Juozas "Joe" Kaziukėnas – Digital nomad, being homeless & living in New York
Juozas “Joe” Kaziukėnas is a tech entrepreneur and digital nomad currently living in New York. Joe is Lithuanian and moved to Edinburgh (Scotland) for his studies.
During his time at university, he also got involved in open source communities. He traveled to conferences and eventually became an international conference speaker.
Moving to New York
After graduating, he decided he wanted to move to New York to start a career as a tech entrepreneur. Being young and somewhat naive, he sold his stuff, canceled the lease on his apartment and just went back and forth on a tourist visa while waiting for an actual work visa.
Being a digital nomad, basically being homeless.
He figured the process would take a month, but in reality it took him 18 months to get the paperwork sorted out. During those 18 months, Joe lived like a digital nomad, basically being homeless.
He explains how this changed his life and his thought process. Here’s a bit of advice from Joe:
Don’t treat travel and being abroad like holidays.
How do you do that?
Avoid hotels and try to get an appartement. Try to blend in with the locals.
His opinion on the length of your trips:
Don’t go for 5 days. Take your time to adjust. Stay for a couple of weeks. It helps blending in.
Living in New York
Now he lives in New York, enjoying life and work there. But that doesn’t mean he is no longer a digital nomad. Joe spends a lot of time abroad and he shares his experiences.
He also describes New York as a place where you can make things happen, but more on a professional level. He says that most people don’t have families there. When you have a family, you usually find a place outside of the city. And most people who live there aren’t originally from New York.
New York has lots of diversity, both in terms of people as in terms of business. New York attracts people from all over the world. And that’s why Joe wants to be there
An inspiring story!
What’s with the crappy video footage?
Apologies for not including any real video footage, we did record video, but there was an issue with the SD-card and I lost the data. Joe agreed to a part 2 where we will discuss other topics. We will surely have video footage of part 2.
In the meantime, you can still “listen” to the episode on Youtube:
Podcast
Luckily the audio is fine, so for those who listen to the podcast, nothing changed.
Follow me & subscribe
- Follow me on Twitter: @ThijsFeryn
- Follow me on Instagram: @ThijsFeryn
- Subscribe to my podcast on iTunes
- Subscribe to my podcast on SoundCloud
- Subscribe to my Youtube channel