12 Essential Services for the Digital Nomad

For the digital nomad, offices are dead. No more set schedules, cubicles, and lame water-cooler talk. Nope, you’re living the exhilarating lifestyle of hip caf√©s, bustling airports, and scenic park benches. Okay, maybe it’s not so exciting—you’ll still have to get work to do. This means you’ll need a helpful set of services to keep you sane and working productively.

Here are a dozen services no digital nomad can live without:

1. Gmail Webmail doesn’t get any better than Gmail. It’s free and includes mobile access, POP/IMAP functionality, junk mail filtering, and oodles of space. It’ll even work with your own domain name. Each account also gets you access to Google Docs, a Web-based suite of word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation applications.
2. Earth Class Mail But what about your snail mail? If you’re never home, Earth Class Mail can scan your postal mail so you can view them online anywhere. Addresses are available in 20 cities including New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle.
3. A Mailbox from The UPS Store If missing package deliveries is the problem, then you can get a real street address from The UPS store. Unlike a PO Box, they’ll accept packages as well as snail mail. The UPS Store won’t scan your mail like Earth Class Mail, but you get a much greater choice of addresses.
4. GrandCentralGrandCentral links all your phone numbers via a free number that forwards to one or all of your other phones. The service also includes visual voice mail and advanced controls for greetings, call-screening, and call-forwarding. It’s currently in beta, so reserve your number now.
5. Box Ever lose vital files because of a hard drive failure? Avoid this fate with Box, an online storage service that enables you to access your documents, photos, and large files remotely. It’s simple, easy-to-use, and secure.
6. Posterous Blogging on-the-go is ridiculously easy with Posterous. Just send an email to Posterous and you’ve got a personal blog in seconds. Posterous even works with existing blogs on Blogger, Wordpress, Typepad, Moveable Type, LiveJournal, tumblr, and Xanga.
7. Kayak Need a cheap flight, hotel, or car rental? Use Kayak to search and compare over 140 sites for the best travel deals. If you’re not in a rush, try Farecast for airfare predictions and recommendations on when to buy.
8. Gasbuddy With fuel prices soaring, you’ll need GasBuddy to hunt for the cheapest gas in town. For more hints on finding cheap gas, check out my previous post: 5 ways to instantly find cheap gas.
9. Zipcar Why pay for gas, when you’ve got Zipcar. The carsharing service enables you to rent a car without the hassle of sleazy agents and expensive rates. Just book your car online and go to a nearby parking lot to pick it up—your membership card magically unlocks the car with just a tap on the windshield. Zipcars are available 24/7 and comes with a free charge card for gas.
10. Yelp Finding a good place to eat when traveling is easy with Yelp. It’s the best place to get real customer reviews for restaurants and other services nationwide. Most active cities include San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Washington, Seattle, Los Angeles, San Jose, Austin, San Diego, Houston, Portland.
11. OpenWiFiSpots Need a free internet connection while on the run? Just visit OpenWiFiSpots and enter an address, city, or zip code to get listings of the nearest free WiFi spots.
12. Craigslist In a new city and need a date for the night? Or maybe just some sold-out concert tickets? Nothing’s faster than Craigslist.