also called PT · permanent tourist · perpetual tourist · perpetual traveler
Someone who keeps moving so as never to become a long-term resident of any single country.
A perpetual traveller keeps moving on purpose so as never to settle long enough to become a full resident, and taxpayer, of any single country. It overlaps with the digital nomad but with a sharper aim: the digital nomad works remotely, while this is specifically a strategy to belong nowhere for tax. The snag is that tax authorities increasingly push back on people who claim to be resident nowhere at all.
You structure your year to stay under every country's residency limit, holding no permanent home anywhere. When you try to prove to an old tax office that you left, you have no new tax residency to point to, and it argues you never stopped being resident with them because you settled nowhere else.
The strategy aims to owe allegiance and tax nowhere, but tax authorities increasingly challenge having no residence at all.
The difference is the whole point, so here is each one in a line.
These labels differ by how settled you are and why you moved.
A digital nomad works remotely while moving between places, a slowmad does the same but stays months at a time, and a perpetual traveller keeps moving specifically to avoid becoming resident anywhere; an expat lives abroad but settled, and an immigrant means to stay for good.
Flag theory and base-building are strategies for spreading your residence, banking and citizenship across countries, while a third culture kid and nomad family travel describe raising children in this life.
Flag state is the odd one out here, meaning the country a boat is registered in.
Base-building strategy · Expat · Flag state · Flag theory · Nomad couple / family travel · Third culture kid
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