I  Made a Mistake

JetSetCitizen is not a very good name for this website. The idea of jet setting to exotic locales, while exciting and romantic, is definitely not the message I want to promote. My idea of a JetSetCitizen is more about being a global citizen and the personal responsibility that requires. Really experiencing foreign cultures and connecting with people around the world can be transformative and enlightening, if you let it.

Travel is Not a Competition

Travelling for the sake of getting passport stamps or crossing items off a bucket list are just other manifestations of our rampant consumerism. Some travellers compete by how many countries they have been to or attempt to regale in tales of how authentic or exotic their experiences are. How different is that from trying to one-up your neighbor’s latest purchase? Instead of keeping up with the Joneses, many of us are keeping up with the Indiana Joneses.

Maximize Profit or Maximize Good

We have been sold the idea that we have to produce and consume more to ‘advance.’ The strength of an economy is measured by growth in total production, whereas other measures like happiness, health, social relationships, clean air, wildlife, access to water and countless other factors that make life worth living, are ignored.

So much of what we do seems focused on making as much money as possible. Look at the late night commercials for ab machines, fake antique coins, replica jewelry and countless other falsely advertised products. Sure it is possible to profit by selling get rich quick schemes, promising easy weight loss, or marketing over-priced affiliate programs, but is that really how we want to spend our lives?

All of us on this planet, particularly those of us fortunate enough to come from developed countries, are a cost to the planet. We consume, waste and destroy to live and entertain ourselves. The impact of our individual environmental and societal footprint varies by our life choices, but definitely all of us are a drain to the ecosystem in some form or another. We can choose to live a self-centered life and take as much as we can for ourselves, or we can find ways to give back.

An Excellent Life

I have been thinking about these issues for a long time. The search for more meaning is a big reason why my wife and I sold everything to live a nomadic lifestyle, but the real inspiration for this post is this video of Dwight Turner and his work helping urban refugees in Bangkok, Thailand. I am not going to summarize the video, just watch it. It is only a few minutes of your time. Better yet, visit his website and watch it there. You might just be inspired to click the donate button on that page to give a few dollars and have a major impact on the lives of a family you will never meet.

Food for Thought

At the end of every single day ask your self this question:

Did I give more than I took today?

If you are answering”no” for too many days in a row, maybe it is time to change what you are doing?

I have written previously about how my wife and I need routine in our lives. While it is great to live in new countries, constant travel is very time-consuming and stressful. We have been consider setting up roots again and having a more stable lifestyle.

The big problem with settling down is that it costs a lot of money. It actually costs a huge amount of money to have a normal western lifestyle.

Here is a rough breakdown of monthly expenses that we would expect to incur if we permanently relocated to my home city of Calgary.

• Mortgage on an average starter home: $1800
• Property taxes: $200
• Utilities: $350
• Telephone, Internet: $150
• Cell Phones: $200
• Car Payments: $300
• Car Insurance: $100
• Car Maintenance and Gas: $200
• Furniture and Household Items: $500
• Clothing: $200
• Food: $500
• Entertainment: $500

Total $5000

The North American Idea of a Normal Lifestyle

We don’t have to spend that much money of course, but it is hard not to when all of your peer group does. Expenses of $5,000 per month are normal for a professional couple in Calgary.  It doesn’t matter how independently minded you think you are, we are all influenced by society, peers and family. When your friends all have the latest iPad, LED TV or trendy automobile, you start finding pressure to buy too.

My wife and I could cut back on those expenditures if we rented an apartment downtown, reducing the need for a car and lowering our accommodation fees. We could also cut down on food and entertainment if we really scrimped, so cutting these costs down wouldn’t be impossible.

On the other hand, that mortgage payment is contingent on low interest rates. Payments will easily increase a few hundred dollars per month once interest rates start to rise. Also, in a sprawling city like Calgary it is common to have at least two vehicles per family, particularly if both parents work outside of the home. That could also add another $500 or $600 in expenses.

I have also left out health and life insurance which can get quite pricey, but it won’t change much regardless of where we live.

Despite all those caveats, I don’t think that $5000 per month is too out of line for a middle aged couple like my wife and I. In Canada, assuming a 40% tax rate, $5000 per month after taxes would require a salary of $100,000 per year. (60% of 100,000 = $60,000 or $5,000 per month.)

Factoring in commuting time, lunch hours and overtime, it is very likely the total hours dedicated to work would be 50 plus hours per week each. We would do all this with the reward of about 10 statutory holidays and a couple of weeks of vacation time per year.

What if You Only Had to Work 6 Months a Year?

There is a clear trade off between time and money. You can work 60 hour weeks and make a lot of money, but if you don’t have time to enjoy your life, what is the point? If you could cut your consumption in half, you could easily free up 6 months per year of time. What could you do with half a year of free time?

From living in Japan, and traveling across Europe and Asia, we know that we can have a pretty comfortable standard of living outside of Canada for about $2,000 per month. $3,000 per month would offer a great lifestyle with money to do almost anything we want. Even as visitors in Calgary, we only spend about $1,000 per month. (This is largely due to low accommodation costs because of an empty condo my mother owns.)

Not having a permanent residence eliminates so many costs. The fact that we are location independent means we can’t buy a car, furniture, household goods, clothes, tools, etc. We have no need for them and we have no place to keep them anyway.

There are benefits from being stationary like getting higher paid work, time spent time with family and friends, the opportunity to work with other people in person, more networking opportunities, etc. I don’t want to over simplify the choice, however after living a consumerist lifestyle in the past, my wife and I are not interested in setting up that life again. Less is much, much more.

Are you willing to control your spending in order to do the things you want in life?

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 out of the country?

From 2007 until the end of 2010, I spent most of my time outside of the States. This year, I’m writing while on my first trip abroad of the year, Senegal. I’m not sure if I’ll be traversing oceans so much in 2011, but I will definitely be going to Canada and might be going to the Caribbean and parts of Latin America. It’s still in flux. Then again, I could be back in Africa in the next few months. My life isn’t so planned out.

Do you have a home base somewhere?

My home base is technically Everett, Washington. It’s where my driver’s license is, where my credit card bills go, etc. Depending on the situation, my father helps me with stuff back home, but I’ve had other people do that, as necessary. My Washington State health care does not cover me overseas, so I have bought Atlas Travel Health Insurance in the past. I’ve taken to buying the lowest coverage, with no deductible.

Please tell us about your blog, RoniWeiss.com.

I’ve had a website since 1999. My blogging before was more personal stuff, stories of my day. Though I did have movie reviews, as well. In 2008, I moved to Chile to teach business English. Around that time, my then-girlfriend and I broke up and I needed something to fill my mindspace. So I started blogging in a Web 2.0 sort of way and got involved in podcasts. My blog is mostly my travel stories and political commentary, but I go into other subjects as I feel the need. For a while, I was on wordpress.com. Once I started becoming more regular and getting more traffic, I moved over to wordpress.org. I don’t pay for hosting costs as I use my boss’s server in France. I’ve gotten offers to put ads on my site, but none felt particularly right. I had a Google Adsense ad up for a bit, but it wasn’t very prominent, so I wasn’t generating much from that. And now, I never will from them, as they banned me. I’ll probably write a post about that at some point. For now, I’m thinking I’ll stay ad-free until something makes more sense.

How do you earn an income now?

Money is a somewhat abstract concept to me. I try to spend as little as possible whenever possible. I make money through working for my boss in France, creating English language teaching materials. (Un)fortunately, I’ve been so busy with cool, unpaid things that I haven’t had time to sit and do work. I have done a lot of summer jobs in the past, wherein I get room and board paid for, don’t spend any money for months and come out of it with a few thousand dollars in my pocket. That’s served me well in the past.

Do you have many social media clients?

Right now, I’m helping with social media for the Africa Travel Association. We’ll see how much of my time in the future is doing social media and how much is freelance writing. Your guess is as good as mine.

Please tell us about your English teaching experiences?

I’ve taught English in Italy, Taiwan, France and Chile. They were all really different, based on what the jobs themselves were and what my living setup was. I did an interview about my English language teaching here.

What do you estimate your yearly expenses to be?

Wow. Uhhh. Yeah, I just don’t calculate it that way. There are days where I spend no money. There are days where I spend $5-20… And every so often I have to pay car insurance or flights. I’m so bad at this, really. When I’m traveling, I start trying to figure out how much I’m spending, but it feels like my expenditures per day fluctuate so wildly that it’s hard to say. And it depends on where I am in the world, too. If I’m Stateside, I have to pay for gas. In some countries, I ride black on the public transport; in others, I don’t. I’ve hitchhiked, but not all the time and not always successfully.

Generally, I spend nothing on accommodation, which does help. Really, it’s just such a variety. My goal is to always try to minimize expenses. The biggest challenge is trying to not let my nutrition suffer too much because of it.

How do you keep your expenses low?

I try to not spend money if I don’t absolutely have to. I stay with friends, family, people from Couchsurfing and have started doing hotel write-ups. A lot of times, friends and family give you food. They’re nice like that. That helps you save money. Hitchhiking has helped. I just started doing that more frequently at the end of last year. Recently, I’ve been putting up my Iraq hitchhiking posts.

Have you had any major problems on your travels?

I wouldn’t call them major. Getting ripped off by a taxi driver and his compatriots in Chile, which then got me on the biggest investigative journalism show in Chile. I’ve never had my life really threatened, never got beaten up or successfully mugged. In Chile, I stupidly had my money belt in my pocket. That story is here. And then there was the time at the Peru-Ecuador border…

How long do you plan on continuing this lifestyle?

My lifestyle is in flux. I’m moving away from the in-one-place English teaching and moving toward freelance writing and social media management. It’s really unclear if I’ll be spending time in Los Angeles or having enough work on the road that staying in one place doesn’t make sense.

What are your future plans for earning an income?

The hope is to earn more than just free stuff from blogging. Dunno how plausible that is. If I do spend more time in LA, I might make an effort with entertainment, too.

Do you have any advice for aspiring world travelers?

Know what you can handle in terms of creature comforts. Don’t try to drive yourself crazy being on a budget you can’t handle, but if you need to be staying at nice hotels and carrying lots of stuff with you, you’ll probably have to scale down your plans. Or just fall into debt, which I don’t recommend.

Here’s a plug: Travel Talk on Twitter. I help run a weekly Twitter event where we have five questions about a travel topic and anyone can tweet their answers. It’s every Tuesday at 9:30 AM/PM GMT. Great place to share/get ideas. And a lot of people seem to come out of it with potential plans for new places.

Links

RoniWeiss.com
Roni On Location (Roni’s YouTube travel web series.)
Follow Roni on Twitter
Facebook page
Political podcast: dontworry.tv or look for Don’t Worry About The Government (or Roni Weiss) on iTunes

Don’t have enough money to travel? Raam Dev went on a six month trip after bankruptcy, living on about $500 per month. He then went on to coordinate an ebook, Small Ways to Make a Big Difference, with 40 contributing authors that has been downloaded 27,000 times. He is another great example of what can be accomplished with the right mindset, talent and hardwork. Raam Dev is a fantastic writer with thoughtful and inspiring blog posts. I highly recommend subscribing to his blog at raamdev.com.

Please tell us about yourself.

In my late teens I decided to skip college and focus on building a career in the IT industry. Self-directed education wasn’t new to me: I had been home-schooled my entire childhood and began teaching myself at the 8th grade when my parents became too busy with the growing family business.

Technology has always come naturally for me so a career in the IT industry seemed like the best opportunity. I have since held titles like Lead Support Engineer and Software Developer. Although technology is what I’m good at, what I truly love is spending time outdoors, exploring the natural world, and traveling.

For most of my life, I followed opportunity in exchange for following my dreams. I listened to the advice of my elders and worked hard to secure a good job and build a fat bank account. But those were never goals that interested me. Getting rich or finding a high paying job weren’t my dreams. They were what society was telling me my dreams should be.

You started traveling after going bankrupt, didn’t you need a lot of savings to get started?

I bought my first real estate investment property a month before my 21st birthday with a $15k down-payment and a great first-time home buyer program. Using the rapidly increasing equity of my first property, I bought another rental property. A year after that I bought a third property.

Traveling the world was always something I wanted to do, but I never felt that I had enough money to do it. It was my hope that these real estate investments would give me the financial security I needed to start traveling in my late 30s and early 40s.

A few years later I was hit hard by the 2007 mortgage crisis in the United States. I managed to sell one of the properties but lost the other two to foreclosure. The following year I filed for bankruptcy. I suddenly found myself with new opportunities: I had no major debt to pay off and I was no longer tied down.

The bankruptcy encouraged me to get rid of unnecessary possessions and simplify my life. I began looking more seriously at what it would cost to fulfill my lifelong dream and start traveling the world. I discovered that I didn’t need very much if I went to a third world country and lived simply. In my research, I found other bloggers who were traveling and living in many places on $250-$500 a month.

So I sold my gas-guzzling pickup truck for $1,200 and bought a round-trip plane ticket to India. I quit my job with about $1,500 in the bank and $2,000 in savings. With that in mind, I set a budget of $250 a month for six months ($1,500) and decided to use whatever was in my savings for backup funding.

Not going on this trip and waiting until I had saved more money felt riskier than not going at all, so I wasn’t too worried about having a big safety net.

What countries did you visit on your first six months of travel?

I spent the first three months in India, slowly making my way over land from Bangalore in the south to Delhi in the north. I then flew to Vietnam to tag along with a friend and his Vietnamese wife for two weeks as they visited family in Saigon and Hue.

Then I flew to Nepal and spent two months in Kathmandu and Pokhara, trekking in the Annapurna region of the Himalayan mountains and visiting a non-profit who invited me to tour their project sites. They were helping build schools in remote Himalayan villages for children who would otherwise have no access to education.

My return flight departed from India, so I flew back to Delhi and spent another two weeks in India before flying back to the United States.

How much money did you actually spend on your six months of travel?

My plan was to spend six months, exploring three countries, on a total budget of $3,000 (that amount included my round-trip ticket to India). To show how this was possible, I began keeping a very detailed record of exactly where my money went each day. At the end of each month, I compiled and published a report of my expenses and described how I lived and traveled for that month.

Although my original budget was $3,000, I ended up spending a total of $5,102.67 for the entire trip. I attribute the extra cost to eating at restaurants when I could’ve made my own food, occasionally traveling by plane when I could’ve gone overland, and otherwise not making a consistent effort to be frugal.

I have no doubt that I could do the same thing again on $3,000 and the Frugal Travel Reports show how that’s possible.

Did you have health insurance coverage on your travels?

Nope, no health insurance coverage. Before I left, I had researched and read lots of horror stories of people who would’ve died if they didn’t have coverage. But the truth was, I couldn’t afford it. Even a few hundred dollars would be cutting way into my budget.

Instead of getting insurance, I spent my money getting vaccines and malaria pills. Since I hadn’t planned on doing anything particularly risky and I already considered myself fairly healthy, going without insurance was a chance I was willing to take.

Did you have any serious travel problems?

Throughout most of India, you can find people who speak at least some English. Signs are often written in English and people are very friendly and welcoming.

However, when I got off the train in the city of Surat to find a bus that would take me to Udaipur, it was as if I had gotten off in a different country. Not a single sign was in English, the people seemed less friendly, and even the ticket attendants and bus station officials didn’t (or wouldn’t) speak English. Everybody seemed to ignore me.

It was the first time on my trip where I really felt alone, confused, and incapable of finding my way around. I’m sure my experience was very localized: It was late at night and I was at a bus station where lots of people from different areas were in a rush to get somewhere. Thankfully, an English-speaking young man noticed how confused I was and helped me out.

Besides that one incident, I got sick probably 30-40 times during the entire six months. It was mostly travelers diarrhea, which I was able to remedy with antibiotics whenever it lasted for more than two days. I was eating at local restaurants and drinking the tap water in smaller towns because I really couldn’t afford to buy bottled water for six months. I knew I would get sick and I was prepared for it.

There was only one time I got sick where it felt more serious than travelers diarrhea (I had a high fever, nausea, dizziness, diarrhea) and that happened on my third or fourth week in India when I was living on a remote farm in the jungle. Just as I was considering admitting myself to the hospital, I got better.

I also had a near miss towards the end of my trip: Originally I had planned to cross into India overland from Nepal. My planned route took me through the city of Gorakhpur to catch a train to the mountain station of Darjeeling. Instead of going overland, I decided to fly straight to Delhi.

A few days after landing in India, I read a news story about a rare Japanese encephalitis outbreak in the town of Gorakhpur on the exact same day I would’ve been going through the city. Japanese encephalitis is one of the vaccines I skipped because it wasn’t common in any of the areas I was visiting.

Did you have an apartment or place to live on your return to the US?

A few months before I went to India, I left my apartment and moved in with my parents to save money on rent. Now that I’m back from India, I’m temporarily living with my parents again and doing what I can to help with the bills. Living expenses in the Northeast United States are astronomical compared with other parts of the world and it doesn’t make sense to get an apartment when I know I’ll be moving on soon.

How have your minimalism backpacking experiences changed your life back in the US now?

I’m definitely spending less and looking at life much differently. Seeing how incredibly simple millions of people are living every day makes you feel incredibly grateful for something as luxurious as a MacBook Pro and a latte.

I’ve decided to remain a digital nomad indefinitely. Being a nomad in the United States is a bit more challenging, but I’m committed to living out of my backpack. I refuse to buy a car, rent an apartment, get a full or part-time job, or do anything else that might tie me down again.

How do you earn an income now?

When I got back to the United States, my previous employer offered me a short-term contract that will last until the end of January. I’ve also been accepting any online freelance work that comes up (PHP programming, WordPress customization, ebook design/layout; contact me if you need something).

Those two things have kept me on my feet for the past few months. I’ve been setting aside as much money as possible for my next trip, which will be somewhere cheap (I might even go back to India) so that I can lay low and focus on business development.

My long-term goal is to support myself through my writing, so with that in mind I’m starting SustainableGuides.com, a business separate from my blog where I can provide digital products. My blog is a personal space and it doesn’t feel right to monetize there.

I’ve also been running a web hosting business for the past few years, but profitability has never been a primary focus. The focus of that business is to provide friends with a trusted hosting option and to occasionally feed my love for diving into technology.

Please tell us about your popular ebook, Small Ways to Make a Big Difference.

My journey through India brought me very close to the extreme poverty and inequality that exists there (over 500 million people below the poverty line). I felt something inside pulling me towards that problem, quietly nudging me to think about how I could help them. But what could I do? I was a poor traveler with no money and no influential political power. I felt hopeless.

Then one day I realized that the world changes not by the actions of a few, but by the tiny choices made by each individual. I also realized that everybody, no matter how well off they are, wants to do good things and help in a small way.

With that, I started the Small Ways to Make a Big Difference project and sent an email to about 50 bloggers asking them to describe a few things they do to make a difference — things they felt improve their lives and the lives of others.

The goal of the project was to provide a downloadable resource of inspiration that people could use to get ideas for small ways to make a difference. I didn’t have money or power to help millions of suffering people in India, but I could at least create something that would help push the world in that direction.

The project was a success. In less than three weeks, over 40 bloggers contributed more than 100 ways to make a difference. The following six months saw the ebook downloaded more than 27,000 times. I’ve received reports of it being printed and passed around in remote villages in Africa and people from all over the world have emailed in to thank me for compiling and publishing it.

Has it changed the world and brought world peace? Definitely not. But it was a start. It helped me take the first step towards doing something with my life that will benefit others and nudge the world in a better direction.

Do you have plans for more long-term travel?

After my six month trip, I feel certain that travel will always be a huge part of my life. I plan to live out of a backpack indefinitely and stay light on my feet so that I can continue traveling and exploring the world. Most importantly, I’ve realized that I want to use my love for travel to inspire others to see the world as a whole… as one big family.

We need to take care of each other and share our abundance with those who need it. That abundance could mean anything: Money, knowledge, resources, experiences, perspectives. We need to work towards a world of sustainable abundance and aim for a future worthy of looking up to.

Do you have any advice for people considering long-term travel or escaping a consumption oriented lifestyle?

Stop procrastinating and coming up with excuses. Set a date and make a list of exactly what you need to do between now and then (sell x number of things, notify landlord/boss that I’m leaving, tell friends/family that I’m going, buy a plane ticket, GO). Then get the ball rolling by taking one of the big steps. For me, that was notifying my boss that I would be leaving the country in three months.

Once I got that first big ball rolling, everything else started moving on its own. Telling friends and family that January would be my last month as an employee and that I’d be leaving the country in March helped move everything else along. It became exciting to see friends and family for the first time in a few weeks and wait for them to ask, “So what’s up?”. Hearing their responses to what I was doing was like adding fuel to a fire.

Think about your possessions as little anchors that tie you down (that includes the debt you own). The fewer of those you have, the more free you are to make decisions. Every time you’re about to spend money, ask yourself exactly what matters to you. Does traveling the world matter more than drinking a nice latte every day? Does exploring the Himalayan mountains matter more than your cable TV subscription?

Set your priorities and then compare those to what you’re doing and what you own. If they don’t match, work towards correcting the discrepancy. Life is too short — too full of beauty and adventure — to waste it by filling our lives with unnecessary junk. It’s not the material possessions and the social status that add real value to our lives, it’s the experiences we have and the people we meet.

Links

Raam Dev is a writer, changemaker and digital nomad. He writes about sustainable abundance and practical minimalism on raamdev.com. You can join his Community of Passionate Changemakers and follow him on Twitter and Facebook.

Hungarian Goulash on an Open Fire

Motoko and I have made it to Hungary. Hungary is my father’s home country and I still have a lot of family here. I first visited when I was 5 years old and have returned many times. It really is astonishing how rapidly the country has developed in my lifetime.

Hungary in the Good Old Days

Some thirty plus years ago, Hungary was still in control of the communist U.S.S.R. This meant severe restrictions on everything we take for granted. It was impossible to travel to western countries because passports were only valid for communist block countries.

My father escaped in the 1956 revolution. Even though his escape wasn’t politically motivated, deserters were still viewed as traitors for a long time. It was 18 years before he was able to return to visit his family.

In order to buy a car, you had to pay a sizeable downpayment and apply for a number which indicated your order in the queue. The list of numbers was published in the Sunday newspaper so that everyone could track how long it would take to get a car. My uncle had to wait for six years in order to get his first vehicle. Needless to say, the Sunday newspaper was met with great anticipation. The only available cars were Soviet Ladas and East German Trabants. Until recently, you could see these old vehicles commonly broke down on the side of roads.

There was one small store in my father’s village. Everyday at around 3:00 P.M., the bread truck would arrive from the closest city. There were two choices; brown or white bread. Families would often send a child to wait at the store until the bread truck arrived. Not getting there early enough meant waiting another day for bread.

The only soda pops were Coke and Fanta Orange. When I was a child, the deposit on the bottle was equal to the price of the drink, 3 forints or about 5 cents. It was about 1/12th the Canadian price at the time.

In order to take a hot bath, they had to put hot coals under a water tank to heat it up. It took so much time and work that our entire family used the same bath water.

Most houses had pigs and chickens in the backyard. I still remember the frequent squeal of pigs as they were slaughtered in the mornings at various houses around the village.

Twice daily, cows were walked on the main road through the town to and from their grazing grounds. I loved watching 20 or 30 cows slowly walk through town everyday.

It is Not My Father’s Hungary Anymore.

The last decade in particular has brought huge changes to Hungary. There are the gigantic western supermarkets like Tesco, Auchan and Cora. If you were transported to one of the numerous modern shopping malls, you would probably have difficulty telling which country you were in. Now the coffee chains like Starbucks and Costa are popping up everywhere.

You can really see the affluence everywhere. Five years ago, expensive western cars started really becoming common. Now you won’t have much difficulty spotting a BMW, Volvo or even Porche.

The last three years have seen a massive explosion in high end sporting equipment. It seems like everyone has expensive bicycles and high end sports clothes.

The number of bus and boat tours for out of country visitors also have sky-rocketed. Backpackers can often be seen on every street in downtown Budapest now.

What does Rapid Westernization Really Bring?

I think there are two important lessons to learn from all of this ‘advancement.’ First, we really should appreciate just how comfortable and good life has become. Perhaps you have never seen empty store shelves or had to endure much hardship in your life, but your grandparents or great-grandparents certainly did. I don’t think we really understand how good our lives are now. We live in amazing times.

The second is sad and troubling; authentic traditional cultures around the world are disappearing. The influx of western ideas and goods are crowding out local cultures. Across Europe the most common foods are pizza, hamburgers, french fries and donairs. Over-sized shopping malls all over the world sell the same brands as your own country. Tourists are more likely to visit McDonald’s  than try traditional local food.

It is great that the world is advancing at an increasing pace, but I don’t feel that the ‘advancement’ is always a positive step forward. We are becoming more globalized and interconnected but that also means homogenized and commercial. It is amazing that we can fly across the world for only a week or two of salary, but do we really want to arrive only to eat a Big Mac and buy tourist kitsch? The time to travel is now, because in a decade or so foreign countries won’t be much different than your home town.

Who says Lifestyle Design is Easy?

My wife and I made it out of Japan. It has been almost one year since  my wife and I made a one year plan to leave Japan and begin a new career. We did it!

Lifestyle Design is Hard Work!

It was a lot of work and will still require a massive effort to keep moving forward but we committed and made it happen. We sold our business and car. Got rid of most of our possessions. Cleared out our house and started to get it ready to rent out. In particular, the last few weeks prior to departure were extremely busy and stressful.

Getting all the necessary paperwork, finishing up everything in Japan and liquidating all of our possessions was a phenomenal amount of effort. It was much more work then we imagined. The last week was the most stressful. So many things had to be done that we were sleeping for only a few hours per day. After a couple weeks of sleep deprivation and a 9 hour stop-over in Tokyo, it took about a week to get back to a regular sleep pattern. I will be more regular with my blog posts and connecting in the future, Internet connections permitting. I have finally reclaimed my Twitter account after it was hacked. Again I apologize for all of those spam DMs.

We prepared for months to leave Japan, but we never fully realized just how many things needed to be completed before departure. My wife and I were hoping to spend a relaxing night at the airport hotel in Osaka before the night of our flight but we were busy packing, cleaning and organizing right up to the last minute. We didn’t make it to the airport until after 11:00 PM and had to wake up at 5:30 the next morning.

Actually, we didn’t even completely finish. Fortunately, my wife’s sister helped immensely in cleaning out the house and dealing with the real estate company that will rent it out. As with most things in life, it is great to get help. We couldn’t have done it with out her. Thanks Noriko!

Minimalism with a lot of Stuff

I would like to say that we managed to condense our life down into just a couple of bags but that would be a lie. We gave away all of our furniture, but we still have many boxes of personal possessions in storage at my wife’s parent’s house just in case we ever decide to return to Japan. It is too hard to eliminate everything from our lives.

We were about 20kg over-weight with our luggage but managed to hide it when boarding the flights. Thankfully, Japan and Canada are not as strict as the US for carry-on luggage.

My Future Work

Now that we have finally recuperated it is time to get busy building the next stage of our life. It is such a strange feeling to be traveling but not be on vacation. This is our life now. We have a feeling of urgency to progress with our lives, yet we are no longer under any timelines or restrictions. I still haven’t come to terms with the notion this vacation is not going to end.

I am now blogging about business trends, idea and creativity at IdeaEconomy.net as well. If any of you are interested in those topics please make your way over to my new site. I would love some comments and encouragement.

I also am planning on changing the format of JetSetCitizen. There are many great blogs on lifestyle design and travel so I am not sure I want to continue writing about those topics. If there is anything you would like to read about please let me know in the comments or by email. I would love to hear from all of you even if it is only a ‘Hello!”

I hope to hear from you soon.

Is this Lifestyle Design? (by PabloPM)

Most people seem to associate lifestyle design with an easy life. Perhaps the most common ideas are about quitting your job to travel the world while working only a few hours a week. That is great, I want that life for a while too, but I feel it is more of a longer vacation then a life plan. What do you do after you get bored of living out of a suitcase? Where do you find meaning in your life? What is next?

If you are working in a boring dead-end job doing something you hate, I can understand that your primary focus is to stop-working. Quitting your job to focus on your own personal freedom and entertainment can be essential to re-inventing yourself. It may be absolutely necessary for a short-time, allowing you to recharge your energy, clear your thinking and devise a way to make your mark in the world. I am personally looking forward to a break from my own business just because I have been doing it for more than 10 years now and I have lost interest. However, I won’t be able to roam around the world for too long with out going crazy. It usually takes me about a week or so on vacation until I start itching to move forward on my business or personal ideas.

The Age of Affluence

We live in amazing times; we have almost unlimited opportunities to earn income and the price of goods and services are cheaper than ever.  There are real options to live inexpensively and exist on only part-time working hours. It is no longer a dream, people all over the world are proving that it is a real and relatively easily achievable goal. So is that the purpose of life, to just exist, working as little as possible? I don’t believe the quality of our lives is measured by how little work we do or how many parties we go to. There has to be something more. Something bigger than just a life of ease and entertainment.

The Decline of Consumerism

I think I am safe to assume that rampant consumerism has been taken to an extreme. We consume too much, pollute too much and work too much in jobs without meaning or real challenge. So the first step is cutting back on our purchases. Give up the new car every two years. Stop upgrading the size of your house. Don’t buy the third 50 inch TV? With the money you save, work less, take an extended sabbatical, travel the world and generally turn your mind back on again. But then what?

What do you do after you are managing to live on a 4 or 14 hour workweek? What do you do after you have traveled the world for a couple of years? What do you do when you are sick of working on passive income opportunities that fail to inspire you? What is next?

Is quality of life about 4 hour workweeks?

Do you want your doctor and dentist to be working four hour workweeks? How about teachers, nurses, care-workers, public servants? What kind of a world would we have if everyone focused on working as little as possible? I don’t want my favorite restaurants and cafes to only be open 4 hours a week. I don’t want airports and hotels open only part time. The world would come to a stand still if everyone were working as little as possible.

Bill Gates has devoted his life and his fortune to solving some of the biggest problems in the world. He could buy an island and every luxury imaginable and sit on the beach for the rest of his life, yet he strives to do good things in the world. Does the rock star Bono focus on minimizing the amount of work he does every week? How about Mother Theresa and Ghandi? Did they choose the easy way?

I believe excellent living is about finding ways to contribute as much as possible to society. It is not about taking as much as you can with as little effort as possible. How about a 60 hour work week where we are all striving to create as much value for our fellow global citizens as we can on our short time on this planet?

Lifestyle Design is Not New

There have always been people have always been living unconventional lives. For centuries, maybe longer, a small percentage of people have been choosing their own paths in life. Peasant farmers in China are designing their own lives when they give up rural life to work in factories in cities. Our ancestors did the same thing during the industrial revolution.

Devoting your life to volunteer projects around the world is also lifestyle design. There are thousands of people around the world that have given up comfortable and secure western lifestyles to aid disadvantaged people around the world.

Joining the military and being stationed overseas has to be the most extreme mode of lifestyle design. Risking your life to protect the lives of others is a conscious lifestyle design choice that millions of military personnel around the world have made.

The World Needs More People to Rise Up to the Challenge

You can focus your time on building passive income streams to survive in low wage countries, or you can work to help put disadvantaged children through school. You can spend your energy pumping out niche sites to market affiliate programs or you can work to feed the millions of starving people in the world. You can work on the next Silicon Valley start up with plans of cashing out big, or you can skip the fast cars and expensive networking events and just start working on something that has the power to change the world.

Certainly there are many people doing great things in the world now, we just need more. If lifestyle design is about minimizing work hours and pursuing a life of hedonism, than I am blogging about the wrong topic. What do you think “lifestyle design” is about?

I am better than you.

Most of us can agree the consumerism of developed countries has gone a little mad. There has to be a better score card for life than the quantity of possessions you buy. And yet, we keep consuming.

This really is a difficult issue because consumption is not necessarily bad. Possessions make our lives easier and often better. There is that imaginary line that is presumably too much but demarcating that line is extremely difficult.

Extreme excess is easy to point out. Automobile industry executives flying in their corporate jets to ask for billion dollar government bailouts after years of mismanagement comes to mind. However, most of us do not make multi-million dollar salaries and have extravagant lifestyles.

How much is too much for the little guy on the street? Even the most ardent environmentalists have to fly sometimes, purchase clothes, drive cars and consume. Is it decadent for a concert musician to own a million dollar violin when that instrument is so integral to their art? Am I a lessor person because I bought the new 17″ MacBookPro when my old computer was still chugging along?

It is easy for backpackers to shun possessions and live a minimalist lifestyle, because it is impossible to do anything else. You can’t carry a leather sofa around the world with you. However, the vast majority of us live more stationary lifestyles, which tends to facilitate the accumulation of things. Lots and lots of things. A little consumption is unavoidable, we just have to be careful not to get too carried away.

Consumption can’t be a rational metric for judging our success on this planet. It is just too debased. So what else is there. Is tracking how many countries you have visited better? Perhaps success can be measured by how much you contribute to charities? That would leave the wealth titans like Bill Gates at the top of the heap by any measure.

Perhaps the more noble minded of us will suggest that we are judged by the company we keep. Our connections to family and friends are really the only path to happiness and a quality life. Perhaps we should evaluate the quality of our lives by how many followers we have on Twitter or how many friends on we keep on Facebook?

What about contribution and leaving the world in a better place? Are people who volunteer better than people that don’t? Maybe the cumulative number of hours spent helping others should be tallied so that history can compare our impact on this tiny planet?

The problem with most measures of personal value is that they are relative. It is not the total that is important, it is how much better you are than your peers.  Whether you have a more expensive car or recycle more than me doesn’t make you a better person. So what does make you a better person? Most of us can see the problems of competing to have a better car or bigger house, but what about competing to consume less or contribute more?  Maybe competition isn’t so bad after all?

Personally, I feel that the greatest contribution an individual can make regardless of their station in life is to consume less and give more. Of course, I am talking about wealthier people living in advanced nations. Lasting happiness can only come from breaking free of one-up-man-ship, and living our lives in ways that we are comfortable with as individuals. The problem is that I personally find it hard not to compare myself with others. It is not good enough to be personally satisfied, I want to be better than others. What change in thinking is required to give up those attachments?

How do you measure success? I would love to hear your ideas.

Productivity Secrets Revealed!

Here is my guide on how to enjoy and succeed in every area of your life. If you do not get the results you want following these ideas, you may want to consider doing the opposite.

Work
Get a job you hate. That way you have something to complain about to your friends.
Don’t work hard or put in more than the absolute minimum to keep employed; you don’t want to risk getting accidentally promoted.
Never start your own business. That is for those enterpr….intreprineuters… iprenerurs… you know those French people. Those guys are crazy.

Debt
Debt is your friend. The more debt you get into, the more purchases you can make. If you get good at acquiring debt, you may even be eligible for a government bailout. Your motto should be, “too big to fail!”

Consumption
When you go shopping try to remember these key words: “bigger” and “more.” Learn to super-size your life.
If you don’t have the cash, go back to the previous step, “debt is your friend.”
Buy lots of stuff you don’t need because someday you might.
If you have trouble choosing, close your eyes and point to random things.

Play
Watch lots of TV so you can use up all those excess hours in the day and you can also get good ideas about what to buy and eat.

Health
Don’t exercise. That takes work and you even after to shower afterward. It is much better if you feel lazy and sick all the time because it is a great excuse to watch more TV.

Education
My uncle’s friend’s brother’s acquaintance’s cousin dropped out of junior high school and look where he is now.
Don`t do it! Studying, reading, knowledge. Yuck! Enough said.

Love
The best relationships are those where you suck as much energy from your partner as possible. People are to be used.
Never give compliments and it helps if you complain a lot.
Try starting all sentences with, “You are so…..” and “You are too….”

Family
You probably never wanted to have kids anyway, so try not to spend too much time with them.
Television is the best parent. It did us perfectly fine.
If your kids whine a lot, give them whatever they want. It is easier to buy things than spend time with children.

Travel
It is best to wait until you are retired to travel. That way you might die or get sick and not have to go to some strange country that doesn’t even speak English.
If you do go, make sure you choose a place with lots of fast food restaurants. Why would you try some exotic food when you have McDonald’s?
Don’t bother to learn foreign languages. That is a waste of time. If the locals don’t understand you, just speak in a louder voice.

The Environment
You are only one person so what difference does it make how much you pollute and consume. You can’t solve all the world’s problems so don’t waste your time worrying about it.
Besides if everything is as bad as scientists say, then the world will be gone in a few more decades anyway. Abuse nature now before it is all gone.

P.S. Hopefully, some of you will recognize a hint of sarcasm in this post. This is what passes as my limited sense of humor.

Rocking in Australia

My cousin Trevor Stefiuk is the perfect embodiment of the ideas behind JetSetCitizen. He had a well paying job, a nice house and a decent life in Canada, but he gave it all up to pursue his dreams on the other side of the world in Australia.  This is lifestyle design at its finest. Moving to Australia took years of effort and waiting to secure the visa, with the move costing a  significant amount of money. In Australia, he went back to school to further develop his skills in his life long passion of music. Now he is self-employed recording local musicians, playing guitar in a couple of bands and even giving music lessons. Trevor is a professional striving for excellence in a career he loves. He moved to a warm country to have the weather and quality of life he wanted. Trevor is a Jet Set Citizen. Here is an interview that I hope will provide some inspiration for others considering a major career change.

What were you doing before you became a JetSetCitizen?
Well John, in the 24 years since I left high school I’ve worked as a musician, sound Engineer, millwright and power lineman. I reckon that varied work experience has gone a long way to bringing me to where I am now. The powerline trade certification that I have was my main source of income for almost 16 years. For those that don’t know what a powerlineman is, we work on the high voltage lines and equipment that make up the electrical grid that gets the power to your house. My specialty in this trade was working the lines energized. It’s called “liveline” work in the trade.

Why weren’t you happy in that profession? What was missing from your life?
The powerline trade is a physically and mentally demanding job that can be fatal if you have a bad day on the job. I learned over the years to really think about what I was doing, but I also learned that not everyone you work with shares that same mind set. This can be a bit disconcerting when working with electricity. In my time  doing this trade, I have had six close calls that could have ended my life. These close calls were caused by factors out of my control. The risk/reward ratio in this profession wasn’t worth it for me.

I am a stubborn sort so I did this job for as long as I did to prove to myself that I could do a job most people can’t or won’t do. The part that was missing for me was a real satisfaction and peace about where my life was going if I continued on in this trade. I looked around me at work and saw most of my co-workers to be bitter, arrogant, aging prematurely and generally in a state of mind and being that I didn’t want anything to do with.

What sacrifices and risks did you make in order to get to where you are today?
In Canada, my wife and I had secure jobs with pensions, a nice new house, new vehicles and the freedom to do lots of fun stuff and not worry about how to pay for it. For some this might be the goal to work towards. We unfortunately did not get satisfaction from this life.

The accumulation of stuff, the ability to get more in debt and pay more taxes had lost it’s appeal. We wanted a somewhat simpler life with a better lifestyle. Less consumerism, capitalism and waiting for retirement and a lot more living in the now. It took almost two years for us to get a permanent immigration visa. It has cost us thousands of dollars to relocate and get re- established with no guarantee of success. You leave friends and family half a world away and you end up going to a country where you know no one. Some of our family and friends said we were crazy for starting down this path. I reckon that from the outside view of what we were doing it did look a bit odd.

When you completely up root your life and move to Australia there has to be a willingness to not be afraid and trust that if you make the effort you will have some success. Fear is mankind’s greatest enemy and I can say that it came up in our thoughts at times. If you succumb to fear you will never live your life. Who wants that? I certainly didn’t.

What advice would you offer for others pursuing the same career objectives?
As I said before, don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid to step out of your comfort zone. Don’t be afraid to give anything a go. Don’t be afraid to fail even. Don’t be afraid!!!
On a practical note. Plan as well as you can. There is no strategist that can account for every possibility, look at the Yanks and Iraq for example, but at this stage in your life you should know a bit about yourself. Plan for your strengths and weaknesses and plan for the stuff you didn’t think you had in you. A big move and career change requires an open mind. Do not expect everything to be the same as it was back home. For example, did you know that radar detectors are illegal here in Queensland? That little known fact in Canada cost me $ 235 AU the first week we were here. The radar detector came with the vehicle I bought second hand and the previous owner didn’t bother to mention they were not allowed. Oh well, live and learn. Information is key to having a decent time of it no matter what country you settle in. Don’t be afraid to ask questions of the locals. You will be surprised at the help that can be offered to you.

Do you have any regrets about leaving Canada and your old job? (lost friends, income, etc.)
With all honesty, not one regret. In hindsight, I would have liked to have planned a few things better here and there. That is part of the learning curve on any adventure. Again, live and learn.
With online communications being what they are today you can maintain relevant contact with friends and loved ones easily. You will also make some great new friends in your new location.
Jobs can and will be replaced. I reckon the days of working your whole career at one spot are dying as quickly as the the record companies. If you have skills and are happy to get involved in your new home, you will do well. My wife Shelley has had a dream job for the last 2 1/2 years. She is doing something she would have never ever thought of on her own, but through some hard work on her end and having some relevant skills she was able to have this happen for her.

For myself, I am doing some really cool and diverse things in the music business. Things I thought were left in my twenties. We are amazed at the way life has gone for us. We couldn’t have planned it so good. For us, I think the key thing has been attitude. Sure you are going to have shit days, they come and go, but, if you can maintain a genuine gratitude for life and joy in the day you have NOW, things will come out good for you.

Links
THS Audio for studio and live sound engineering in Australia
Brixton Rockers on Myspace