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As its title suggests, Nomadland highlights a wide variety of locales as Fern roams the open road by van, but the story is grounded more broadly in the American West sometime around the year 2011. The opening text of the film clearly acknowledges the time period which is significant because it positions the story on the backdrop of the Great Recession. There are references to tough economic times throughout, and we see Fern struggling to find work. The recession compounds the struggle Fern and many of the aging characters face as they hit retirement age but are unable to retire for financial reasons. This makes the nomadic life all the more appealing and provides a possible explanation for Fern’s decision to live out of her van. 

Though she journeys across multiple states, Fern spends the entire film in the Western part of the U.S. and largely in the desert. The setting draws parallels between Fern’s nomadic life and the pioneers during American westward expansion. In one iconic scene, Fern walks with a lantern in-hand through a van camp on the open plain with the mountains on the horizon in the background. Swap the vans for covered wagons, and the viewer is transported to another time when Americans were settling on new western frontiers. Fern’s sister Dolly even puts words to this parallel as she defends Fern’s nomadic life: “[W]hat the nomads are doing is not that different than what the pioneers did. I think Fern’s part of an American tradition.” Like the pioneers of old, Fern is on her own journey into the unknown to make a new life for herself. Yet for her, it’s also a journey of self-exploration.  

Additionally, the sudden collapse of the mining industry in Empire brings to mind the boom and bust of mine towns across the American West during the 19th and 20th centuries. What was once a community built around the gypsum mining industry quickly devolves into a modern-day ghost town reminiscent of Western lore. But it’s in this ghost town where Fern starts and ends her journey in Nomadland as she lays to rest of the ghosts of her past with a new sense of closure.  

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