One of my primary concerns when I began to form the idea of a lifestyle on the road was money.
“How can I earn money while still traveling around the world?” It’s one of the most commonly asked questions in regard to building a lifestyle like this one. There is even an entire subset of people called digital nomads who live from their laptops; as long as they have internet, they can get their work done.
I never thought I’d one day count myself among their ranks.
Rather than spending every day like it’s a vacation and going wild (although I do that more often than I should, admittedly), I often spend much of my day inside, sitting at a desk.
Most days, I rise early. I make a cup of coffee, stretch a bit, and sit down in front of my laptop. I check my email for anything urgent, take a few minutes to enjoy my coffee and skim a few business or travel articles, and then I take a shower.
After the shower, I sit back down and begin writing. Since the majority of my income is generated from the books and articles I’ve written, I devote the majority of my time to that type of work. I’ll usually work until around noon, when I take a break and go out.
I’ll try some of the local food, wander around some side streets, and generally find something entertaining to do before returning back to the apartment/hotel/homestay I’m in. These days, I tend to use AirBNB or a similar service to find somewhere to stay. It’s often the same price as, or even cheaper than, most hotels, and much more comfortable — and it gives me the opportunity to nearly burn down the apartment when I try cooking!
I kid, I kid. Mostly. (Seriously, my culinary skills leave a lot to be desired.)
In some ways, it’s difficult to run a business like this. I’ve got a bit of an old-school approach to work, in that I do much of it on pen and paper before ever putting fingers to keyboard. I carry several notebooks with me, including a Moleskin that I have at most all times.
If I need to take notes on something and I don’t have a notebook with me, I use the Notes app on my iPhone. Between my Macbook Pro and my iPhone, I have everything I need to ensure work continues to flow smoothly.
You may think it’s kind of boring to travel this way, but I disagree. I find that spending all of my time out on the streets, bouncing from attraction to attraction, tends to result in burnout. Instead, spending a bit of each day working on the projects I care about keeps me grounded.
Rather than falling out of ‘work mode,’ I strike a balance between work and play. And it helps that I absolutely love what I do; in fact, much of the time it doesn’t feel like work at all.
In the evenings, I tend to take one of two approaches: go out and have fun, or sit alone in my room and work. Just today, my AirBNB host stopped by to inspect the faulty router. She commented that it didn’t look like I’d gone out at all. When I said no, she sighed and said, “My brother’s a writer. He never goes out, either. He’s always working.”
I just laughed. When you have entire worlds at your fingertips to play in, it doesn’t feel like work at all.
However, writing is not the only endeavor I have lined up. There are several other opportunities I’m pursuing, and some are more difficult than others to operate remotely. The one requisite they all have is that I must be able to work abroad; the entire point of this was to become location independent.
Five years ago, that was a pipe dream. It didn’t seem possible.
Now?
I’m writing this blog post from Manila, Philippines. And the best part is that this lifestyle is open to absolutely anyone willing to put in the effort to achieve it.
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