INTJs would probably appreciate the remote work part of digital nomad life – if given the option, six in ten would work fully remotely, but only 8% say they would want to live on the road.
What’s Coming Up
- Key Takeaways
- What the Digital Nomad Life Asks For
- INTJs Will Change Jobs before They Change Addresses
- What Counts as Traveling for an INTJ
- Given a Blank Check, Most INTJs Still Book Round Trips
- Where the Nomad Pitch Loses INTJs
- The Trade INTJs Won’t Make
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Further Reading
Key Takeaways
- An INTJ probably prefers to change employers sooner than they’ll change cities. They are often more attached to the place they live than their employer.
- INTJs still like to travel, often to places far from home. What they want from a trip is a good reason for going and what they need is a home to come back to.
- Given no limits on time, money, or responsibilities, most INTJs pictured a set number of trips rather than a permanent life on the move. A notable minority would keep going, though the most common preference is to fly with a round-trip ticket.
- Compared with other personality types, INTJs are more likely to blame their commitments for not traveling more and less likely to blame money. Their primary obstacle tends to be the life they’ve already built.
What the Digital Nomad Life Asks For
Digital nomadism requires a key sacrifice – you have to give up the fixed address. Yes, you maintain a space to return to between travels or a mailing address for legal reasons, but most people who adopt the lifestyle give up a permanent home base.
Our “Work, Travel, and Nomadic Tendencies” survey asked people of all personality types about their feelings around travel, work, and moving. The data from this survey shows that people with the INTJ personality type (Architects) – who are Introverted, Intuitive, Thinking, and Judging personalities – are often unwilling to make that sacrifice, despite their love of travel.
INTJs Will Change Jobs before They Change Addresses
INTJs tend to take a lot of convincing to move. We asked how beneficial an opportunity would have to be to move across the country, and nearly half of INTJs (49%) said it would take a major benefit. For a move to another country, even more INTJs – 59% – wanted a major benefit before packing.
How beneficial of an opportunity would it take to get you to move to another country?
Source: Work, Travel, and Nomadic Tendencies
A job may be easier for people with this personality type to give up than their home. 69% of INTJs say that they tend to stick with one job for a long time. But the 31% of INTJs that say they tend to frequently switch employers is not insignificant.
If the benefits are not impressive enough to make a big move, INTJs might just prefer to stay put. And if it’s their job asking them to go overseas, some of them just might rather switch jobs.
What Counts as Traveling for an INTJ
INTJs are more likely to stay rooted, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t like to get away. Relatively few INTJs (39%) say that ‘traveling’ and ‘vacationing’ are the same thing. This hints at a preference for travel that implies more than a simple desire to relax on a beach or enjoy a pretty view from the comfort of a luxury bed and breakfast.
Like most things that INTJs do, travel is more worthwhile for them if it has a point to it. For an INTJ, a lot of value can be found in going somewhere far from home, where they can investigate other cultures, practice other languages, and study subjects connected to the place they’re visiting.
In the survey, we asked whether people prefer trips far from home or closer to it, and 81% of INTJs chose ‘far,’ a strong majority.
Which do you enjoy more: trips that take you far from home or trips that stay closer to home?
Source: Work, Travel, and Nomadic Tendencies
We also asked about a preference for domestic or international destinations. More than any other Introverted personality type, 70% of INTJs picked international destinations.
Do you prefer domestic or international destinations?
Source: Work, Travel, and Nomadic Tendencies
What this tells us is that a long trip to a familiar kind of place probably does little for the majority of INTJs. What is more likely to get them excited is a border crossing to a new place that allows them to better understand the world.
Given a Blank Check, Most INTJs Still Book Round Trips
The fact that INTJs appreciate travel can also be seen in how often they want to travel, not just how often they do. If they had no limits on time, money, or life responsibilities, about half of INTJs said they’d take four to seven trips a year. The other half split evenly: a quarter (24%) would keep it under three trips, and a quarter (24%) would never come home.
If time, money, or life responsibilities were not an issue, how often would you travel?
Source: Work, Travel, and Nomadic Tendencies
Compare that to people with the ENTP personality type (Debaters) – who are Extraverted, Intuitive, Thinking, and Prospecting personalities – 41% chose to never come home, more than any other personality type.
If time, money, or life responsibilities were not an issue, how often would you travel?
ENTP Personalities
Source: Work, Travel, and Nomadic Tendencies
Where the Nomad Pitch Loses INTJs
It’s easy to lose the INTJs in that comparison. A full quarter of them, 24%, also said they’d never come home, which puts a definite minority of them squarely in digital nomad territory. For that group, the lifestyle fits. Most INTJs, though, likely want a return ticket in hand before they go anywhere.
So where does the pull of nomad life fade for the majority of people with this personality type?
Many INTJs do want the working half of the arrangement. Some 60% said they’d choose to work 100% remotely if given the option. A quiet, self-directed workday with no commute is an easy yes for most of them.
It’s the part about giving up their stability and carefully planned lives that turns most INTJs off from the digital nomad lifestyle. Half of INTJs (50%) named money as the biggest thing keeping them from traveling more. That’s no surprise – it’s the number one limitation that most people of all personality types listed. What is surprising is that they are one of the personality types least likely to claim this excuse.
For this question, it’s worth looking at the next most popular answer – a full 37% of INTJs pointed to time and life commitments.
If you’d like to travel for pleasure more than you currently do, what is the biggest thing that is preventing you from doing so?
Source: Work, Travel, and Nomadic Tendencies
INTJs are among the personality types most likely to say the biggest thing holding them back from traveling as much as they want to is the shape of their day-to-day life, such as the work they’ve taken on, the people counting on them, and all the things already scheduled on the calendar.
The Trade INTJs Won’t Make
Digital nomadism asks people to give up the structure that holds together the settled life that INTJs naturally gravitate to. It trades a settled base for constant movement, and it makes travel the default state of life rather than a periodic and intentional adventure. So while an INTJ can work from a rented apartment in another country and enjoy every moment of it, once the booking is up, they likely want a home – and life – worth coming back to.
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