Elle Ota: The Modern Athena
Guest: Elle Ota
Career: Program Officer, Human Rights Foundation
Based: Nomadic
Episode Description
Elle Ota spent her summers underwater, diving to fourth-to-sixth-century Roman shipwrecks off the coast of Sicily. She studied classics and ancient Greek, worked as an underwater archaeologist, and seemed destined for a PhD analysing ceramics under microscopes. Her professors pushed her toward academia. The track was clear. But Elle had a problem: she has an enormous social battery, and a career staring at pottery shards in labs felt fundamentally lonely. So she made a choice, she picked living people over thousand-year-old ones.
Today she works remotely for the Human Rights Foundation whilst running the U.S. fundraising arm for a Ukrainian aid organisation. October 2022 changed everything, she moved to Europe the same month she first volunteered in Ukraine. The parallel timeline revealed something crucial: remote work didn't just enable travel, it enabled impact. She could hold down her 9-to-5 promoting democracy and human rights whilst balancing weeks in conflict zones managing aid operations. Without location independence, none of it would be possible.
She's lived completely out of a suitcase for two years, gaining perspective from Europeans and South Americans in co-livings across the continent. Not surface-level tourist perspective, the depth that comes from living with people, hearing their stories day after day, understanding how they think. She surfs, climbs mountains, learns to scuba dive despite childhood fear of water, and has built a life that lets her chase both adventure and meaningful work. When you ask if she's brave, she gets uncomfortable and she knows activists who've been tortured, soldiers in trenches defending their country. Her work feels comparatively small. But that's exactly the point: she's found a way to contribute whilst feeding her enormous energy to try everything.
Timestamps
00:00-00:37 Introduction
00:37-01:56 Guest introduction
01:56-02:44 Moving to Europe October 2022, transitional period
02:44-03:27 Part-time to full-time nomad journey
03:27-04:40 Value of having a base to return to
04:40-05:02 Returning to same places for familiarity
05:02-07:18 Living completely out of suitcase, 23kg limit
07:18-08:29 Kiev as difficult home base, travel logistics
08:29-09:19 Human Rights Foundation 9-to-5 work
09:19-10:31 Ukraine volunteering origin, October 2022 parallel timeline
10:31-12:08 Remote work enabling Ukraine volunteering flexibility
12:08-14:09 Nomadism enables building best version of life
14:09-15:11 Ibi's background and motivations
15:11-16:58 Maslow's hierarchy and trying different things
16:58-19:24 Gaining depth of perspective from living with Europeans
19:24-21:13 Nuance of understanding European countries beyond surface level
21:13-23:53 First-hand vs second-hand perspective, both valuable
23:53-25:40 Sicily discussion and tourism perspective
25:40-27:18 Underwater archaeology background, Roman shipwreck
27:18-28:52 Academia career path consideration
28:52-30:52 High social battery, choosing people-focused work over ceramics
30:52-31:12 Ghosts and archeology spirits discussion
31:12-32:17 Fearlessness observation from third-party perspective
32:17-33:57 What courage looks like, relative to activists and soldiers
33:57-35:20 Ukraine work feels comparatively small, adventure and adrenaline
35:20-36:16 Closing, Sicily reunion plans
About This Podcast
Real conversations with successful digital nomads who've built sustainable location-independent income. Strategic insights on how they transitioned, what income streams they built, and what they wish they'd known earlier. No travel tips or lifestyle fluff.
Host
Ibi Malik helps ambitious professionals transition to nomadic careers without income sacrifice.
To watch the video follow this link: https://youtu.be/hxsuI1ZNMI8
Follow for weekly episodes featuring professionals who've successfully built nomadic income streams.
Episode length: ~36 minutes
Published: 1st May 2026
Episode #12
The Underwater Archaeologist Who Left the Past for the Present
I'm sitting in a French castle talking to someone who used to spend her days underwater examining Roman shipwrecks. Elle Ota studied classics and ancient Greek at university, worked as an underwater archaeologist diving to a fourth-to-sixth-century wreck off the coast of Sicily, and seemed destined for a PhD and a quiet life analysing ceramics under microscopes.
Then she made a choice that changed everything: she picked living people over thousand-year-old ones.
Today, Elle works remotely for the Human Rights Foundation whilst running a U.S. fundraising arm for a Ukrainian aid organization. She's lived completely out of a suitcase for two years, gaining perspective from Europeans and South Americans in co-livings across the continent. She surfs, climbs mountains, travels to conflict zones, and has built a life that lets her chase both adventure and impact.
The story of how an underwater archaeologist (yes, quite literally an archaeologist who works underwater, who knew!) became a nomadic human rights worker isn't about abandoning one passion for another. It's about recognising what fuels you and building the flexibility to act on it.
The Social Battery That Ended Academia
Elle's path to archaeology made perfect sense after her studies in classics and ancient Greek. Every day: scuba equipment, diving down to a Roman shipwreck, underwater excavation, bringing pieces to the surface, afternoons analysing them in labs.
"I actually think it was the best job ever," she tells me.
So why isn't she still doing it?
Her professors pushed her toward a PhD, toward teaching and research. The academic track. And she loved the work itself, the puzzle-solving, the nerdiness of it all. But a career in academia comes with realities: intense competition for vanishing positions, work that "can be very solitary", years looking at pottery shards under microscopes.
"I have such a high social battery that it's quite easy for me to be in co-livings all the time, and that is pretty counterintuitive to a career looking at ceramics under a microscope."
She wanted work focused on people. On communities. On applying what she learned rather than just researching it. The underwater work was brilliant, but fundamentally lonely. Elle needed something that fed her energy rather than drained it.
So she pivoted. She chose human rights work, nonprofit management, roles that put her directly with people trying to change things. And crucially, she chose remote work.
When Two Timelines Converge
There's something about parallel timelines that reveals how much of life is shaped by being in the right place at the right moment.
In October 2022, Elle moved to Europe. The same month, she went to Ukraine for the first time on a volunteer mission.
She'd been watching the full-scale invasion unfold since February. Working her regular job at the Human Rights Foundation (40 hours a week, 9-to-5, promoting democracy and human rights in countries under authoritarian regimes). But Ukraine pulled at her. She wanted to help, though she knew you can't just thrust yourself into a crisis and expect to be useful.
The opportunity came through Polish connections. She went on that first trip, offered her nonprofit background: fundraising, social media, grant writing, website management. Started volunteering with an organization on the ground. Over three years, those roles expanded. Now she helps run the U.S. fundraising arm, manages teams, considers them family.
And here's what makes it possible: remote work.
"I think having the flexibility of remote work was pretty key to me being able to do Ukraine work, because I can travel there, I can balance the two. I can work my normal 9-to-5 and also be volunteering for Ukraine."
Without location independence, none of this happens. She can't be in Kiev for weeks managing aid operations whilst holding down her Human Rights Foundation role. She can't balance meaningful work with meaningful impact. The nomadic structure doesn't just enable adventure. It enables action.
Hunting Perspective
Elle describes herself as an American who's benefited enormously from living with Europeans and South Americans. Not just visiting their countries, but actually living with them in co-livings, hearing their perspectives day after day, gaining depth that surface-level travel never provides.
We talked about the difference between first-hand and second-hand perspective. First-hand is what you experience yourself. Second-hand comes from talking to people, hearing their stories, living alongside them. Both matter. Both add layers.
"You get to hear different perspectives too, and be very much surrounded by those, not just have one conversation with somebody, but when you're living with them in the context, you really start to gain a real depth of perspective."
She's not just collecting passport stamps. She's collecting understanding. The nuance of what it's actually like to live somewhere, not as a tourist passing through but as someone embedded enough to see how people think, what they value, why they make the choices they make.
This is what nomadism offers beyond the Instagram version: sustained exposure to different ways of being. Not a week in Barcelona, but months living with people from ten different countries, hearing how they approach work, relationships, risk, meaning.
For Elle, this depth of perspective has fundamentally shaped what works best for her own life. She's not just trying things herself. She's learning from watching others try them too.
Two Years Out of a Suitcase
Elle's been living completely out of her suitcase for two years. No storage unit in Europe. No home base besides the one in California that requires 24 hours of flight time to reach.
She watches with some envy as friends with European families can leave suitcases with them, return to bedrooms in friends' flats, maintain some anchor of normalcy. For her, going back to California is a one-month commitment minimum. The flight alone makes it impossible to pop home for a weekend.
"I do think that there is a lot of value in having someplace to return back to. And actually now at this point, having done this for two years, this is something I'm looking for again."
The freedom is real. She can pop from place to place, choose her locations, build the life she wants. But two years in, she's also feeling the trade-off. The lack of somewhere to leave things. The constant weight of everything you own on your back.
She's adapted by returning to the same places repeatedly. Building familiarity. Creating informal homes in cities she knows, cafes where staff recognise her, co-livings she cycles back to. It's not the same as having a base, but it's better than starting from scratch every month.
This feels honest. Not the polished "location independence solves everything" narrative, but the reality: two years of complete freedom has her now seeking some form of rootedness again. Not because the experiment failed, but because she's learned what she actually needs.
What Courage Looks Like
When I observe that Elle seems fearless (underwater archaeology, moving to Poland from California, volunteering in Ukraine), she pauses to reframe it.
"I think courage can look very different for different people. And so I know how that feels in my own heart. But going to Ukraine and doing all these things sort of look externally courageous and maybe they feel different on the inside."
Here's her perspective: she works with human rights activists who've led protests against dictators, who've been imprisoned, tortured, whose families have been kidnaped for their work. She knows soldiers fighting in Ukrainian trenches, on ships, defending their country daily.
Compared to them, her work feels small. Aid runs, fundraising, occasional trips to conflict zones (important, yes, but part of a larger tapestry). Not the front line itself.
"Me going occasionally to Ukraine doing aid runs, fundraising, it's important and it's part of that tapestry of what we can accomplish together. But it feels comparatively very small."
She's not diminishing what she does. She's contextualising it. When you're surrounded by people risking everything, your own contributions feel different than how outsiders perceive them.
But then there's this: "I do like adventure. I like adrenaline, I like going into the mountains and surfing big waves and climbing and stuff, and I just want to try everything."
That's the core of it. Elle has enormous energy, wants to be active, wants to experience as much as possible. The nomadic life isn't just about impact or perspective. It's about feeding that fundamental drive to try things, to push into new experiences, to live fully.
The Intersection
What makes Elle's story compelling isn't that she chose one thing over another. It's that she's found a way to honour multiple drives simultaneously.
The archaeologist's curiosity, but applied to living cultures instead of dead ones. The desire for adventure, channeled into both mountain climbing and meaningful work. The social battery that rejected solitary research, now fuelled by co-living communities across Europe. The flexibility of remote work, enabling her to volunteer in conflict zones whilst maintaining stable employment.
She's not pretending it's perfect. Two years out of a suitcase is teaching her she needs some form of base. The freedom comes with trade-offs. But she's building something intentional: a life structured around trying everything, gaining deep perspective, and using her skills where they matter.
From underwater wrecks to Ukrainian aid operations. From California to wherever the next co-living calls. From thousand-year-old Romans to living, breathing communities who need help now.
That's the pivot that mattered.
Digital nomads and location-independent professionals featured on Ibi's Digital Nomad Stories podcast share insights into building sustainable remote careers. Listen to all episodes: www.ibimalik.com/podcasts/ibis-digital-nomad-stories
