A Digital Nomad in the Rain
“It’s insane,” says Dan Thomson. “I’ve done twenty-three countries this year alone and that doesn’t include the repeats. Mexico eight times, the US four times, Spain three or four times, the UK five.”
After five years on the road, Thomson thought he was finally slowing down. He rented an apartment in Mexico City for August, his first fixed address in years. “I said, I’m stopping. I’m not looking at anything else. I am stopping.”
What he didn’t realise was that August in Mexico City is rainy season. “So, it’s been cold and wet,” he says. “After chasing 28 or 30-degree weather the entire time, suddenly it doesn’t feel like August.”
Yet the city made up for the weather. “Mexico City is incredible,” he says. “There are 23 million people living in it, and they have the same number of museums per capita as other major cities such as London. So many different areas, activities, historical models to check out. Amazing people, foreigners and locals. There are constant events, concerts every week. You can do something different every single day.”
Collapse and Departure
Before becoming a nomad, Thomson was a food and drink entrepreneur with a health food focus. “We were growing very fast,” he says. “The company had 175 staff and thirty-two outlets across the UK, Gibraltar and Spain but we were spread very thin. By the time the pandemic hit, everything collapsed.”
It was not only business loss. “My girlfriend also dumped me around then, and my dog died. It was a very weird few months.” The dog was old. The company, while still young, couldn’t be saved.
“I sold everything and managed to scrounge together about $6,000 in total,” Thomson says. “And decided to go travel in the middle of the pandemic.”
It was June 2020, when most of the world was locked down. “Everyone refused to even talk to one another or hang out at all. I found myself with some freedom, and decided to disappear to Mexico, which was one of the only countries that was open, with the goal of trying to just head south as borders opened and see if I could make Antarctica.”
Jungle Crossings and Lost Cities
He began in Mexico and made it through Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador. At one border that was closed. he tried to cross with a volunteer guide but was intercepted. “Jungle police,” he says. “Getting stopped by them was scary but I pretended not to speak Spanish. It worked and he was released.”
There were extraordinary moments too. “The biggest pyramid in the world isn’t in Egypt, it’s in Guatemala under the jungle, called La Danta, it is in an area called El Mirador,” he says. “It’s the most remote part. Normally it’s a six-day trek, but we managed to do it in two days, that’s a crazy 120 kilometres in two days on foot.”
That trek opened his eyes to the history of abandoned cities.
“When the original explorers from Europe came in the 1500s, they brought disease with them. Within a decade, those diseases had spread so fast they managed to decimate something like 80% of the population. The remaining 20% ended up moving inland, to hide away. The jungles just reabsorbed all of the cities. They’re still being discovered. Sprawling, massive cities, deserted because they couldn’t sustain them with such low populations.”
The exchange was unequal. “We brought over disease to the Americas, and ironically on the way back, we brought syphilis from the Americas to Europe. Was it an unfair trade?”
Vineyards and Hotels
By 2021, Thomson had reached Chile just as another lockdown loomed. He needed a way to stay. “I managed to volunteer on the wine harvest,” he says. “I literally sent a message to the CEO on LinkedIn and he said yes. This was important as I was down to my last $50.”
This particular vineyard also had a hotel and so he ended up working across the vineyard and the hotel where he stayed for some three months.
The CMO Chapter
After Chile came another turn. “I got a job as a CMO for a DeFi project,” he says. “Being the number two was wonderful. All the fun and creativity, but without the weight of being CEO or founder. When you’re the founder, you’re always on, wearing so many hats. Being the CMO meant I could do the fun side of creativity without that crushing responsibility.”
The role also let him continue to travel, this time on the conference circuit.
“It was great, I really enjoyed it,” he says. But it was never going to be permanent.
“The hardest part was knowing that was what I should do and was going to do, but kind of pushing back because I was enjoying being the number two so much. Eventually I knew I had to be that founder guy again.”
Antarctica
From the beginning, his goal had been Antarctica. Leaving the UK with $6,000, he wanted to see how far south he could get. “I managed to achieve my goal of hitting Antarctica,” he says. It took two and a half years, but he made it, continuing afterwards into Brazil and beyond.
A Life Still Moving
Now, five years after that first flight to Mexico, Thomson has become a specialist in motion. “This year has been insane,” he says. “The first time I haven’t enjoyed the travel because it’s been forced, fixed agendas, conferences, schedules. But somehow, even after renting in Mexico City with the intention of slowing down, I ended up travelling more than before.”
Mexico City, even in the rain, gave him a reminder of why he travels. Culture, history, people, food. Constant discovery. And though he stopped for a month, it was never going to last. “I know I’ve got things coming up,” he says. “I’ve got to be in Vegas next week.”
The bag is packed. The road goes on.
