Making It Anywhere

“The great thing about us digital nomads is that we’re all such totally unique individuals.”

Last weekend we were in Berlin, at a conference for online business owners – many of whom travel like we do.

We thought we hated conferences, but this one was different: instead of starting conversations with “So, what do you do?”, people would ask “So, what’s your why?” Rather than swapping pleasantries about the weather, we’d compare travel itineraries and airline hacks.

As well as reassuring us (that there are other people who freak out as much as we do when the wifi goes down) and reminding us of things we already knew (that Germans are hilarious and speak better English than wot we do), the weekend was incredible because we met so many people who we really admired. And the best part about that was realising that they’re just nice, ordinary people – people who’d take an interest in us even though we couldn’t offer them anything in return.

Arriving on the dot, as always

1: Not sure if you’re in East Berlin or West Berlin? Can you see tram tracks? If yes, you’re in East Berlin: trams were abolished in West Berlin after reunification, and they invested heavily in underground transport instead. 

2: If you don’t speak German, don’t sweat it: most everyday words sound close to English, or are English, or are familiar because both countries have nicked them from a third language.

So if you enjoy drinking Kaffee or Tee and eating Kebab Im Brot with Salat while using the Internet…yeah, you won’t exactly need to buy Rosetta Stone.

Yep, my parents have been sucked in. After seeing too many photos of me and Rob pulling stupid faces outside incredible sights around the world, they’ve decided they want a piece of our lifestyle too.

Back when my dad started his company in 2000, it wasn’t possible to be a digital nomad: Skype, cheap flights, 3G and laptops didn’t really exist. But now it’s become almost doddlesome to run a business while travelling, so that’s exactly what they’re going to do.

Later this year, they’ll go travelling for three months while managing their business from their laptops. It’s a trial run. They’re thinking of Airbnbing it, like we are. And they’ve already asked me about international SIM cards, which I’m pretty sure implies they’re serious about all this.

We were recently back in London for a few weeks catching up with friends and family. Many of them seem baffled by our choice of lifestyle (or still think we’re on some kind of delayed gap year), but some are fascinated and keep bombarding us with questions about how we did it.

Their perception seems to be that shifting to a life of travel is really hard. And while I’d have given you a different answer when I was trying to buy beachwear in London in December…it really isn’t.

The reality for us, we’ve realised, is actually the opposite: once you’re travelling, it’s much harder to stop than it is to keep going. And the logistics of going back to living in one place terrifies us.

This you won’t be attending, whatever the date… and they need to know upfront

When we first launched our company Mortified Cow, we SUCKED when it came to knowing how to successfully provide a client-facing service while travelling the world. Even though we’d read a heap of stuff from people in the same position, and even though we thought we’d preempted lots of potential problems, in reality we were underprepared and more than a little bit dim.

Launching a new business is hard enough, and while there are so many benefits to being a digital nomad (compared to providing a client-facing service while based permanently in one country), there are some undeniable mini-hurdles to consider.

Here’s what we’ve learnt:

Unfortunately not THIS much money, but perhaps one day…

We’re not travel bloggers, which means we don’t get paid to endorse certain hotels or tours or restaurants. And we don’t have travel-related adverts (or indeed any adverts) on our website, so we don’t get paid in that way either. But we’re still making money through travelling.

In fact, since quitting our jobs last year and travelling around the world ever since, we’re making more money than we’ve ever made in our lives – even though travel can be bloomin’ expensive. Not only are we making more money, we’re also having way more fun (apart from when we’re at airports or the wifi’s down or we realise there isn’t a kettle in the apartment we’re about to live in).

And the funny thing is, if we were to stay put in the UK, we’re pretty sure we’d actually make less money.

Sound utterly confusing? Here’s an explanation:

As soon as I quit my job, I suddenly found myself telling everyone else I knew that they should do the same.

OK, that might be partly because I didn’t want to be alone in taking a risk. But it’s also because as soon as I left the corporate world, I saw two gigantic problems that affect everyone in it – even if you really love what you do.