I once had to redesign an onboarding flow from Hammock in Sri Lanka, give client feedback while crouched on a hostel bunk in Prague, and test a mobile prototype inside a tuk-tuk stuck in Bangkok traffic

This isn’t a travel blog, I’m here to confess: I’m a UI/UX designer who hasn’t had a permanent address in over two years. My home is wherever my laptop opens and the coffee isn’t terrible.

People assume this lifestyle is full of freedom, and in some ways, it is. But freedom doesn’t mean easy. It means I’ve learned to sketch ideas on napkins when the Wi-Fi dies. It means managing clients across three time zones while navigating visa rules and border queues. It means knowing which cafés in Barcelona won’t kick you out after two hours and where to find quiet corners in Delhi with decent upload speeds.

And still, I’d choose this again in a heartbeat.

Because I know being a nomadic designer has made me obsessed with context. We start to notice what works and what doesn’t, not just on screen but in real life as well, such as how people press buttons in Seoul versus São Paulo. How “accessibility” looks different in places where families share phones. How trust in UI design has cultural fingerprints.

The more I travel, the more I get unlearned. I stopped designing for “users” and started planning for people – real, messy, unpredictable humans. Not the kind described in sleek personalities, but the ones I meet on trains, in hostel kitchens, or while awkwardly miming for SIM cards in foreign languages.

There are no whiteboards, no Friday happy hours, no company swag. But there are moments:

It’s great to see our product live, even when you’re 9,000 miles from the client. Or watching a street vendor use an app you helped design and smile when it works.

My career doesn’t look traditional. My resume has time zone gaps. But my kill set? Sharpened by noise, friction, unpredictability, and raw exposure to the way the world actually works.

So no, I’m not in your office. But I’m in motion. I’m observing. I’m learning.

And I’m designing all the time.