This weekend update is a little late…things here at Location Independent HQ have been a bit hectic of late – dealing with screaming tantrums and colic well into the evenings, leaves little time and energy to get our heads together for the next day and figure out what we’re doing.
So we’re really having to prioritse and focus on the “absolutely must do now” stuff! Fortunately, we’re told this phase won’t last too long and we’re hoping salvation will come in the form of homeopathic remedies, the right kind of sling (we’ve tried 2 already) and an orthodontic dummy!
But back to the task at hand…
There is one big announcement this week and I’d also like to give you a sneak preview of what we’ve got coming up for Location Independent for the rest of the year…
The Global Costs of Living Wiki
This is something we’d planned to launch as the next big thing for the site some time in August/September but it’s been completed earlier than planned (and with big thanks to Travis from Green Tea Design for help with the customisation which I just couldn’t face doing myself).
The Problem: One of the key challenges location independent people struggle with (as also demonstrated in the feedback from the survey that Corbett ran a while back) is knowing how much their lifestyle is going to cost in a new destination – so that they can figure out an accurate budget.
Many people have pointed out that the costs of living for global destinations are out there somewhere, scattered around the web, but that there is no single, comprehensive resource that provides this.
The Solution: That’s what we’re hoping the Location Independent Global Costs of Living Wiki will become – one of, if not the most comprehensive, up-to-date resource online that provides the costs of living for location independent destinations around the world.
If you don’t know what a wiki is, it’s basically a type of site where anyone can edit the information, as long as they can improve upon it. A wiki is not moderated by anyone except the rest of the community/users and it seeks to harness & leverage the collective wisdom of many people, not just a single contributor. In short, it’s perfect for this resource, since it means the information can be kept up-to-date and relevant by the latest person to visit a place and update the wiki.
How You Can Help: For starters, the wiki has very little content at the moment. The structure is there, a few places have been added and we’ve used a basic template to try and capture the pertinent information we think would be valuable. Of course, that can and probably will change – so feel free!
We need your help to turn this into a resource that is of tremendous value for everyone – so if you have the accurate and up-to-date information for a place on this planet (any place – you never know where people want to travel to), then please do add it!
The Rest of the Year
We have a number of further “next big things” planned for the rest of this year…
First up there’s the community-produced ebook launch: 101 Best Tips For Being Location Independent. The ebook will be completely free to download although we will ask for donations to charity – we’re currently targeting a launch of late September. Before we launch it though, we still need a few more tips, so please do submit yours here >>>
Note: You don’t have to be location independent to share your tips – if you’re still in the process of getting there, you’ve probably got tons of good stuff you’ve been learning along the way. Full credit (your website & twitter ID) will be shared in the ebook for each tip.
Secondly, we are working on the next paid-for product/service. I’m really excited about this one – it is a joint venture and I’m confident it is going to be the most practical & supportive resource available for anyone wanting to become location independent and for those who already are. The target pre-launch for this is October to the Priority Updates mailing list with a full launch planned for November.
Thirdly, we have another awesome resource planned for the end of the year – planning to leave 2009 in style! Whilst I don’t want to reveal too much yet, I will say that it is something that is designed to help people overcome one of the biggest barriers to becoming location independent…I’ll leave you to figure that one out :)
And finally…we’re going international!! We’ll be launching a Turkish version of the site later this year and we’re also looking for partners to work with us on a German & Spanish version too.
This is super exciting and as soon as we made the decision to go multi-language, we got emails from journalists wanting to feature us in a few cool places – so it looks like we’ll be featured in Brazil’s 2nd largest newspaper and also China’s Trend Health magazine sometime in October.
Ok, so they’re not quite the languages we’re launching in – and we’ll have no idea what they’ll have written – but they were interesting examples of the law of attraction in action, if you ask me.
Wow! You guys have been getting up to so much awesome stuff.
I’m very interested in those products you’d be releasing, though am kinda annoyed that ALL my favourite bloggers seem to be releasing products at around the same time.
Hope it all goes well! I’d help contribute to the wiki if I had anything valuable to say ;)
Regarding homeopathy… You might want to read Bad Science from Ben Goldacre.
I’ll be honest he is not very supportive of the theory/science behind homeopathy but further he analysises research reports which seem to have a hard time proving homeopathy’s benefits vs. a placebo (which i am not sure works for infants)…
Anyway my wife is well into alternative therapies (she is reflexologist) but reading this book is nice to get a balanced view…
I found an old Guardian article from Goldacre on homeopathy which summarises his points:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/nov/16/sciencenews.g2
some extracts:
[...]Homeopathic remedies are made by taking an ingredient, such as arsenic, and diluting it down [...] Many people confuse homeopathy with herbalism and do not realise just how far homeopathic remedies are diluted. The typical dilution is called “30C”: this means that the original substance has been diluted by 1 drop in 100, 30 times [...] a dilution of 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, 000,000,000,000,000.[...]At a homeopathic dilution of 100C, which they sell routinely, and which homeopaths claim is even more powerful than 30C, the treating substance is diluted by more than the total number of atoms in the universe.[...]How can an almost infinitely dilute solution cure anything? Most homeopaths claim that water has “a memory”. They are unclear what this would look like, and homeopaths’ experiments claiming to demonstrate it are frequently bizarre. As a brief illustration, American magician and debunker James Randi has for many years had a $1m prize on offer for anyone who can demonstrate paranormal abilities. He has made it clear that this cheque would go to someone who can reliably distinguish a homeopathic dilution from water. His money remains unclaimed.[...]
The cost of living wiki is something I can definitely get excited about! Just trying to figure out how much it costs to live in Scotland was enough to drive me nuts. Can’t wait to see the other stuff you’ve got in the works, too. :)
The Wiki is a great idea, a valuable resource for anyone planning to live abroad for a while. Since I live in Italy I think I’ll certainly contribute to that section of the wiki :-)