Creating Location-Independent Income Sources

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A few weeks ago I wrote a post outlining 7 Steps to a Life of Travel. It’s my attempt to break down a complex process into manageable chunks—but there’s no question that there are actually a lot of challenges lurking within each of those seven steps! I’ll be writing a more in-depth post for each step. Here’s Step 1: Make a Money Plan.

Step 1 is arguably the most difficult for many people. It’s hard to write about, too! To put this post together, I’ve been thinking back on my own experiences. I have been lucky so far in my own quest for location-independent income. I saved enough money to travel for nine-plus months without needing any additional source of income. Then, when my savings were running low, I was able to transition to working online as an editor, using skills and contacts I already had.

That work still serves me well, but for a number of reasons it’s time to revisit my own money plan. First, I want to have some sources of income that will pay me even when I’m not actually at my desk editing, which means creating some products I can sell online (or ramping up my income through affiliate commissions). Second, one of the main priorities for the next year is to help Roberto transition to a location-independent source of income as well.

So here’s more information about what’s worked for me (or not) thus far, and considerations that anyone (including me and Roberto!) should keep in mind during the process of creating location-independent income sources. Continue reading

What Moves You?

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This is a sneak peek of some copy I’m working on for the relaunch of my editing business. I’d love to hear what you think!

The buzz these days is all about gathering our tribe—our raving fans who will follow us, love us, and want to support everything we do. Sounds great, right? So how do we do it?

By finding what moves us, what pushes us to want to do great things. By being ourselves—our unique and interesting and fun yet professional and responsible selves. For each of us our tribe will gather, made up of people who are moved by what moves us (or who are simply drawn to the fact that something moves us!).

We’re trained to think we need to follow a certain model or fit a traditional mold in order to get a job, to get hired, to make money, to be successful.

We focus so much on trying to fit others’ expectations that we hide our true colors, the ideas and tattoos and dreams that make us stand out (and we really DO want to stand out!).

We fail to recognize that it’s exactly those unique things that make us who we are. They’re what make people like us, want to connect with us, and, yes, want to work with us. It’s so much easier to be yourself—your whole self—rather than compartmentalizing your personality into “work,” “play,” “family,” etc.

Showing up to everything you do as your whole self makes your work, your life, and every day completely authentic, completely in line with what’s important to you. As a result, your best work, using your best talents, will flow naturally.

Don’t be embarrassed. Don’t be ashamed or think you need to hide away some part of yourself. It might be the one missing ingredient that makes people understand you, appreciate you, and want to join your tribe—and that’s what we all want, isn’t it? An incredible group of people who get it? Who like us for who we are?

So, what moves you? Who are you? Figure out how to share all of yourself with the world, and go for it. Those that matter will love you for it.

What moves me? Having the freedom to create the life I want. It’s actually taken me a long time to fully embrace it, but the truth is that the word nomad is essential to my core values, my lifestyle, and my world view. What moves you may be different, but perhaps the philosophy behind it, the dedication to being your true self and living your best life (and creating your best work), is the same.

Interview with James of Nomadic Notes

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Each person’s unique vision of Nomadtopia is a reminder that there is no one way to create the travel-centric life you want, no right or wrong approach. Many people just like you—or in even more complicated circumstances—have made it happen, or are working to get there. Hearing others’ stories keeps us all inspired, and reminds us to dream big!

James Clark at the Taj MahalJames Clark is a working nomad from Melbourne, Australia, who is currently on the road full time. James blogs about his travels at Nomadic Notes.

How would you describe your current lifestyle (Nomadtopia, if you will)?
I have no fixed address in my homeland of Australia and I run my business online, so I’m currently a full-time nomad. I have been working for myself since 2003, but since 2010 I no longer have a full-time residence. I plan to continue for as long as I can—I don’t feel ready to rent a place full time again.

What was the first inspiration/motivation that led to your current lifestyle? How long did it take you to get from “here’s a crazy idea” to making it happen? Was there a particular moment when you realized you could make your idea/dream a reality?
My travel/work life as it is today began when I was living in London on a working holiday visa in 1999. While I was there I discovered that I loved travel and all things internet related. I decided that I wanted a job that would blend these two passions together, so I ended up doing a web-design course and started making travel websites. Continue reading

This Week in Nomadtopia

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This is the last This Week in Nomadtopia update-style post that will appear on the blog. If you want to hear all the latest about my life as a nomad, and be kept in the loop on many of the tips, tricks, and resources I find, sign up here to receive my free biweekly(ish) newsletter, Notes from Nomadtopia.

Here in Nomadtopia, I’ve been hard at work (or hardly working? depends on the day). I’m going to be relaunching my editing business, with some new offers and a spiffy new website (I’ll let you know when it’s live!).

In case you missed it, the other day I posted a list of 7 Steps to a Life of Travel. In the coming weeks I’ll be doing a longer post on each step, so stay tuned for those tips and resources on how to put all the pieces together to create your ideal travel-centric life.

As usual, I’ve been encountering lots of interesting resources and information recently. My new favorite thing is Boomerang, a plugin that works within Gmail. You can set it up to send a message back to your inbox if the person doesn’t respond (so you can follow up), or to send messages later. This is a great feature for someone like me who sometimes works crazy hours or is in different time zones than friends, family, and clients—this way I can compose messages when it’s convenient for me, but schedule them to be sent at a time that’s more convenient to the recipient (or that doesn’t reveal that I’m responding to work email at midnight—ahem, not that I ever do that!).

Besides Boomerang-ing lots of emails, I’m researching laptop computers and other things I need to buy while I’m back in the States (electronics are very expensive in Argentina!). Things have certainly changed since I bought my first laptop almost six years ago, and I’m really excited about having a faster computer with ~six times more space on the hard drive! I’ve been pretty lucky with my trusty Toshiba Satellite, and since the new computer will accompany me through many more adventures, I’m looking for the best balance between weight, size, durability, performance, and price. Any tips are more than welcome!

There are certainly other technological concerns for road warriers as well, including data backups and security. Here are two interesting resources that I’m planning to try out: Prey, an open-source project that allows you to track your laptop’s location and disable certain features if it’s stolen—cool! The other is Crash Plan, which looks like an affordable solution for unlimited cloud storage and backup. I love Dropbox and Sugar Sync, but this looks like a better choice if you have a lot of data you need to back up. If anyone has experience with either of these, I’d love to hear more.

What’s new in your Nomadtopia this week? And remember, future updates will only be going out to those on my mailing list. Sign up here so you don’t miss anything!

7 Steps to a Life of Travel

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Making PlansAre you eager to create a lifestyle that allows you the freedom to travel where and when you want? It’s a scenario that many dream of—and that is becoming a reality for more people all the time, it seems.

I’ve been thinking back over the steps that led me to the life I have today, and I thought I’d break it down to (hopefully!) show you that the lifestyle you want is within reach.

I’ve tried to keep the list simple, but I’ll be the first to acknowledge that although creating a life of travel is totally doable, it’s not always a walk in the park. Many of these things need to happen simultaneously, and each individual step has its own challenges. Some steps might take a lot longer than you’d like (believe me, I’ve been there).

My goal here is to provide a brief overview—and to have you correct me if I’ve forgotten anything! I’ll be going into more detail on each step in future posts.

1. Make a money plan: Save money and/or develop a solid plan for how you will make money while on the road. Continue reading

Nomadtopia’s Top 3 Travel Resources

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It’s official: I just booked my trip to the U.S.! I’ll be there for two months, and Roberto will be joining me for two weeks in the middle. There’s no doubt this is one of my favorite perks of being location independent: I can be flexible in planning my trip around other people’s schedules, so I’ll get a good amount of time to visit with my family, attend a couple important events, and take care of some business as well.

There are a million travel-booking websites and related resources out there, but these days I tend to gravitate toward a few sites in particular. For checking itineraries and airfares, I LOVE Kayak. It searches across all the major airlines and booking sites like Orbitz (which used to be my go-to site), and the prices shown include all taxes and fees (very useful for comparing prices on international flights that have higher taxes).

You can limit your search by all kinds of really specific criteria (how long a layover is, what time flights land or take off, how many stops are OK, and on and on). Once you choose an itinerary, it sends you to buy the ticket on the site where that fare is available. Another site I’ve had good luck with is Airline Consolidator (I bought my first ticket to Argentina from them), but their deals are a little hit or miss.

Before I decide what itinerary to book, I also check how many miles I have in my different frequent flyer accounts to see where it might make more sense to top up (or if it would make sense to book the ticket with miles). I signed up for Award Wallet a few months ago; it’s really handy for keeping all my frequent flyer and travel rewards account info in one place. I’m certainly no expert on travel hacking (earning and using miles to their best advantage), but because of my international travel I’ve been racking up some decent balances over time.

To my knowledge, the best source of tips and information on travel hacking is, logically, the Travel Hacking Cartel. Since I signed up earlier this year, I’ve earned more than 50,000 miles, without flying—pretty sweet. The cartel also taught me how to decide when to use miles and when to pay for a ticket—and how to get the kinds of upgrades and awesome deals that true travel hackers pull off on a regular basis.

Now that I have my itinerary booked, I’ll be busy making plans and figuring out what I have to buy and do while I’m there—there’s always such a long list!

What are your favorite travel resources?

This Week in Nomadtopia

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Happy Friday! This week has been focused on FOOD. After an amazing chili cook-off last weekend, I went back to the detox I had kind of started last week. I’m now following a program I purchased from Lisa at Whole Health Designs, and it’s been going really well. Doing a specific detox brings up another issue of eating healthy on the road/abroad, since there are a lot of places where specific supplements and foods that are recommended aren’t available. The upside, which the comments from last week’s post alluded to, is that it’s encouraged me to try my hand at making different things—this week I made almond milk, and am planning to try rice milk this weekend. It’s actually super easy, and probably better for you than the store-bought stuff anyway!

My birthday’s on Sunday, and as I thought about how I wanted to celebrate, I was kind of bummed that I’d started this detox right beforehand! I even thought of taking 24 hours off and then picking it up again, but that just seems silly. And I realized that this detox—the gift of health—is really the best treat I can give myself, way more valuable and long-lasting than other things I had in mind, like wine, empanadas, and ice cream! There will be other times for that. :)

I’m starting to look at plane tickets for what’s shaping up to be a pretty epic trip to the U.S. in late summer/early fall. I’ll keep you posted on my plans!

I’m writing this post in a program I just downloaded called OmmWriter. I found out about it from the awesome Danielle LaPorte, and it is so cool. It creates a relaxing, distraction-free space for writing that really calmed me down in the middle of a hectic day. For me in particular it’s a nice change of pace from Word, where I spend so much of my time editing.

Speaking of editing, the last thing I wanted to mention is an exciting plan I just came up with to offer my editing services to more people. During July, for the first time ever, I’ve set aside five time slots to offer short, focused editing sessions to help you improve your writing, get feedback, finalize your text before publication—whatever you need help with right now. If this sounds like something that would be helpful to you, email me at amy [at] nomadeditorial [dot] com and I’ll send you all the details.

P.S. Did you see my interview with Theodora the other day? If you dream of a travel-centric life with kids, you’ve gotta check it out. She is so inspiring!

Interview with Theodora of Travels with a Nine Year Old

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Each person’s unique vision of Nomadtopia is a reminder that there is no one way to create the travel-centric life you want, no right or wrong approach. Many people just like you—or in even more complicated circumstances—have made it happen, or are working to get there. Hearing others’ stories keeps us all inspired, and reminds us to dream big!

Theodora Sutcliffe left London in January 2010 for what was supposed to be a one-year trip with her 9-year-old son, Z. They liked it so much they’ve taken up a nomadic lifestye. Her blog, Travels with a Nine Year Old, tells the story of their journey, along with some travel resources and learning resources for families who want to travel long-term. Z started writing about their adventures on his own blog, The 9-Year-Old Strikes Back, and now blogs at A Ten Year Old’s Travels.

How would you describe your current lifestyle (Nomadtopia, if you will)?
I’m travelling long-term with my son. We’re slowly exploring Australasia, at the moment, doing adventurous things like diving undersea volcanoes, meeting nomadic hunter-gatherers and visiting headhunter villages, along with seeing some of the wonders of the world, such as Angkor Wat and Uluru.

We’re currently motorbiking around Indonesia. I earn my living by a mixture of journalism, copywriting and blogging, which means I can work from anywhere with an internet connection, and my son learns by a mixture of unschooling and local schools.

Our plan for next year is to get a base in Spain from which to explore Europe and North Africa. Z will be in a local school for parts of the year, but we’ll continue to travel longterm. He likes the notion of a semi-permanent base which is closer to friends and family, and he also wants to discover more of Europe, which is where we’re from. I see us doing a lot of overland travel within Europe and North Africa. So we’re moving from fully nomadic to semi-nomadic. Continue reading

What Foods Do You Miss While You’re on the Road?

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This isn’t a formal FAQ this time, just me talking—I’d love to hear your thoughts below!

One of the hardest things about traveling or living abroad can be finding familiar foods that you enjoy, crave, or miss. I’ve had random cravings for all kinds of things on the road, and have found myself paying an arm and a leg for things I rarely eat at home because I’m craving a familiar flavor (I’ve bought Snickers bars in SE Asia and Doritos in Argentina).

I LOVE the flavors of Mexico and the Southwestern U.S.—chili powder, cumin, green chiles, chipotles… I often cooked with those ingredients in the States, and it’s often difficult to find that kind of food in other parts of the world. When I was traveling around the world, I found that places that did serve Mexican or Tex-Mex were geared toward foreigners and usually MUCH more expensive than the local food.

Not to mention that it can be risky business trying Western food in a place where the cuisine is very different. Continue reading

This Week in Nomadtopia

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Hello, everyone! So much has been going on lately, I hardly know where to begin!

First, I’m psyched to announce that my post earlier this week led to Nomadtopia’s biggest traffic day ever! It was my first FAQ post, in which I interviewed like-minded folks (nomads, travelers, and expats) about what they do for health insurance. I love the variety of perspectives represented—let me know what you think! I’d also love to hear your ideas for future FAQs you’d like to see answered.

In other news, I just published a free report for my editing business titled “10 Essential Questions to Ask Before Hiring an Editor.” If you’re producing information products and thinking about enlisting the help of a professional editor, this is a must read! Click here to sign up to receive your free copy.

I also just received word that I won a free ticket to Marie Forleo‘s Rich, Happy & Hot Live event in New York in October, and I am really, really excited. Marie is one of the incredible women behind the online business course I’m taking right now, so I know it’s going to be fabulous. And I’ve missed out on a ton of awesome events recently, especially Chris Guillebeau’s World Domination Summit, so I am thrilled to have this opportunity to finally meet in person some of the amazing people I’ve been connecting with online.

What’s new in your world?