By Michelle
The myth that travel and long-term love can’t coexist is keeping nomads single.
As a matchmaker working with digital nomads, I hear day in and day out that prioritising a life of continuous travel means giving up on a stable, long-term relationship. And it’s often followed in the same breath by confessions of a deep yearning for love, intimacy, and connection.
It makes sense, at least on the surface. The effort-to-reward ratio of dating on the road is brutal. Moving around every month or three can make meeting someone and building something lasting seem as likely as winning the lottery. Some angrily insist it’s not possible for anyone, not just themselves.
Why Dating on the Road Feels Impossible
The rare nomad who is intentional and proactive about love wants to channel a lot of energy into it, but there’s nowhere for it to go. Although single people everywhere have grown tired of the dehumanising meat market of dating apps, most remain hostages to them because they’re still the easiest way to meet people.
For nomads, it’s worse. Dating apps are location-based, and no one wants to invest in someone who’ll be gone in a few weeks. And as many nomads have pointed out to me, there’s no filter for us and likely never will be. We’re too small a community to be catered to. So there’s no easy way to meet other nomads looking for a relationship, too.
Colivings, coworks, nomad fests, conferences, and travelling communities all exist to combat the loneliness of continuous solo travel. But nomads are asking for someone they’re genuinely compatible with, whose travel dates overlap, whose future plans are flexible enough to avoid starting a relationship long-distance, and whose travel pace and style matches theirs. That’s a tall order.
Yet, I know so many beautiful, healthy, happy couples travelling the world together. So why have single nomads given up? Why have they equated the lifestyle with permanent singlehood, even when they want more?
Why Single Nomads Have Given Up
I’ve seen friends give up the hope of a relationship to avoid constant disappointment. Rejecting the whole notion of a relationship protects them from feeling rejected or like a failure (if they equate their worth to their relationship status). If you didn’t expect it to pan out, you can’t be that disappointed when it doesn’t, right? Wrong. You end up carrying a small portion of that disappointment wherever you go.
What some people don’t understand is that anticipating defeat creates the defeat itself. If they assume the connection will go nowhere, they offer nothing of themselves but the surface level.
It’s not easy to get some nomads to go on dates. But I’ve been a fly on the wall of many nomad dates where the conversation never strays from travel. Cape Town is awesome. Tulum is past its heyday. Blah, blah, blah. No vulnerability. No authenticity. No depth. Even if there’s sexual tension. They’re wary, distant, maybe even rejecting. Intimacy can’t grow like that, let alone a relationship. This expectation of failure seeps into behaviour, ensuring the outcome they’re so dreading.
The result of all this negativity is that nomads assume other nomads are uninterested in relationships and incapable of commitment, even if they themselves are not.
Commitment Is Not a Home Base
The refusal to commit to a home base gets mistaken for an inability to commit to a partner. But the two aren’t the same at all. Building a shared life and honouring an emotional commitment has nothing to do with geographical stability. Nomad couples tell me all the time that sharing this lifestyle with a partner who understands and celebrates it makes it exponentially more fulfilling.
The assumption that relationships force people to stop travelling isn’t wrong. Because dating apps are location-dependent, nomads end up dating locals when they pause somewhere for a few months. But locals have jobs, families, and lives that keep them rooted. When someone has to compromise, it’s often the one with more flexibility - the nomad.
A close friend of mine tells me she’s “looking for someone who will make her want to stop travelling”, yet looks so longingly at couples who travel the world together.
The thing is, people know that if they manage to meet the right person, nomadic relationships can be magical. Because the people in them are unusually intentional, flexible, and communicative. They just don’t think they can find them.
How Nomad Couples Actually Make It Work
Deep commitment and intentionality are hallmarks of successful nomad relationships. I know a couple where she returned home for a brief visit and met him on Hinge. He, of course, had never even heard of digital nomads. They spent months long-distance until he landed a remote job, and now they travel together full-time. Another couple met while travelling. She was testing out the work-from-anywhere policy at her job while he was already a full-time nomad. Now she travels half the year, and he spends some months living with her at home. They spend about a month or two apart every year. A third couple spends a month or two apart every few months. There’s nothing forcing them to, but it’s the rhythm of their relationship.
Normalising time apart and being intentional about maintaining connection makes it possible for both partners to keep the flexibility and autonomy they value while still enjoying the emotional support of a committed partnership.
The idea that both partners must travel in exactly the same way, at the same pace, to the same places is a myth. But to prioritise togetherness, many nomad couples have to compromise and remain flexible.
I know two nomad couples where one partner slows down for part of the year to be with the other, who has work or visa constraints. Another couple goes wherever her job dictates, with her partner following along. Both sacrifice a little to make room for the relationship.
The ideal, of course, is the couple who travel together year-round, where neither has to change the cadence of their lifestyle. I’ve witnessed plenty of funny debates about where to go next, how long to stay, and how much they want to do versus how much they want to nap. Negotiation and communication are required to keep both people happy. But I’ve also seen energetic people who can’t sit still, be happy to lounge around, because it helps their partner feel more grounded. And more relaxed people pushing themselves to do more because their partner is so excited.
On the flip side, I’ve met many incompatible couples who stay together long after they know the relationship has run its course. They know how hard it is to find another relationship in this community and don’t think they can capture lightning in a bottle twice.
The forge from which nomad relationships emerge produces some of the strongest, healthiest partnerships I’ve seen, and they’re the reason I left my cushy 9-to-5 to become a nomad matchmaker.
What Nomads Can Do Differently
Cultivate an Internal Locus of Control
Cultivate an internal locus of control, meaning, instead of focusing on elements of dating that you can’t control, focus on what you can.
You can’t control timing, geography, or what someone else wants from a date. You can control how you show up. This means your openness, your energy, your emotional availability, and how intentional you are in dating. Research shows that people who have a higher sense of agency have a better time dating and end up in better relationships.
Watch for Scarcity Thinking
The belief that “the nomad lifestyle makes relationships impossible” will lead people to hold onto the wrong connections for too long. They may overinvest, overlook incompatibilities, and burn through energy that could be spent meeting someone more suitable. The faster you’re willing to walk away, the more space you create for something that’s right.
Put Yourself Where the Right People Are
If you want to meet other nomads, you have to go where they are. That means actively choosing environments that create natural connections like colivings, coworking spaces, nomad communities, conferences, and festivals. Delete that dating app that’s only putting your profile in front of locals and tanking your self-esteem.
A Borderless Life Doesn’t Stifle Love
A borderless life doesn’t stifle love. It amplifies everything: the intensity, uncertainty, and decisions that most people put off for later. Like all relationships, it requires intentionality, commitment, flexibility, and effective communication upfront. It requires a hell of a lot of courage and luck.
At times, it can feel impossible to find this kind of love, especially when it’s easier to give than to make it work. But when my matchmaking clients find someone worth the work, what they end up with is a real relationship, held together by a shared vision for the future.
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