A founder’s story of Covid collapse, AI disruption, Portugal, reinvention, and what really
changed for digital nomads between 2020 and 2026.
Some years do not just interrupt your life.
They split it in two.
For me, that split began in 2020.
I had incorporated my company in 2019. Six months later, Covid hit. Lockdowns came. Events
stopped. Contracts were cancelled. The life I had been building through media production, VR
filming, and the metaverse suddenly ran into a wall.
At the time, I was operating through iFeelvirtuel, building immersive productions in virtual
reality, filming live events, and creating experiences that still felt ahead of the curve.
Covid was not only going to disrupt my business. It was going to rewrite my life.
And it did.
This is the story of what changed for me. But it is also the story of what changed for digital
nomads, expats, and slow travelers between 2020 and 2026 — and why the future belongs to
people who can build, not just wander.Want sharper insight on life abroad, relocation, and the next era of borderless living?
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travel, and the places that still make sense once routine sets in.
Before the collapse, I was building from scratch
Before OG Trotter, before Portugal, before the decision to leave everything behind, I was deep
in production.
I was in media filming, virtual reality, and metaverse-focused creative work. I had never held a
camera in my hand before entering this world. I was learning entrepreneurship while learning
VR at the same time. No elegant master plan. No polished path. Just pressure, curiosity, and
the willingness to build from nothing.
Looking back, I can see that this period trained me in ways I did not appreciate then.
I was not just learning how to produce. I was learning how to adapt.
Over time, that work grew into more than 500 productions: underwater filming, concerts, boxing,
mixed martial arts, festivals, local events, and major international productions.
I worked on projects tied to names such as Bob Sinclar, Martin Solveig, and Armin van
Buuren, while also producing the kind of local and regional work that rarely makes headlines
but teaches you everything about execution.
I was also pushing into territory that very few people were touching at the time. I became one of
the early operators creating live VR experiences tied to the metaverse and building
immersive broadcasts from scratch. That included pioneering 360 live fighting-event production
streamed on YouTube from places like Nice, South America, and Canada through iFeelvirtuel.
I was not just learning how to produce. I was learning how to adapt.
At the time, it felt like I was simply trying to survive and innovate at once.
Now I understand something else.
I was preparing myself for today.Then Covid hit, and the machine stopped
When the pandemic landed, it did not arrive gently.
It shut the door.
The events industry froze. Contracts disappeared. Entire categories of work that depended on
physical presence collapsed almost overnight. And when you are built around filming, immersive
experiences, and live environments, that kind of shutdown is not theoretical. It is immediate.
The cruel part was that everyone was affected.
There was no obvious safe zone. No untouched market. No easy pivot that magically solved
everything. Families were shaken, companies were shaken, entire industries were trying to
breathe through a locked door.
The pandemic also created the condition that expanded digital nomad life globally. Remote work
moved from fringe arrangement to mass experiment almost overnight. But for founders like me,
the same shock that opened the door for millions of remote workers closed another one.
My world did not become more flexible.
It became unstable.
I had to reinvent my family life, my work, my company, and my own sense of direction all at
once.
Reinvention sounds impressive when people say it cleanly. In real life, it often looks like fatigue,
uncertainty, and the slow realization that the old operating system no longer works.
AI changed everything again
If Covid cracked the structure, AI accelerated the rewrite.
For me, AI was not some distant tech story happening somewhere else. I was already working
at the edge of media, virtual production, and emerging technology. So when AI began reshaping
creative work, business models, and the speed of execution, I could feel another wave coming.
That is part of what changed between 2020 and 2026.Back then, digital nomadism was still wrapped in the language of freedom. In 2026, freedom is
still part of the story, but it is no longer enough. Now the questions are sharper.
Can you adapt fast enough?
Can you create value fast enough?
Can you build leverage instead of just movement?
Can you stay useful while the tools keep changing?
AI did not just change how people work.
It changed the standard for what work is worth.
By the end of 2024, my life was upside down
The end of 2024 was one of those periods where you know something has to change, but you
do not yet know what the new shape will be.
That was where I was.
My life was upside down. My business life had already taken hit after hit. The world had
changed. The industry had changed. I had changed too, but not yet enough to fully understand
what I needed to do next.
That is the problem with being deep inside the box: you cannot always see the exit while you
are living in the middle of the pressure.
So in January 2025, I made a decision.
I had to do something dramatic to get back on my feet.
Fast.
I relocated myself, and I did it because I needed one clear fight: me against me. I needed to
break whatever curse felt like it had been hanging over my head. I needed fresh air, distance,
movement, and a new environment that could force a reset.
In January 2025, I made a decision. I had to do something dramatic to get back on
my feet.
And it worked.Not in some cinematic, overnight-transformation way. But it worked.
I will be honest about something most people leave out: I slept a lot. I mean, a lot.
Sometimes recovery is not glamorous. Sometimes your body takes over after years of carrying
too much. Sometimes exhaustion finally gets its turn.
And maybe that was part of the healing too.
Then came Sheri
In April 2025, I met the person who changed the path of my life.
Her name is Sheri.
In two weeks, we will celebrate our first anniversary together.
That matters, because this story is not only about business reinvention or geography. It is also
about partnership. About timing. About what happens when two people both reach a point
where life demands something more honest.
Back then, Sheri and I both needed drastic change.
She had her reasons.
I had mine.
Together, we made a pact.
We would leave Canada for good.
Sheri brought her own depth to that decision. She had substantial travel experience and a
background in yoga, medical tourism, and medical concierge work helping people in Mexico
access hospital care and health services.
My own background came through movement too, though in a different form: more than 15
countries across Central America and Europe, often connected to filming contracts, live events,
and production work.
Neither of us was new to travel.
But this was different.This was not tourism.
This was choosing a new life.
The backpack decision
In June, we made the decision official.
We would leave everything behind.
Not selectively. Not symbolically. Fully.
Our personal belongings, our accumulated weight, our old setup, all of it. The rule was brutally
simple: the only things we were allowed to bring were the things that fit in a backpack.
August 26.
Plane to Portugal.
There are moments when a decision stops being abstract and becomes real in the body. That
date was one of them. It was not just a travel date. It was a point of no return.
And somewhere in that movement, in the spinning of ideas and the strange clarity that comes
when you strip life down to essentials, OG Trotter was born.
Why OG Trotter had to exist
OG Trotter did not come from trend-chasing.
It came from lived pressure.
From losing one map and needing a better one.
From understanding that digital nomads, expats, and slow travelers do not need more fantasy.
They need better judgment. They need someone willing to talk honestly about what changes
after the first week, what a place costs you, what it gives back, and whether daily life actually
works once the novelty burns off.We do not sell escape. We decode reality for people building a life in motion.
That is not just a brand statement.
It is a survival lesson.
Still deciding what kind of borderless life actually fits you?
The free articles give you the overview. The next layer gives you sharper judgment on where to
go, how to land, and what holds up once routine sets in.
What changed for digital nomads between 2020 and 2026
The short answer is this:
In 2020, digital nomadism felt like an opening. In 2026, it feels like a system.
Back in 2020, the world was improvising. Remote work exploded because people had no
choice. Many employers tolerated it without fully understanding what it meant. People
discovered they could work from somewhere else, and that discovery felt radical.
It was radical.
But it was also temporary in mood, if not in outcome.
By 2025, global work-from-home patterns had stabilized instead of disappearing. That is one of
the biggest differences between 2020 and 2026.
The first era was improvisation.
The second is infrastructure.
Countries now increasingly offer formal remote-work pathways. The rhythm changed too.
Nomads are moving less frantically. Longer stays, stronger routines, and more deliberate
base-building are replacing some of the old fast-moving, adrenaline-heavy model.
At the same time, the friction increased.
Housing pressure is more visible. Local resentment is more visible. Regulation is more visible.
The old dream of borderless ease now comes with harder questions about legality, cost,
belonging, and impact.In other words, nomad life did not disappear.
It grew up.
Is it better now than it was in 2020?
That depends on who you are.
If you liked the old looseness, 2020 may have felt better. There was more improvisation, more
ambiguity, and in many places lower cost and less scrutiny.
But if you value legitimacy, better infrastructure, and a chance to build something durable, 2026
is stronger.
The difference is not simply good versus bad.
It is freedom versus structure.
And I have learned, both personally and professionally, that freedom without structure can
become exhaustion very quickly.
The old version ran on adrenaline. The new version runs on design.
That is why the new era makes more sense to me now.
Not because it is easier. In many ways, it is harder.
But it is more honest.
The best digital nomad life in 2026 is less about fantasy and more about design. Better
decisions. Better timing. Better fit. Better environments. Better questions.
That is the version worth building.
What the future belongs to
I am turning 53 soon.That gives me a different relationship with reinvention.
At this age, you stop confusing motion with progress quite so easily. You become more
interested in what holds up. What restores you. What sharpens you. What kind of life you can
actually sustain.
The future will reward five things.
1. Longer stays
The next era looks less like collecting passport stamps and more like building strong temporary
bases. Longer stays create better routines, better health, and a truer understanding of a place.
2. Legal clarity
Grey-zone living will become less attractive and less sustainable. Formal remote-work visas,
residency options, tax awareness, and compliance will matter more.
3. AI fluency
AI will reward adaptable operators and punish generic ones. People who learn how to use AI as
leverage will create more room for freedom. People who rely on shallow value will feel the
squeeze.
4. Builder energy
The strongest nomads of the next decade will look less like drifters and more like builders:
founders, consultants, creators, operators, and skilled professionals who can create real value
wherever they are.
5. A better definition of a good life abroad
The future is not just about where you can go. It is about where you can function well. Sleep
well. Work well. Heal well. Stay well. A beautiful place is not always a workable one.
Why I still trust the process
A lot went wrong.I do not need to clean that up into a motivational speech.
The company I built ran headfirst into a world that changed under it. Covid shut down one era.
AI accelerated another. By the end of 2024, my life was upside down again. In January 2025, I
knew I had to do something dramatic. In April, I met Sheri. In June, we made the pact. In
August, we got on a plane to Portugal with what fit in a backpack.
And out of that chaos came OG Trotter.
From the inside, it did not feel elegant.
But from here, I can finally see the thread.
Everything that felt like destruction was also preparation.
The long learning curve in VR. The pressure of entrepreneurship. The camera in my hand
before I knew what it would eventually mean. The productions. The collapse. The exhaustion.
The relocation. The partnership. The new project. The new life.
Every time something truly bad happened to me, something greater was waiting in
front of it.
Not always immediately.
Not always obviously.
Not always painlessly.
But it was there.
So whatever happens to you, whatever happens to the world, whatever happens to the next
generation of nomads, expats, and slow travelers, I still trust the process.
Not because life is easy.
Because I have seen what can happen after it breaks.
The real future of nomads, expats, and slow travelers
The future is not over for nomads.
It is just less naive.It will belong to people who understand that movement is not the same thing as progress. To
people who stop asking only whether a place is cheap, trendy, or photogenic and start asking
whether they can build a decent life there.
That is the question now.
And that is the question OG Trotter exists to answer.
If 2020 cracked the world open, 2026 is teaching us what to do with the pieces.
And the people who learn that well will not just travel better.
They will live better.
FAQ
What is the biggest difference between digital nomad life in 2020 and 2026?
The biggest difference is maturity. In 2020, the lifestyle expanded through emergency remote
work and widespread improvisation. By 2026, it is more structured, more legal, more visible, and
more focused on long-stay practicality.
Is it better to be a digital nomad in 2026 than in 2020?
It is better for people who value legitimacy, infrastructure, and longer-term sustainability. It was
arguably easier in 2020 for people who benefited from lower costs, looser rules, and more
ambiguity.
Are digital nomads staying longer in each destination now?
Yes. The broader trend points toward fewer moves, longer stays, and a stronger focus on
livability rather than constant motion.
Why does Portugal matter for digital nomads now?
Portugal represents a broader shift toward formal remote-work pathways and more deliberate
lifestyle design. For many people, it has become a serious base rather than just a holiday
destination.What is the future of digital nomads, expats, and slow travelers?
The future likely belongs to people who combine mobility with discipline: longer stays, better
planning, stronger legal awareness, AI leverage, and a more realistic understanding of what
makes a place livable.
About the author
Denis Hubert is a digital innovator, immersive technology expert, and global growth strategist
with more than 15 years of experience operating across 15+ countries. He is the founder of
Original GlobeTrotters, Panorama360.studio, iFeelvirtuel, and Web3X Consulting, where
he works at the intersection of immersive technology, digital storytelling, global business
development, and borderless living. His background spans VR, AR, Web3, blockchain,
immersive content production, and international market expansion.