Jonathan and I first started thinking about becoming modern nomads when he was made redundant in 2006. Scared by the thought of having to pay big household bills whilst he set up his own business instead of getting another job, we began to wonder where in the world we could live that wouldn’t cost quite so much and would take the financial pressure off us.
Add that to the fact that I’d never seen myself settling in the UK and it didn’t take us long to plan our exit, pack up our life and leave! At the time, the driving force was money (or lack thereof) – but in the course of our journey, we’ve realised of course that it’s not about the money but the lifestyle.
Everyone has their own reasons for leaving the rat race, leaving their family and friends and wanting to become location independent or lead a nomadic lifestyle…so here is this week’s question:
What’s your main motivation for becoming/being location independent?
Remember, there’s a free copy of the ebook for the winner who provides the best answer, selected by me, each week. Please try and ensure your comments are as useful, engaging, insightful and valuable to others as you’d like to see on this thread.
Last Week’s Winner
Congratulations to Audrey at uncorneredmarket.com who wins a copy of the ebook, X Marks The Spot. I found your comment about having your top 3 places decided in your heads interesting and the fact that one of them has already changed – so common – places are never as you really expect are they?!! Thank you too for engaging with other commenters on the thread.
Deciding to sell all our stuff and move to South America seemed spontaneous because once we decided we sold everything, I quite my job, and we moved in about 3 months. But really it was a culmination of things happening and it was time for a fresh start.
We should have planned a little better though. No saftely net or financial security was in place. Though my wife is from Venezueala where we are living so it wasn’t like going to a completely foreign country alone for her.
Our motivation was many fold. My wife missed her country and the weather in Connecticut in the winter was very depressing. I think she felt like she didn’t fit in there. We lived there for 5 years after getting married. I was fed up of working in an industry other than my passion. So, moving down here has been great. My wife is happy in the sun and near her family. My son is growing up (1 1/2 now) and is around lots of people and a warm culture. I’ve been succesfully running my freelance design business for almost a year now. So our motivation was to move somewhere that we would be happy.
Moving hear forced me to learn many LIP skills to apply to my business. Essentially I’ve gained all my clients via the internet and not face to face. I think this process of moving here has taught me how I could do this again and makes me feel very LIP.
We plan on moving to Florida in about 4 years or so. Plans are tentative. We’ll be vacationing in Aruba next week. It will be my first time there.
Thanks.
One thing I’ve come to value over the years about living in different countries is the ability to “re-invent” yourself. When you live in your home country amongst your family and friends you are often trapped by how others see you and their perception of you and it’s often very difficult to change or go in a new direction.
Coming from England, one thing I really enjoy about living elsewhere is the ability to open my mouth without being judged and slotted into a certain set of stereotypes by my accent. Which isn’t to say that I’m not stereotyped by the people around me, but here in Spain the English are considered to be eccentric so I can get away with almost anything and I don’t have to participate in things I don’t wish to – within reason I can define myself in a way which would be impossible “back home” and this “fredom” will probably always motivate me.
I’m not yet fully location-independent, but plan to be as soon as I get my ducks in a row (or at least in a slightly less jumbled array). I have a couple of primary motivations. The first is the love of “where”, and they way “where” can change my mood and even my personality to an extent. Each place has its own energy, its own vibes, and I want to immerse myself in lots of different places to experience that. The only way to do that is to spend an extended amount of time there, which brings me to motivation #2.
I love to travel, but a week or two week’s vacation is only enough time to scratch the surface of a new culture and new place. I also find that while I’m traveling, I miss a sense of “home.” I want my favorite blanket, my kitchen, my full medicine cabinet, and my reliable water pressure wherever I travel, which is why I choose a live-aboard boat or RV for my location-independent home. I can take home with me wherever I go, and can spend a day or a year anywhere while still having my “home” with me. That, to me, is the ultimate in freedom and location-independence.
sorry, that should be freedom, not “fredom”
I guess I’m motivated by necessity, as I don’t think I could ever be happy in the rat race. The best time of my life so far was hitch hiking, and road tripping, around the US with a friend of mine. Ever since, I’ve wanted to find a way to work and travel at the same time so I could just keep going. I’m sure eventually I’ll settle down in a hammock on a beach somewhere..
This answer is lame, so it’s not an entry. It is, however, the truth.
I’m motivated by weather and water. Mostly the weather, though. Canada really doesn’t have a lot to say for itself when it comes to weather.
Secondary reasons are quiet and peace and the hopes we can find a community of people who are not so damned commercial. Realistically, though, I could find that here if I tried hard enough. Beaches in February, though? Nuh-uh.
You know that feeling you have when you clearly imagine what you want? Your breath gets deeper. You can feel your face relaxing. A little grin (or in my case, a smirk) appears unbidden. You even feel a little turned on.
In 1993 I dreamed of being light as a feather. Not weight-wise: I wanted mobility. I wanted to be able to throw everything I owned in the back of a car or something and just go. I was in college. My major was Theatre. I wanted to be a traveling gypsy performer. God! I felt so alive when I pictured it!
Now I’m thirty six and I’m wondering how all of that got lost. Somewhere between having a child, getting divorced and allowing my family too much influence over my goals I dropped the ball. At this point in my life it is really, really, sometimes-I-curl-up-and-shake-ly difficult to try to get back on that dream again.
But I’m doing it. I’ve only just started, really, but I’m doing it. It isn’t about hating working for other people. It’s about doing what I love – performing live – for as many people as I can, all over the world.
I had the great opportunity to travel as a professional musician several years ago. Playing the guitar got me around to well over half the United States and Europe twice (Holland, Germany, London, Ireland). Over that period of time, I met a girl and we got married. Now I don’t travel any more and she spends a great deal of her time running an orphanage in Haiti. For most of the past year we have been apart.
Being a person who has made most of my life decisions based around the idea that the worst possible thing I could become is some one who’s best stories are behind him, I find the tales I’ve been telling becoming a bit dated. I’ve been doing the same things for the same clients for too long now. A few months ago, I experienced a sensation not unlike slapping yourself in the face when I stumbled across this website.
My wife will be returning home in the next three to six months. The only thing we know for sure about the future is that we don’t want to stay where we are. In the next three to six months, I’ve got a lot of homework to do.
I can relate to most of the motives people have mentioned above, but particularly the motives of Chris and Matt.
I love to move to new places and meet new people as it enables you to develop other aspects of your character. It is so true that it can sometimes be difficult to grow and change when you have people around you who you have known for years. In order to change yourself you need to change the way people perceive you… there is no easier way to do this than to live among strangers…
My main motivation however, is definately to escape the rat race. Like Matt, this is also a necessity for me. My stress levels are quite low, and I’ve found time and time again that living in the rat race simply depresses me. I reached a point where I truly believed that for my own mental health – I had no option but to try to establish a different kind of lifestyle.. One that provided more freedom, choice, variety and spice, rather than one that led me to feel like a caged bird.
To all of you…thank you. Your comments are just what I was looking for – poetic, inspirational, motivating and thoughtful.
I think that the phrase “living and not simply existing” is very apt for all of us…what we do or are aiming to do is not easy but then again, it’s not always that hard and the important thing is this…we’re all trying and not simply sitting wishing.
BIG PAT on the back for us all ;-)
Lea, thank you for the free copy of X Marks the Spot. I’ll have to get into friendlier internet lands (i.e., out of Myanmar) to download it and enjoy it – I’m looking forward to it!
As for what motivates me, it’s continual learning. While I had a “good” desk job before, I stopped learning pretty quickly and felt like my engagement with the world was shrinking. Our first year on the road has had some steep learning curves, but we’re getting smarter, not only about our website and business, but about how the rest of this world of ours work and the people in it. That’s invaluable.
It is the wish to live the world. Let me explain it…
It’s true that when I was young, I was wishing a job that could allow me this kind of life, but I wasn’t sure if I would have been good for it, so I told myself that first, I had to improve my skills and then I had to try what I called a “normal” job for someone to make experience, then I would have seen. It was a sort of test.
Years passed (not so many… I’m not old yet! :P) and now I have a “lucky job”, as called by my friends: 40hours/week with stable income (I’m far away to be rich anyway) and it’s difficult to be fired from it.
But, I feel that nothing has changed; it seemed, because I was distracted by doing a lot of jobs in the same time, but since 2 years ago (when I got this job), I had the opportunity to start a sort of “growth path” and I began to know myself better. I like to work in web development field, but I don’t like this kind of lifestyle; by seeing older friends of mine, I’ve seen where it will lead me: it seems I’m going to stop me even if it is a crazy rat race.
As when I was younger, I like to have my own development activity, I’ve seen that I’m very attracted to a Lip lifestyle and it is a stronger and stronger call, to work, to learn, to grow, to help, to live, for my friends
Bye, Rod! :D