Hey everyone! Today I have a really awesome post from a fellow blogger. Now that I have planned to make the freelancing switch very soon, I have been thinking about traveling more. My freelancing does allow for travel of course, so of course I am thinking about this! The following is from Jeremy Albelda, a 20-something location independent entrepreneur.
Location Independent Income: The Life of a Digital Nomad
When I graduated college back in 2010 from the University of Miami, work prospects were pretty bleak. Especially for someone like me who had a degree in Exercise Physiology (basically a glorified personal trainer).
When the economy tanked at the end of 2008, the first things to go were “luxury” services like expensive gym memberships and fitness consultants. It also didn’t help that at the ripe old age of 23, I stubbornly decided I couldn’t work for anyone anymore…and had no formal business or marketing experience (eekkk!). The only really good thing I had going for me was the fact that I had no student debt (immense).
Read on to see how I went from a gym rat making a few hundred dollars a week in 2010 to a location independent entrepreneur earning over 60K a year and working only a couple of hours a day from anywhere in the world.
End of school, beginning of a new life
After packing up shop in Miami in June of 2010 when I finished school, I decided (I had) to head back to the City of Brotherly Love for a few months to live rent free with my parents and put my thinking cap on as I desperately wanted nothing to do with what I studied 4 years long for. I made a list of the things that I was halfway decent at/interested in, and this is what I came up with.
- Traveling
- Interacting with people
- Writing
Growing up, I was lucky enough to have parents who loved traveling and saw the true life lessons/values that it brings about. I definitely inherited their wanderlust, and during college, I lived in Barcelona for half a year, Buenos Aires for a summer and Mexico for 6 weeks which were some of the best experiences of my life. My time abroad taught me a lot about myself and self-reliance. I also came out speaking Spanish pretty fly for a white guy, which at the time, was just for fun (and meeting girls of course), but ended up being one of my most important weapons in my arsenal.
All I could really think about during school was how I wanted to graduate and live abroad somewhere, but after putting in 4 years at college, I couldn’t really see myself making espressos or teaching English for virtually nothing, so I knew I had to get creative.
I had always loved writing, and actually had some success writing for a few publications about personal fitness, but I wanted to figure out how to do it full-time somehow.
Finding a niche
When I traveled abroad, there was something I always found interesting – how pervasive the English language really was all around the world. I started noticing menus, hotel websites, large company’s marketing materials, etc. trying to promote their services or products in English, but they were just butchering the language, and often, not saying what they were intending to.
I thought, wow, this would be something so easy to fix, and would be a huge return on investment for these people. I did some research online and didn’t see too much competition for “English Correction Services”.
I then decided, why don’t I give this a shot? I read up on the easy-to-use WordPress web development platform and started to build a simple website to at least have something to email people with and offer my new-found, “services”. Write that Right.com was what came about (with the help of another developer and a few hundred dollars investment).
I thought to myself, ok, now that I have a decent website, the inquiries will be flooding my inbox in no time, right? (fart noise). I started to think, you know what, if some random guy emailed me and said the content on my expensive website I just made was all wrong, I’d probably ignore him too. Sigh.
I stepped back from the project and tried to look at it from a different angle. I began to realize, no one is going to pay me to fix something that they think is right from the get go. I have to write the content for people before it even has the chance to get messed up. Still in Philadelphia, I began to search for web developers that might already have established clients, but didn’t offer content services. Within a few weeks of emailing around, I started having a few developers get back to me saying they were looking for such a service, bingo!
Hi ho, hi ho, it’s back to Miami we go!
After just 4 months in Philly, I decided to move back to Miami to escape the fast-approaching winter and more importantly, target the massive Hispanic market. It ended up being the best move I ever made (again). I started going to networking events and joined a chamber of commerce (#2 on above my list) and business started picking up. I discovered a niche as there were a large number of legitimate businesses leaving countries like Venezuela and Colombia to set up their new headquarters in Miami, and they wanted to target the US market. Through my travels in the Spanish-speaking world, I learned a lot about the myriad of different Hispanic cultures, and paired with my Spanish language capabilities, I was able to relate to and win the trust of a lot of native Spanish speakers who weren’t used to seeing a “gringo” speak so well.
I was really doing it. No boss, no cubicle. I was living the dream…except for one thing. I was still stuck in one place, or so I thought.
The world or bust…
Being physically in Miami was important at the outset of starting my business, but as time went on, I saw that I had a pretty steady core group of clients. 90% of all communication was handled through email or the occasional phone call and I rarely had to meet with clients, unless if it was for a beer or one of their kid’s birthday parties (one client actually invited me!).
I had the travel itch and I wanted to operate without a fixed location. I decided to read up on working remotely a bit as I was seeing people like Tim Ferris, who wrote the 4 hour work week, talking about bouncing around all over the world while still operating their online based businesses. The most common terms I found for people working without a home base were “location independent” and “digital nomads”. I found some people blogging about it, and many of them happen to be travel bloggers (makes sense). Wow, getting to travel the world, write about it, and get paid to do so? Sign me up!
I reached out to a few of them and asked a bit more about how they were supporting themselves continuously on the road. Many had online businesses similar to my own or worked as freelance writers, but the lion share of popular travel bloggers told me that they were making a good chunk of change right from their blogs. What?!
I told myself, I know I can do this too, so I built my first travel website in 2011, The World or Bust.com. I just started to write about my past travel experiences and the few short trips I was taking that year to Guatemala, Turkey and Bulgaria. I was pumping out a few posts a week, networking like crazy on social media and reaching out more and more to my travel blogging peers. As my traffic and stats started to rise, I started receiving emails from advertisers interested in placing ads on my site. I was hesitant at first because I didn’t know how it all worked, but after experimenting a bit and honing my negotiating skills, I dove in.
Fast forward a year and half, and I’ve been in and out of Miami for 8 of the past 12 months running a network of travel websites, my language solutions service and working as an online consultant. I make more than enough money to support my travels because, I do in fact work a few hours a day, it just doesn’t matter if that’s in a coffee shop in Bucharest, Romania (where I currently am) or back in Miami where I bounce in and out of to develop business and recharge.
I only have to work a couple of hours a day, and while I know I can make more money, I live mostly stress-free, which has left much more time to actually enjoy my life…instead of dreading it. I’m currently on a 6 month trip around the world and I’m thoroughly enjoying every day to the fullest.
If there’s one piece of advice I’d like to impart, it’s that if you want to change your life, you REALLY can.
I think I’m a pretty good example of how someone with not a lot of money, no formal training/education with business and no entrepreneurial background can succeed if they really want to. The key is reaching out to others around you who have done it before, thinking a little bit outside of the box, and not worrying what your friends, family or co-workers think.
Don’t let yourself be the biggest barrier to entry for the life you want to live – make it the driving factor.
Can you work and travel at the same time? Would you like to?
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Great post and great learning more about you Jeremy. You did what most are afraid to do which is ACT! We all can do something we just have to make that first move and stick with it. Networking and solving problems I see a lot of people miss. Help others, ask questions, and reach out to people. What I do always me to work and travel at the same time however I am working on making enough so the both the wifey and I can do it. We live off of two incomes so it would be great once things pick up and we no longer need her salary but can use it as a cushion.
Glad you enjoyed it Thomas. You’re right, the hardest step for most people is just getting out of their own heads and physically into action. Sounds like you got yourself a nice little plan too, hopefully the long-term travel with the misses comes about sooner than later!
We let so much get in the way of the things we really want to do in life. Awesome that you are living out your dream! Thanks for sharing your story.
Thanks for your comment Brian. People like to make excuses, and the person that they are normally convincing themselves not to do something is themselves…shouldn’t be the case!
I like to work and travel at the same time… although it sometimes stresses me out trying to find a reliable internet connection that can be used for VOIP!
Haha I feel your pain Scott. I’m currently on a small island off of Croatia called Hvar and my internet connection is pretty shotty as we speak!
Sounds like you have had an amazing journey. This is a lifestyle that I dream about. Thanks for sharing your story. Inspiring
Thanks for reading Liz. It can be yours too, don’t ever think it can’t!
Very inspiring story. I am working on doing what I love and the most important thing for me so far is getting over my fear of rejection, which I have now done. I search for clients every day and each week seems to get better and better. I got two new clients this week (woohoo) and I will keep searching until I have enough to bring in a full time income. Congrats to you! All of your hard work and your leap of faith has really paid off!
Thanks for the kind words Alexa. I’m so happy for you that you’ve overcome a tough barrier in your life, and from how it sounds now, you’re rocking out! Kudos
Great story! I have been doing the same for about 10 years, changing country as I go, but like to be more rooted now, so stays abroad are usually 2-3 years instead of country hopping like I did for a while.
Ha wow, 2 to 3 years! That sounds amazing. I am starting to feel a bit like that myself. Long-term travel is the way to go.
This was an awesome post! Seriously loved hearing your story, and a long-term goal of mine is to have income streams that are not location-dependent. Definitely encouraging to hear from someone who has already made it work.
Glad you enjoyed reading my post and I’m honored you found it inspiring. Best of luck on your own goal of location independence!
Great story of getting creative! I liked the breakdown of the process that you went through to get where you are today.
Hey Mama Mia, thanks for commenting and glad you enjoyed the post layout š
Great article! I also dream of becoming a Digital Nomad together with my wife and just-born baby, and we plan really giving this a try starting April 2014. I started blogging in 2008 and slowly built up my income to today’s level when I think it is enough to have me, my wife and newborn live the life of Digital Nomads… a modest life, it’s true, but we can always hope for increased revenue š
Sounds like a great plan!
Wow, very cool! Although I enjoy travel, for me the big upside of making this kind of lifestyle would be to be able to have more choice in how I spend time with my family. I’d love to be able to go to everything my kids do without a boss’s permission. Thanks for the inspirational story!
What a story – he approached this with no fear of failure.
Just went and did it, good for him!
This was a great story, thanks for sharing! It resonated with me because after college I also found myself wondering what I was going to do. Still not sure of that yet, but reading stories such as yours inspires me. It’s so refreshing to see people breaking the traditional barrier of having a 9-5 job, thinking of a unique service to offer, and building a business off of it. I’d love to work and travel someday!
These are the types of stories that I both love to hear (very inspiring!) and hate to hear (makes me kind of jealous!) at the same time. Congrats on being creative and working hard – you definitely earned it. I’m curious, what are your plans going forward, Jeremy?
Haha glad it stirred you up a bit! My plans right now are to enjoy the rest of my 6 month trip, about 2 more months. When I get back to Miami, I plan to build up the translation site of my business and become more of a full on language solutions service.
Very inspiring story. I would love to be able to work anywhere. Hopefully in 2-3 years I can make that happen myself.
It’s all about lifestyle design. If traveling isn’t your thing and having more free time to spend with your family, more power to you. It’s all about working smart not hard!
Jeremy, kudos to you for doing what needs to be done to live your dream, and thanks so much for sharing your story!
I hope I can get there some day!
I would absolutely love to work and travel at the same time! Well, if it was a job that I really, really enjoyed. I thought about travel blogging, but it just seems so out of reach these days. I love writing, I love traveling, and I love writing about it. I studied in Norway for 6 weeks 5 summers ago and, for lack of website-know-how, I made up a Livejournal blog for it and told as many people as I could about it. I updated it every other day (if not every) and to this day, relatives and contacts still tell me about how much they enjoyed reading my stories. It makes me so happy to hear! Maybe I’ll try to update that journal a bit for my Peru trip later this year?? I’m glad that you have found your niche and that it is working out so splendidly for you! Perhaps I’ll get there someday!
Jeremy, I quite enjoyed reading your post. It was really interesting getting to know your own personal experiences and story. I will definitely take something away from this.
What an inspiring story! It’s great to hear how your ingenuity and courage created the kind of life you wanted.
Thank you for sharing that.
Well done. What a great story, thanks for sharing. What I took from all of this is that if you want to live your dream you can make it happen if you have the drive to do so. I don’t imagine it was easy but since you had the Spanish speaking skills and found that loop hole that was a need you reeled it in and I think that’s the smart way to go. Brilliant. Cheers. Mr.CBB
Thank you for sharing your inspiring story, Jeremy. I think it’s time for me to re-read the 4HWW. š Keep up the great work!
I really enjoyed this article! I’m currently getting ready to start college, (freaking out about expenses and loans and being $3000 under budget) but it is good to know that after college, it is possible to do as one wants, as long as they have the determination and passion to really push for that dream! Thank you for lifting my spirits!
Great post, thanks for sharing. We’d love to work and travel at the same time and have started to think about how to make this happen. These are great examples!
That is absolutely fantastic! I loved reading your story because even though I don’t have as much of a travel bug (I’m quite the homebody with the desire to travel overseas about once a year), I DO want to be location independent and free to go anywhere and not have to worry about business. I just started monetizing in Feb and it’s been slow and steady but I see it’s possible. Thanks for the inspiration!
That’s so great! You really challenged yourself to think outside of the box.
I think this is the dream for many people. Its nice to hear from someone who is living it.
I would love to be able to work and travel! Or, rather, work and decide where I’m going to work from. I don’t have that flexibility at all right now.
Really interesting and inspirational. I wish I had more ability to work from home (well any ability to work from home) at my current job. It’s something that I’m thinking about for the future if and when we decide to have kids.
From time to time I get to travel in my job (just got back from a week in Thailand about a week ago), but I do wish I could travel more. My wife has a job that really pretty much require she be local, with almost nothing that can be done remotely, so our ability to travel isn’t significant.
That said, I definitely could do 80+% of my duties from a laptop on a beach, so I intend on bringing this up with my boss in the future.
What a great story of success this is, Jeremy. I really enjoyed reading it and hope that people around the world who are currently figuring out what they want to do in their lives get inspired by this.
Writing is really one of those few jobs that let a person work while travelling. That’s just one of the many reasons why I love this job I have right now. Thanks so much for sharing this wonderful and inspiring story, Jeremy. You rock!
Most important takeaway:
“Growing up, I was lucky enough to have parents who loved traveling and saw the true life lessons/values that it brings about. I definitely inherited their wanderlust….” š
And now, a word from the proud mama:
Yep. I’m Jeremy’s mother and I could have written the same sentence about my childhood. My father (Jeremy’s grandfather) was a public school art teacher. He and my mother took us to live in Mexico for a year where my Dad did a sabbatical to work with a Mexican potter (when I was 9) and to England for a year where he was an exchange teacher (when I was 15). After the year in England, we camped around France, Italy and Spain for 7 weeks. When I was in college and told my parents I had found a program to live and study in Bogata, Colombia for a semester, understandably, that was fine with them (and this was before studying abroad was common—-because I am THAT old). Jeremy’s father also traveled growing up. His father was a chemical engineer and back in the day, when one’s employer said, go work in wherever—you said, “Yes, I’ll uproot my family (again) and go.”
Guess what happened next? I was a more than full time lawyer for 25 years and my husband is a physician-scientist. (Remember that thing about Jeremy graduating from college debt free?) However, we traveled whenever we could and it turns out that physician-scientists travel a good deal for work. Now, we’re empty nesters, having launched Jeremy and his older brother, and guess what we’re doing? We travel as much as possible even though Jeremy’s Dad still has a more than full time day job. And me? I still write the occasional legal brief (which can be done location independently), but, thanks to Jeremy, I’m mostly a travel (etc.) blogger.
So, from further down the road of life than most of you, here’s what I’ve learned: If I might borrow from the Bard, “To thine own self be true….” Jeremy’s older brother is also successful, but Jeremy’s life wouldn’t make him happy, it would make him uncomfortably anxious. You need to understand what makes you tick. You should also understand that what makes you tick (what you need to feel fulfilled) might change over time. There really is no such thing as a free lunch. Jeremy is location independent (mostly), but he is also one of the most self-disciplined people I know (when he wants to accomplish something).
And, my final piece of advice (thank God, they thought, rolling their eyes) — REMEMBER TO CALL YOUR MOTHER!
What a fantastic story! It’s easy for me to say “No, I can’t work and travel” right now, but obviously it was something you made happen rather than something that immediately happened.
This is an interesting story, and has given me a lot to think on. Thanks!
Hey Alex, thanks for commenting and glad you enjoyed my story!