It has been about 16 months since my wife and I left Japan and almost two and a half years since we made our commitment to change countries and careers. Here is an update on how our life has changed since we decided to give up our old way of life.

Visiting Canada

We are back in Canada now until the end of summer. My wife’s six month visa expires in September so we have to go somewhere before then. We still haven’t decided where or for how long.

Overall life is good.  We really have few complaints. I am doing some part-time marketing consulting work with a few companies which more than pays for our living expenses. We have time to regularly exercise, read a lot, meet new people and generally do anything we want. With the exception of my terrible marathon performance last month, I would even say that life is perfect.

We are Homeless

Our house in Japan was up for sale for a…

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This interview is with a friend I originally connected with online and then had the the opportunity to meet in my home city of Calgary, Canada. Cath Duncan and her husband are South African natives who have decided to call Calgary home after some work re-locations around the world. Cath has generously given hundreds of hours of her time to raise money for Kidney research. She tells her story and offers some great personal development advice in this interview.

Please tell us a little about your yourself.

I grew up in Cape Town, South Africa. Since 2002, my husband Andy and I have moved between London UK, Philadelphia USA, Cape Town SA and Calgary Canada since 2002. We’ve moved a lot because we both love change and variety, and living in different…

Many people wonder how my wife and I can afford our location independent lifestyle. Savings are part of it, I also do some part-time consulting. However, the key ingredient is that we don’t spend much money. This is a difficult concept for many to grasp: you don’t have to work much if you don’t spend money. My wife and I cut our expenses to about a quarter of what they used to be, now I have the flexibility to only work on projects I care about.

Long-term traveler, Roni Weiss has perfected the art of frugality. By keeping his living expenses extremely low he can maintain a travel lifestyle that is only a dream to most. Roni shares his story in this interview.

Please tell us about your travels.

My first big solo backpacking trip was in 2004, two months in Western and Central Europe. It could have been longer, but I chose not to bring a laptop, something I changed two trips later. Sharing hostel computers is for the birds. Now, I have been to 70+ countries, including every country in Europe, as well as every continent except Antarctica. 40% of the countries in the world.

How many months of the year are you

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A key success factor, both personally and in business, is the ability to connect with like minded people.  It is great to virtually interact with and support our peers but nothing compares to real world meet ups. To bring lifestyle design focused entrepreneurs together,  Michael Bodekaer has created Project Getaway, a tropical paradise retreat in Bali, Indonesia. He talks about his lifestyle and businesses in this interview.

Please tell us a little about your background?

I’m a tech-geek, adrenaline junkie and entrepreneur who got tired of 9-5 day-jobs and decided to be my own boss. I love kite-surfing, wakeboarding and world travel, and have managed to start/run a few online businesses that allow me to live life how it is supposed to be lived

While traveling around the world I often missed the community feel and creativity that comes from working with fun, inspirational and like-minded people, but what I didn’t miss were the timesheets, managers and meetings.

So instead of going back into an office, I decided to try to bring inspirational people out of offices and…

I often hear people say they wish they could travel more. This is usually followed by how family, career and money prevent them from realizing their dreams. Others like Caz and Craig Makepeace, couldn’t imagine letting anything get in the way of their travel experiences. Marriage, a child and more than a decade of travel haven’t reduced their wanderlust  Caz shares her family’s story in this interview.

Please tell us about your travels.

I started travelling in 1997 three days after I graduated from University. I backpacked Indonesia for a few months before relocating to London to live for two and a half years to teach. I travelled Europe and lived in Dublin for a summer before returning home. This is where I met and married Craig. Three days after we married we took off for a five year honeymoon. We lived in Bangkok, Dublin, Western Australia, and Raleigh, North Carolina. In this time we also backpacked through Asia, Africa and the USA. Our daughter was born in Queensland, Australia and when she was nine months we moved back to the States. We took her to Fiji, Puerto Rico and places within the US. We are now back in…

Is it possible to make a living doing what you love AND travel the world at the same time? Mark Shea of Overlander.TV is proving that it is indeed possible to follow your passion and have a location independent lifestyle. He shares his experiences as a traveling videographer and offers some great advice in this interview.

Please tell us about Overlander.tv.

I got involved in video in the mid 90′s when the advent of mini DV cameras opened up broadcast quality TV production to everyone….supposedly. I bought my copy of ‘Rebel without a Crew’ and set out to learn how to do everything from script to screen. I cut my teeth filming weddings on the weekends.

In my 20′s, I traveled a lot and wanted to find a way to continue doing this. From the time I was a young boy I had this desire to see the world, to understand it. I always had my head in the encyclopedia reading about some far off tribe.

I watched a lot of travel programming and found it dull. It was just like ads for resorts. Another beautiful presenter in a bikini, once again telling the viewer, ‘This is my favorite…

Long time adventurist, Dave Thompson of DavesTravelCorner.com shares his experiences traveling the world and earning a living online. Dave gives an honest account of what it is like to earn money blogging and offers some great advice for aspiring travel writers.

Please tell us about your travels.

My first major trip was to Nepal in 1996. This was the trip that hooked me onto International travel for a variety of reasons. It was my first trip to a part of the world that wasn’t western centric and my eyes were opened by the culture, food, the Himalayas and the authentic experiences. I became super ill from altitude sickness and food poisoning around 5200 meters in the middle of the night. I had to be carried down on our guide’s shoulders for 2 hours to a lower altitude where I vomited for the rest of the night filling up a large bowl which was frozen solid in the morning. I became so weak I could not walk and a lady who I was with carried me down the mountain for most of the ensuing day on her shoulders/back with a sling we put together from a sleeping bag. Unfortunately she had…

It is a common dream to set up a guest house in a foreign country and live in paradise. I certainly have considered it. Wouldn’t it be great to live in a tropical climate and have a profitable business funding your lifestyle? However, running a business, especially one in a foreign country, is not always glamorous and exciting. In this interview, I talk to Mike Henry, who has recently bought a guest house in Bali with his wife. He shares what it is really like to own and run a guest house. (Also, check out this 2009 interview with Mike when he just arrived in Bali.)

Please tell us about your guest house in Bali.

Our guesthouse is located on the north coast of Bali in the village of Anturan and about 6km from Singaraja, Bali’s second largest city. It comprises of just four guestrooms, a restaurant, a pool and our own house.

What is Bali like?

I have lived in Bali for nearly two years. There are many things I like about Bali, the weather, the culture, the easy going nature of the people and the scenery. There is still a very strong…

I am a huge fan of great, simple ideas. When I first heard of the TropicalMBA, I thought it was a brilliant concept with lots of potential. Just the name alone, conveys all the information you need to know. What better way to learn about business, then interning with a successful entrepreneur in an exotic country? In this interview, Dan Andrew talks about how he started the TropicalMBA, how he makes money and gives advice for aspiring entrepreneurs.

Please tell us about yourself

After studying philosophy in college, I sort of blindly jumped in to business because I assumed that business guys had a lot of freedom in terms of how they spent their time and where they can be located. I didn’t really have a plan, but in retrospect I think I was right about the business thing. Being an entrepreneur allows me a great deal of freedom in how I spend my time and I also get to be creative, which is really important to me.

It took me a little while to figure out how to get the kind of freedom I was looking for. I started my business…

How would you like to be self-employed, while having the income and freedom to travel the world? Jason Batansky, has created exactly that lifestyle for himself and he is only 22 years old. He gives a fantastic account into his life with detailed information on exactly how earns his income in this interview.

Please tell us about your travels.

I started traveling independently around 4 ½ years ago in the summer of 2007 to South America. I expected to work four days per week at a non-profit organization in Ecuador in advertising and marketing to attract new members to the organization. I arranged this internship directly with the entity rather than going through a third party company so that I could have full control of my trip. I lived out of a hostel for months and traveled on the weekends. I eventually decided to quit the internship a month early. With my extra time, I took a trip to the Galapagos and skipped over the border to Colombia. That month was my first real taste of what I wanted to do full-time in the future.

Since then, I’ve visited and lived in countries in South America, Western and Eastern…