Our Top Freelance Digital Nomad Business Tools

We started our own remote freelance business in 2014. Over the years, we’ve narrowed down our favorite digital tools (and a few physical ones as well) that we thought would be useful for other digital nomads, remote workers, small business collaborations, and freelancers.

Some quick background: How we make a living includes a combination of freelance event planning and online entrepreneurship: content creation, email communication, marketing, and basic website help for clients. Teaching travel skills, a bit of consulting, and hosting tours are in the mix, too.

In this post we’ll cover:

– Digital tools for business we can’t live without
– Remote collaboration tools
– Apps and platforms we use for our client work
– Other digital nomad tools (for travel, travel blogging, etc.)

Last updated: April 2026. Originally published: August 2019.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase through one of our links, we may receive a small commission at no additional cost to you. Thanks for your support!

The Digital Tools We Use to Run a Remote Business While Traveling

Freelance Business Tools We Can’t Live Without

Let’s start with the tools we use on a daily basis to keep our business running. Then, we’ll cover other digital tools we’ve used for client work, or things we use regularly but could technically do without.

Kit email and newsletter program for online entrepreneurs

We’ve used ConvertKit (now Kit) primarily for managing emails to our travel blog subscribers.

We used to use MailChimp – and we still have the free version for our personal newsletter – but the functionality of Kit has been worth the upgrade.

It helps grow our business through attractive sign up forms, trackable data, and simple but powerful automations. It allows us to send you info specific to your interests, like our self-guided walking tour maps for particular cities, without having to manually respond to each request. 

Dropbox and Google Drive cloud storage

We pay an annual subscription to have extra space on Dropbox, and we use the free version of Google Drive. Both of these are useful for storing and sharing files. Different clients prefer one or the other, so we pretty much need both.

Generally, Google Drive is more helpful as a remote collaboration tool, allowing multiple people to work on one document more seamlessly. Dropbox is great for storing and organizing large amounts of images, videos, and other documents which we use for clients and our own business. 

Google Suite: Email, Calendar, Docs, Drive, and more….

There’s not one day that we don’t use one of Google Suite‘s programs. If you don’t mind having a Gmail account (and not your own business domain), you can use the entire suite for free.

It’s simple to use. And since we work as a team, the collaboration is seamless, whether we are sharing a calendar or working on a document together. It also works seamlessly across all our different devices. 

1Password: Password Management

With every site, app, and program requiring their own login and password, it’s difficult to remember them all. Not only that, but it’s not good practice to use the same password for multiple accounts and sites.

But what if you only had to remember one hard password? With 1Password, you essentially have one password that unlocks all your other passwords.

This way, your other passwords can be extremely complex because you don’t have to remember them. Jedd uses 1Password exclusively now. Michelle uses it for most things, still slowly moving passwords over from the Keychain Access app built into her computer.

Nord VPN Service

We first heard about VPNs as a way to trick websites into thinking that you were still in the United States while traveling. This seemed helpful as often times in other countries, many sites would be in the language of the host country we were visiting.

Additionally, websites that you might often use in the States, like news sites, are actually different when accessed in a different country. 

When we’re working from cafés, airports, or short-term rentals, we use a VPN to add a layer of security on unfamiliar WiFi networks.

It’s especially useful when:

• Logging into client accounts or financial platforms
• Accessing websites that behave differently depending on your location
• Working on shared or public internet connections
• We keep it simple and turn it on anytime we’re not on a trusted private network.

Nord VPN is great value to protect our devices. Don’t forget that this works with phones, tablets, and computers.

If you’re interested in using the same service we use, learn more about Nord VPN here.

Zoom video chat

We occasionally have remote team meetings with clients or colleagues on a project, and of course, we like to check in with family and friends when we’re abroad. For these online calls, we’ve used video chat services like Zoom, FaceTime, Skype, WhatsApp, and Google Hangouts. 

When we have a choice, our preferred video chat is Zoom. It’s proven to be more stable, less likely to drop the entire call if someone’s internet is slow.

We use a free Zoom account which allows for unlimited one-on-one video calls and includes screen sharing, text chat, instant or scheduled meetings, and more.

If you have multiple people join the call (up to 100), the free account is limited to 40 minutes per session. It is actually a nice, natural deadline for group meetings. People can call in to meetings from their phones or use it on a computer.

Everyone can toggle between Speaker View, which features whoever is talking at the time, or Gallery View, which shows everyone at once a la Brady Bunch.

Many of our clients and business friends use the premium version of Zoom. The paid version helps for hosting longer group meetings, or having more administrator controls for something like a webinar. 

Non-Digital Tools

Portable laptop set up — wireless keyboard, mouse, and laptop stand

I’ve written a whole blog post about my portable ergonomic laptop workstation. Although more physical than digital, our laptops and accessories are crucial to our online work. Being lightweight and compact means they’re easy to travel with. 

Read the post for more details, but here’s the quick run down of workspace tools:

– Apple Magic Mouse
– Goldtouch ergonomic, adjustable keyboard
– Nexstand collapsible laptop stand

Save money, work smarter, travel deeper with
our free Resource Guide for Digital Nomads.

Freelance and Remote Working Tools We Use for Clients

The following digital tools we use regularly in our business. They’re not in the “can’t live without” category because their use depends on what type of work we’re doing for a client.

Canva

If you don’t have a high-end photo editing program like PhotoShop, an online photo editor like PicMonkey or Canva can be very handy. They’re much easier to learn and to use than PhotoShop. 

The main things we use it for are adding text to images for social media, combining images into a collage, or quickly touching up photos.

Help Scout customer service email management

Help Scout support software is ideal when a remote team needs to collaborate to answer customer emails. Help Scout operates like a shared email inbox.

In most cases, our clients simply forward all messages going to a particular email address (or two or three addresses) to Helpscout.

From there, the team can assign messages to certain people, write notes to each other (that the customer won’t see), and track the status of each other’s conversations so nothing falls through the cracks.

This has been especially helpful managing customer emails for our event planning teams.

Help Scout can integrate with live chat, phone systems, CRMs, and email marketing tools. It also has a way to host Knowledge Base documents for customers to find FAQ’s.

WordPress, Squarespace, Shopify Website Platforms

We have built and maintained websites for ourselves and our clients. WordPress is the most common (and slightly more complex) because it’s so versatile.

The options to add different functionality on WordPress are endless. There is a learning curve but what’s needed for simple sites can be learned by the average person.

Squarespace is easier to use and easier to look nice from the get-go.

It also builds in web hosting, which makes things simpler but more expensive. When clients want to be able to easily make updates to their own site, and they don’t need anything fancy beyond displaying information and images, we often recommend Squarespace.

Finally, one of our clients uses Shopify as their website platform. Shopify is for online stores, businesses that are selling products or service packages right on their website.

It can integrate with WordPress or Squarespace, but Shopify also has its own simple pages and posts. There’s less functionality and control over the look of Shopify pages, but they can work for simple uses. 

Like this post? Save it for later or share with friends!