Traveling used to be a lot more dangerous.
While there have always been explorers, wanderers, and people who wanted to see what was over the next hill, this group used to be dominated by single men. After all, the world was dangerous, and travel was very slow and arduous. Your ship could sink, you could be felled by an exotic disease, or you could be fatally attacked by a wild animal at any time. Even if you survived, you would not see your loved ones for many years. Mail service was nonexistent in many locations, so contact was infrequent at best.
Fast forward to today, and technology has made exploring a whole lot easier. Now single women, couples and even families can jump on a plane and go. Tours and guidebooks are readily available to make your trip go smoother, with hotels and restaurants serving all but the most remote locations. Modern medical care can treat you if you are ill, and vaccines can even prevent diseases. Animals are rarely a danger outside rural areas. Contact is cheap and frequent with the internet, and you can post pictures of your travels to Facebook or your blog before you even return home!
A new breed of traveler not only wants to take exotic vacations, but a long term trip. These adventurous types cut their expenses, save money, and may sell many of their possessions. Then they spend months or even years on the road. Greg Davis, whom I interviewed for this blog, is an example of this phenomenon. Rolf Potts, author of Vagabonding, is another. Mark Wiens of Migrationology switches between roaming the world and taking a job in one place for a while.
More and more couples have decided to travel together long-term. Deb and Dave at from The Planet D are happiest when they are on the move. Dina and Ryan of Vagabond Quest have been backpacking for over a year. Nicole and Cameron of Traveling Canucks visited 38 countries in just 12 months.
A new breed of wanderers bring their children on the road. These “cage free” families may travel in a motorhome, camper, truck, bus, or even a boat. They sometimes interrupt their travels for periods of time to stay in a certain location before moving on, like the Soul Travelers. Or they may have a higher purpose, like Kimberly of Canine and Able, who is trying to raise awareness of brain injury while roaming in her RV with her daughter.
While many nomads enjoy the thrill of traveling, others want to settle down for a while. My friend Adrian S. from my “Stranger in His Own Land” series is trying to decide which country would suit him and his family. Camden Luxford now has a business and a relationship in Cusco, Peru.
If you want to try the mobile lifestyle for yourself, it’s possible to work from almost anywhere in the world. Online banking, direct deposit, and bill pay services allow you to manage your finances remotely. VOIP phone services like Vonage permit you to have local numbers in multiple cities regardless of where you are right now. Skype can facilitate free video calls with your employees around the globe.
Certain professions like IT permit you to work remotely, as Donato noted in my “Coming Home” series. Other jobs can still be adapted to the nomad lifestyle if your virtual office acts as an intermediary. You could also develop an online business which can be largely automated like Tim Ferris advocates in his book, The Four Hour Workweek. You can also keep costs down by outsourcing to talented but economical workers using services like oDesk.
Other ideas to make money include an information product, like a language learning podcast or a booklet of travel tips. Wandering Earl has financed much of his 11 years on the road with an “insider’s guide” to cruise ships.
If you are more of a homebody, you could still experience a vicarious traveler’s high by running a hotel or campground that caters to foreign tourists. Or you could start a tourist company that helps visitors connect with “authentic” local experiences in less traveled areas of your nation.
You may also choose to work at your chosen destination instead of remotely. Some ideas include teaching English, working as an entertainer, laboring on an organic farm, or joining the Peace Corps or other NGO. Lower pay in certain countries should be offset by lower expenses.
One obvious source of virtual income is blogging. However, this is a crowded field with few runaway successes. Since this effort may take months or years to pay off, I think it’s smarter to have multiple streams of income. In addition to monetizing a blog through ads or affiliate programs, you could also run a small business, do freelance work online, and have residual income such as from a pension or investment.
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Thanks for the shout out. It is great to see all the people travelling and making it work. I loved how you talked about all the different ways to travel. It’s inspiring.
You’re welcome! You two are inspiring because you show that long term travel as a couple is doable.
Hi Jennifer,
Up until a few years ago, I don’t think the world has accept the mobile lifestyle as widely as when Tim Ferris made the 4 Hour Workweek possible. As life on the move or even traveling seems like that of someone who has a lot of asset to fund or such. However, the nomad movement is very attractive as it’s something that quite a lot of us admire but are stuck in our traditional ways that dropping everything to move around is scary.
I really enjoyed this post and learned a lot more about this lifestyle. As I know that minimalism is something that’s part of it, I have quite a few more years of decluttering before I reach zen.
Thanks for a wonderful read!
Thu
Hi Thu, and welcome to Live Richly! I agree that the mobile lifestyle was seen as very weird until recently. Tim Ferris mentioned that one of the reasons behind writing the book was to show people he wasn’t a bum or a trust fund baby.
I’m glad you liked the post. I don’t think that I could wander around the world with only a backpack, but I could imagine living in a foreign country for a while. I find that decluttering is an ongoing process.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Dave&Deb Travel Duo and Thu Nguyen, Jennifer Barry. Jennifer Barry said: Mobile Lifestyle – Traveling used to be a lot more dangerous. While there have always been explorers, wanderers, and… http://ow.ly/18QfWA [...]
Great post. The wandering lifestyle is great! Waking up every morning with experiences that you can guarantee will be fresh, new and exciting.
I am currently homeless. That is I packed my stuff into storage, sold my car and decided to travel like Caine from Kung Fu. So far it has been a great experience and I will expect it will continue to be unless I end up in an Eastern European Hostel run by serial killers.
Not everyone is able to travel due to financial and familial obligations, but everyone should at least have a long travel somewhere as a goal for their “bucket list”
If it is done with tips from things like Potts book it is not as expensive as many might think.
I’m glad you liked it Steve! I can tell you are having a great time on your travels. Are you still in Switzerland?
LOL on the Kung Fu reference, I hope you get in a lot less trouble that that!
I agree that everyone should attempt longer term travel. I wanted to highlight some examples in this post of people who have done it at different ages, even with kids in tow, and without a huge amount of cash.
Travel would be amazing! My friend and I have been discussing going to Europe starting in 2011 which had me thinking – what am I going to do with business?
And then it struck me (durr) – I can ramp up my online income through a variety of methods (freelance writing, web development and so on).
It’s amazing the opportunities that we have in the world today. We’re not longer bound to just one area. Not only do you get to travel but you can also meet people around the world and help them – that’s what I’d like to do one day, give back
I totally agree Murlu. We are no longer stuck in one place unless we want to be. Income you get online is a great option, especially if some of that is passive. That’s cool that you plan to give back too.
Murray,
If you have an online career you can live and travel anywhere. That is the whole point! I am headed to Bratislava next. (with hopefully an exchange rate like “Eurotrip”) Not positive how great the internet access will be but I bet there will be some!
You could probably find a wireless hot spot somewhere in the Gobi desert.
Just no water to go with it.
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Our experiences in living abroad with our family for a total of 4 years and now traveling extensively in our retirement are that many things are possible IF one does not hold a lot of debt. We rented out our house, which paid the mortgage. We paid off loans as early as possible (before we had kids, actually.) The decluttering mentioned by Thu is a great idea. As Leo Leonni’s snail was advised: Keep your house small and easy to carry!
Hi Betsy, I think that’s a great point about debt. My husband and I are renting so we have almost none, and we will finish paying it all off early next year. You were in Iran and Malaysia, right?
Jennifer, Thanks for this excellent overview. It was fascinating to read about all the different people and different approaches. I’m glad you included a reality check at the end about blogging being a very crowded field!
Going on the road is not something that appeals to me. I think it probably appeals to people with a particular temperament. I just re-settled recently and am happy to be in one spot but I appreciate your ideas about generating an income online.
Everything online is so dependent on electricity. I can’t help but wonder if we are putting too many eggs in the online basket.
Hi Sandra, I’m glad you were able to get something out of this post even though long-term travel doesn’t appeal to you. Even though I don’t think I could spend months on the road, I like having the ability to do so if I wanted to.
When you talk about the dependency on electricity, are you referring to peak oil? I do wonder what would happen if power got very expensive. Unfortunately, renewable energy is not anywhere ready to take over from fossil fuels.
Overall, I think we owe it all to technology. People enjoy more time with family cause they earn even just at home. People who cant afford to travel, feels like traveling too just reading experiences from people who travel all around the world. One of my dream is to travel the world, i bet it would be a wonderful and adventurous experience for me. Meeting different types of people, different cultures, different skin colors, different attitudes would be something new and exciting. Blogging is good too, without technology or a long long time ago, people have already started blogging but that is not the word they describe it, they call it journal or diaries. The only advantage now is that we can earn money while doing it.
Thanks jen, for this nice post…
Hi Kathrynne, I’m glad you enjoyed it. I agree, it’s neat to “meet” people from all over the world without leaving home. It makes it feel like such a small world. I hope you do get to live your dream of travel soon.
That’s a good point that people have been writing down their thoughts and feelings way before the internet. It used to take a long time to “blog” when you had to do it by letter!
Hi Jennifer,
Loved your ideas and facts about the mobile lifestyle. I am far more not in this category and I don’t even see any possibility in near future of getting on such a wandering lifestyle. I wish I too could have the roaming experiences and a lot more traveling on my way but the just other thought of will things move on smoothly? or else could I have the resettlement as before? is what makes me a bit reluctant to agree to this idea of mobile lifestyle.
Welcome to Live Richly, Sangita. Even if you don’t have any way of traveling right now, you could start arranging your life to make it possible in the future. If you read the “Stranger in His Own Land” series I link in this post, you will see that it took a number of years before Adrian hit the road with his family. First the kids were homeschooled, then he sold a lot of his possession and finally got rid of his house.
As far as going back to your life afterwards, things will likely be different. That may be a good or bad thing depending on your point of view!
[...] wonderful Jennifer discusses about how to live alternative lifestyles of travel in our increasingly mobile age. Guess what, being a successful blogger is one way to lead to this great [...]
Hey Jennifer, great post! Thanks for the shout out! We enjoy our mobile life style now. Things are made easier with global internet availability. Hopefully working remotely will become more and more easy, so more people can enjoy this life style too.
My pleasure Dina! I can tell you and Ryan are having a great time. I hope wifi will become more common, and communication tools like Skype will get even better.
Great post. Now that my work is more mobile, I am looking forward to doing more travel myself.
Hi Rick, it’s nice to have a job you can bring on the road if you want.
[...] Mobile Lifestyle – Working where you want to when you want to is the new nomad dream and movement. Jennifer beautifully covers it among with sources to those who are doing it. I’ve learned something more about that here. [...]
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