Guest: Kayleigh FranksCareer: Head of Digital MarketingBased: NomadicInstagram: @kayleighrfEpisode DescriptionKayleigh Franks didn't stumble into digital nomadism. She hunted it down. In 2016, she flew to Chiang Mai and spent three months interviewing 24 digital nomads for 90 minutes each, studying them for her bachelor's thesis. Then she made it her life's mission to become one.She took the long route. Got an office job in Sydney. Showed up every day. Built her skills in digital marketing. Established a foundation. COVID hit and restricted her further. When it lifted, she quit her job, went freelance, and finally started traveling.But it wasn't what she expected. Airbnbs isolated her. The magic she'd observed in Chiang Mai was missing. Then she discovered co-living. After eight years of planning and building toward this life, she finally found what she'd been chasing.In this conversation, we explore what happens when you spend a decade preparing for something and reality still surprises you. We discuss the time prison of office work, why one month is both too long and not long enough, and the trade-offs between freedom and connection that every nomad eventually faces.Timestamps00:00-00:35 Introduction00:35-01:33 Guest introduction01:33-02:08 Writing a thesis about digital nomads02:08-02:43 Chiang Mai 2016, 24 interviews02:43-03:34 Integrating with the community03:34-04:23 Observing nomads in their natural habitat04:23-05:00 What she does now: digital marketing05:00-05:33 Life's mission to become a nomad05:33-06:25 Building career deliberately in Sydney06:25-07:02 COVID restrictions07:02-08:12 Deliberately calculated approach08:12-09:09 First attempts: Airbnbs and isolation09:09-10:44 Connection and belonging, the cafe lady10:44-11:03 Month-long stays and hubs11:03-12:23 Ten-day connection threshold12:23-12:52 Discovering co-living in 202512:52-13:24 The magic and aliveness13:24-14:19 Sustainability of co-living lifestyle14:19-15:34 One month co-livings back-to-back intensity15:34-16:25 Maintaining productivity while traveling16:25-17:17 Five hours a day, four days a week17:17-18:08 Time prison of office work18:08-18:56 Digital nomadism as solution18:56-20:12 How does it feel to have made it?20:12-20:59 Gratitude and creating your own luck20:59-21:50 Challenges and difficulties21:50-23:15 Slow travel vs fast travel preferences23:15-24:29 Community building in co-livings24:29-25:44 Deep connections vs surface connections25:44-27:48 Relationships and nomadism trade-offs27:48-29:45 Freedom vs connection, making decisions29:45-30:06 Worth being nomadic, liberation from structure30:06-30:23 ClosingAbout This PodcastReal conversations with successful digital nomads who've built sustainable location-independent income. Strategic insights on how they transitioned, what income streams they built, and what they wish they'd known earlier. No travel tips or lifestyle fluff. Host Ibi Malik helps ambitious professionals transition to nomadic careers without income sacrifice.  To watch the video follow this link: https://youtu.be/yev3GdVSrhk Follow for weekly episodes featuring professionals who've successfully built nomadic income streams.Episode length: ~30 minutesPublished: 20th March 2026Episode #9

Guest Reflection

Halfway through our conversation at Chateau Co-living in Normandy, Kayleigh did what came naturally. She'd been answering my questions for twenty minutes when something shifted. She paused, smiled slightly, and asked: "Can I ask you questions?"

It was the researcher emerging. The woman who spent three months in Chiang Mai in 2016 interviewing digital nomads, studying them in their natural habitat, understanding what made them tick. Old habits, it seems, die hard.

After nine episodes of guests being interviewed, perhaps it was time someone turned the tables. But before she did, Kayleigh told me her story. About deliberately building a life around nomadism years before most people knew what that meant. About the rocky start that nearly made her question everything. And about finally discovering that the thing she'd been chasing for a decade was real.

Studying Nomads Before It Was Normal

In 2015, Kayleigh was doing her bachelor's degree in business and tourism when her brother told her about something called digital nomadism. The concept fascinated her immediately.

"I decided to research into it. And nomadism was up at the time, and it said the number one hub was Chiang Mai. So I flew to Chiang Mai and spent three months interviewing digital nomads."

This was 2016. Before COVID made remote work mainstream. Before digital nomad visas existed. Before co-living spaces were everywhere.

She conducted 24 interviews, each an hour and a half long. Sitting in cafes, asking people why they'd chosen this life, what Tim Ferriss's Four Hour Work Week meant to them (spoiler: they didn't actually work four hours), how they made it work.

"I wasn't technically a nomad because I wasn't working. I was studying them, but I integrated."

She lived in an apartment building where other nomads lived. They'd run into each other in corridors. Meet at the same cafes for co-working. There were no formal co-living spaces then, but they created community anyway. Self-sufficiently building connections when the infrastructure didn't exist yet.

What she observed changed everything.

"It became my life's mission after that to actually become one myself."

The Long Game

Most people fall into nomadism. Job goes remote. Partner suggests trying it. Life circumstances change and suddenly it's possible.

Kayleigh didn't fall into anything. She built towards it deliberately.

"I based my whole career on how I could choose something that would allow me to become location independent."

After returning from Thailand, she chose digital marketing specifically because it was location-flexible. But she didn't go remote immediately. She did something counterintuitive: she got an office job.

"I decided to work for an agency in Sydney to be able to build up my skills. But they had to have me in the office every day. That doesn't align with me at all. But I knew it was a good way to establish a foundation that would allow me to travel at my own will."

Years of showing up to an office she didn't want to be in. Building skills. Getting experience. Creating the foundation that would eventually let her work from anywhere.

Then COVID hit. Everything went remote anyway. When restrictions lifted, she saw her moment.

"After that, I was like, there is nothing stopping me now. So I quit my job. I went out on my own."

It worked. Within a year, she was earning enough to support herself to become a digital nomad. The long game had paid off.

When I asked how she felt about being one of the few people who'd planned it this deliberately, her answer surprised me.

When It Didn't Work

"I obviously spent so many years anticipating this kind of lifestyle, and then I started doing it. And I actually didn't enjoy the way I did it. And I was like, what have I done my whole life? I've worked towards it, and it's not what I expected."

Years of planning. Years of building skills. Years of anticipation. And when she finally did it, travelling through South America and Europe, she hated it.

The problem? Airbnbs.

"It really restricts who you interact with. I think for me, a lot of the beauty to nomadism is actually connecting with people and similar mindsets, but it really isolates you when you're in an Airbnb."

She could go to events. Visit co-working spaces. But it wasn't the same as what she'd observed in Chiang Mai, where community formed naturally through proximity and repetition.

"When I was studying, connection with people is a big part of feeling like you belong in an area."

In Thailand, she'd found an old woman at a local cafe who hugged her every day. They couldn't speak each other's languages, but the woman would sit with her, chat in Thai, hug her goodbye. That daily ritual created belonging.

"It just makes you feel like you belong, which is a big part of the pain of being nomadic."

Going to the same cafes daily. Staying in places for at least a month. These weren't just preferences. They were survival strategies.

"You're only able to connect with people to the depth that you're looking for after ten days."

One week somewhere? You're still a tourist. A month? You might actually build something real.

But Airbnbs, even with month-long stays, kept her isolated from the very community she'd spent years working towards.

The Magic of Co-living

Then she discovered proper co-living spaces. Not just apartments where nomads happened to live, but intentionally designed community spaces.

Chateau Co-living in Normandy, where we sat talking, was her first experience of a true co-living.

"It took you from 2016" to discover this, I pointed out. Years of being nomadic before finding what she'd been looking for.

The difference was immediate. Activities she'd never think of doing herself. Skill sharing. Opening her mind to how other people think. The opposite of isolation.

When I asked her to define what co-living actually is, she struggled. Like Edouard before her, finding words for it proved difficult. Eventually, after some back and forth, we landed on what came up in Edouard's episode: it's a feeling.

More specifically: "It's like a family feeling. Everybody has a different definition of family. But for me it's like you feel good here with other people. It's not permanent because everybody's going to move on with their life and go different places. So it's for a few weeks, a few months. But yeah, it's like family feeling."

She was passionate speaking about her experience at the chateau. The magic of it. Being surrounded by people on similar journeys, creating space to actually connect deeply despite knowing everyone would leave eventually.

This was what she'd observed in Chiang Mai back in 2016. What those early nomads had built without infrastruct

Episode ID: 1000756314596

GUID: Kajabi-2149180114

Release Date: 20/03/2026, 16:30:00