2020] because of fires,” she says. “We had to evacuate twice before then, and it was terrifying. It’s what launched us on our nomadic journey.”
Only three days after they left, a third fire broke out. Had they stayed, they would have been forced to evacuate yet again.
Again, it makes me ask: is homeownership still worth the risk?
“I’ve been thinking about this a lot, especially since the hurricane double-whammy of [Helene and Milton] hit my hometown of Tampa,” says Maria Wilson, another fellow nomad. “I love the emotional freedom of having less stuff — less to carry, less to take care of, [but also] less to lose.”
Indeed, not only is the physical structure of a house at risk from climate disasters but so are all of the homeowners’ possessions.
I also wonder if purchasing a house will be as good an investment in the future as it was in the past.
The cost of homeowners insurance has already skyrocketed in states prone to hurricanes, such as Florida, the Carolinas, and Texas, as well as states vulnerable to wildfires, like California, Colorado, and Hawaii. Rising ocean levels are also making areas along coastlines more expensive.
As the disasters continue to mount, insurance rates will very likely increase for everyone across America. And in many places, these rate hikes are likely to be even more extreme.
That will cause homeownership to become even more unaffordable.
Of course, it’s easy for Brent and I to opt out of the real estate market; we’ve already made our money — in the phenomenal Seattle market, no less — and now our wealth is more diversified, steadily earning us income.
What should younger folks do? Shouldn’t they have the same opportunity to secure their financial future through home ownership?
In an ideal world, yes. But does such a world still exist?
One possibility is to seek out “safer” parts of the United States or the greater world. But our travels seem to be telling us that nowhere is exempt from the impact of climate change.
In our old hometown of Seattle, people used to take comfort in the area’s famously mild weather, which was supposed to spare it from the extreme effects of climate change. But the city now endures “smoke season” when fires in Canada and Western Washington blanket the entire region in a thick haze. Seattle has also seen record-high temperatures during heat waves, making the city’s famously mild summers much less enjoyable.
The World Health Organization estimates that nearly half a million people worldwide already die every year from heat-related causes — currently, the largest source of death from natural disasters. And it’s almost certainly going to get much worse: rising temperatures may soon make large swaths of the world virtually uninhabitable — areas that are home to billions of people.
Where will these people go? What sort of political instability will all these refugees cause?
If a nomad lives in an area where things get bad, he or she can always pack up and leave — as selfish as that sounds. (Yes, I recognize the irony of the U.S. being the country most responsible for climate change, yet American nomads like us can avoid the worst of its consequences.)
But what if you own an expensive home? Most of your net worth could be tied up in an investment that might decline in value — or disappear entirely.
“More and more, I appreciate my ability to pack up and move quickly if needed for weather and economic issues or political and social unrest,” says Julia Taylor, another nomad. “These are the times we’re living in now.”
“I don’t have an answer,” adds Debbie Goehring, a nomad who saw the impacts of climate disasters in two places where she owned homes, Nicaragua and Tennessee. “We [may] soon all become nomadic if we haven’t started already because of the extreme climate changes.”
I have no answers either. Nomading is not clearly practical, possible, or even desirable for everyone. And obviously, everyone still needs a place to live.
But the world is changing whether we like it or not. And I’d rather choose to be a climate nomad than be forced to become a climate refugee.
Michael Jensen is a novelist and editor. For more about Michael, visit him at MichaelJensen.com.
I read this a lot of conflicting emotions. On the one hand, I couldn’t agree more. A small % of us should take the opportunity as it’s only logical.
On the other hand, I shake my head at the irony of a US citizen (the worlds largest emitter and leading blocker of climate reform) being able to afford a climate nomad life while millions of people in my country (India) will be climate refugees for no fault of theirs. The only consolation I take is that it couldn’t happen to a nicer set of guys. So there’s that, and I shake my head and wish well.
These are the questions that I imagine Trump thinks about at night while studying for the next day’s meetings.