Digital nomadism is often presented as the ultimate liberation of modern life. With a laptop, a reliable internet connection and the right kind of work, the whole world can become an office. The traditional workplace is replaced by a mountain town, a beach or a café in a foreign city. But behind the images of freedom, travel and inspiring workplaces lies a considerably more complex reality.
In the book Digital Nomadism – Cultural Transformations, Social Dynamics and Challenges in Bansko, Petya V. Dimitrova examines what happens when this global nomadic lifestyle becomes established in a specific place. Bansko, in southwestern Bulgaria, is at the centre of the study, but the questions raised extend far beyond the town itself. The book explores the future of work, the human need for community, local development and the growing tension between global mobility and local belonging.
Bansko as a Laboratory for the Future of Living
Bansko is best known as a ski resort, but over the past decade it has developed into an international centre for digital nomads. Coworking spaces, coliving accommodation, international networks and Bansko Nomad Fest have made the town known far beyond Bulgaria’s borders.
People from many different countries meet here with one thing in common: they can work independently of a conventional workplace. They run businesses or work as consultants, programmers, marketers, writers, designers, teachers and creators. Some stay for a few weeks, others return regularly, while some purchase property and establish a permanent or semi-permanent base.
Dimitrova’s book is based on ethnographic fieldwork in Bansko and Semkovo. During 2025, she conducted 33 interviews with digital nomads, entrepreneurs and people connected to coworking and coliving environments. The material is supplemented by informal conversations with local residents, a focus group, observations and discussions during Bansko Nomad Fest.
This makes the book more than a theoretical study. The reader encounters people attempting to create a new kind of life, as well as a town changing around them.
The Promise of Nomadic Freedom
Digital nomadism is built around a powerful promise: the opportunity to decide where to live, how to work and how to organise one’s life. Many digital nomads have left conventional workplaces that they experienced as restrictive, meaningless or incompatible with the life they wanted to lead.
They are not merely looking for a different job. They are searching for a different model of living.
Bansko offers much of what they seek. The cost of living has traditionally been lower than in many Western European cities. The town provides reliable internet, access to nature, skiing, hiking and a growing international network. It is small enough for people to meet one another quickly, yet sufficiently established to provide the necessary services and infrastructure.
Nature plays a central role. The proximity of the Pirin Mountains becomes part of the identity the nomads construct for themselves. Work is no longer supposed to exist at the expense of life. Instead, it should be combined with movement, experiences, health and personal development.
But this freedom comes with conditions. Living as a digital nomad requires work that can be performed remotely, sufficient income, digital skills, a useful passport and the ability to navigate insurance, taxation and residency requirements. The supposedly borderless lifestyle is, in reality, dependent on both national legislation and an individual’s economic and social capital.
Digital nomadism is therefore not accessible to everyone. It largely remains a privilege enjoyed by educated people from economically strong countries.
When Community Becomes a Product
One of the book’s most important observations concerns the contradiction between freedom and belonging. Digital nomads leave fixed workplaces and traditional communities in search of independence. At the same time, many discover how difficult it is to live without lasting relationships and stable social surroundings.
Nomadic life involves constant farewells. People meet, rapidly form intense relationships and then continue in different directions. After a while, freedom can turn into loneliness. Every new destination requires the individual to introduce themselves again, build new connections and attempt to become part of another social environment.
Coworking and coliving spaces therefore offer more than a desk or a bed. They sell access to a community.
Memberships, shared meals, workshops, excursions, exercise sessions and social activities provide a ready-made structure that newcomers can enter. This is practical and often valuable. For someone arriving alone, it can mean the difference between isolation and belonging.
At the same time, a sensitive question arises: What happens when community becomes a commercial service?
When people pay to gain friends and social access, relationships risk becoming standardised. The community must be organised, promoted and packaged. It must attract new members and create experiences that can be presented on social media. What appears spontaneous may, in fact, be carefully planned.
The book does not dismiss these environments. On the contrary, it demonstrates how important they can be. But it also reveals the difficult balance between authentic human relationships and a business model built around people’s longing for community.
Three Different Versions of Bansko
Perhaps the most interesting part of the book concerns the relationship between digital nomads and Bansko’s local population. The international image of Bansko is often positive: an open mountain town where people from around the world meet. Beneath the surface, however, several partially separated realities exist.
These can be simplified into three broad groups: the local population, foreigners who have settled more permanently, and digital nomads staying for shorter periods.
The groups share the same geographical location but do not necessarily inhabit the same social world. Digital nomads frequently work, live and socialise in international environments where English is the common language. Their interactions with local people may be limited to restaurants, shops, transportation, property rental and other services.
Language barriers are significant, but the differences also involve values and perspectives. Many nomads regard the town as an opportunity and a temporary base. For local residents, Bansko is a home with a history, an identity and cultural traditions. What one group perceives as development may be experienced by the other as the gradual transformation of the town into something unfamiliar.
Digital nomads can contribute to the local economy, new businesses, international connections and activity outside the traditional tourist seasons. They can create demand for housing, food, transportation, events, administrative assistance and various other services.
But the benefits are not automatically distributed throughout the local community. Many businesses serving digital nomads are operated by other international entrepreneurs. Money may therefore circulate within a relatively closed foreign environment, while local residents are primarily left to provide basic services.
Housing, Gentrification and the Identity of the Town
When people with higher incomes purchase property or demand flexible short-term rental contracts, the housing market is affected. Prices can rise, long-term rentals may be replaced by more profitable short-term accommodation, and housing can become less accessible to people earning local salaries.
The same development that attracts investment can therefore also contribute to gentrification. Bansko risks gradually being adapted to meet the needs of temporary visitors rather than the people who live there permanently.
Culture itself can become a commodity. Local architecture, food, traditions and nature are used to make the destination attractive. If this development goes too far, the distinctive character of the town may be reduced to a marketable backdrop.
This is not a problem unique to Bansko. Similar processes can be observed in Bali, Lisbon, Chiang Mai and other destinations that have become popular among digital nomads. Through Dimitrova’s book, Bansko becomes a concrete example of a global transformation.
Families Are Changing Nomadic Life
Dimitrova also draws attention to a newer development: digital nomads travelling with their children. As the first generation of nomads grows older, the lifestyle must be adapted to family life, education and children’s need for stable relationships.
This is where the concept of worldschooling enters the discussion. It refers to families using travel, nature, digital education and practical experiences as part of their children’s learning. In Bansko, networks have emerged in which parents organise activities, excursions and alternative forms of education.
For these families, the approach can provide freedom and a richer learning experience. At the same time, it places considerable responsibility on the parents. They gain control over their children’s education, social relationships and environment, but they must also create the stability that a mobile lifestyle can remove.
Bansko may therefore evolve from a temporary destination into a recurring base where nomadic families find both nature and community.
Freedom Requires Responsibility
The book is neither a defence of nor an attack on digital nomadism. Its strength lies in its ability to reveal the phenomenon’s contradictions.
Digital nomadism can give people greater control over their time, increased independence and the opportunity to create a life more closely aligned with their values. It can also contribute to entrepreneurship, international knowledge exchange and new development in smaller towns.
At the same time, the lifestyle can generate loneliness, social bubbles, housing problems, cultural tensions and environmental pressure. Individual freedom may have collective consequences for people who never chose to become part of the nomadic economy.
The challenge for the future is therefore not to stop mobility, but to make it more sustainable and reciprocal. Towns such as Bansko need to understand who digital nomads are, but nomads must also understand the places in which they have chosen to live. Integration requires more than purchasing local services. It requires language, curiosity, respect and participation.
Perhaps the book’s most important lesson is that people do not become independent simply because they can work from anywhere. We continue to need homes, relationships and a sense of belonging.
Digital nomads leave fixed places in search of freedom. But sooner or later, many begin searching for somewhere to return to. For a growing number of people, that place has become Bansko.
By Chris...
Source: BULGARIAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
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