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 long time but we finally sold it a few of months ago.  Getting rid of the house will save us a lot of money every month so we are happy to lose that expense, but it also makes it difficult to return to Japan. Japan is still our home base for bank accounts, taxes, credit cards, etc. so we will return, however that will probably wait until the nuclear crisis is resolved.

In a previous post, I wrote about the idea of creating a Digital Nomad Network of accommodations to share with other location independents but only a handful of people were interested. I have a few possible locations arranged, but I think it will have to be a more closed group with close friends and family.

The Case Against Location Independence

My wife and I have been based out of Calgary, Canada for the last 5 months and it has been great to be able to build some connections and friendships. The Internet is great to connect with like-minded people, but nothing beats real world meet ups. It is a lot of work, but I have been trying to meet with several new people every week. This has been a fantastic source of ideas, new connections and even work opportunities.

If you are thinking of doing freelance work while traveling, I highly recommend building strong local connections in your home city. You can earn a lot more money selling your services to people who trust you, than to compete anonymously with the thousands of others offering the same services online.

Life is Good

Overall, life is fantastic. I can easily earn enough money to cover all of our expenses in a couple of hours per day. We are eating lots of healthy, home cooked meals, spending time with friends and family, cycling a lot, exercising everyday, and generally living a completely stress free life.

How our Lives have Changed

We no longer have the new car, big house, latest electronics and endless useless household gadgets, but that is a good thing. We also have no pressure to work. We are no longer spending our time shopping, maintaining the goods we have, or worrying about what to buy next. Less stuff really does mean more life.

Owning a house meant working in the yard, shopping for furniture and other household items, cleaning, taxes and a general mental focus geared towards possessions. Now all of those obligations and pressures are gone.

Not having a car means much less monthly expenses, not getting stressed out in traffic, more opportunities to walk and cycle. Even taking public transportation has become enjoyable. It is great to listen to an audio book while taking the bus and not have to worry about driving.

We are not sure what the future will bring, but we are not anxious to alter our current lifestyle either. Life is good.

Here is a fantastic opportunity to help out with a great cause, enter a raffle to win some amazing personal and business development resources and get 17 author interviews just for promoting the cause on Twitter or Facebook. Before you continue reading, please take a moment to visit this Kidney Raffle Page and help spread the news.

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 parts of the world is a great way to travel because you can continue working and building your career while you travel, and you’re a part of a the community rather than just experiencing the obvious tourist attractions.

My husband is a software development consultant so it’s been fairly easy for him to get contractual work in the UK, South Africa and Canada, and he now works for a very progressive global consultancy that keeps him stimulated with dynamic projects. I started out in Child Protection Social Work and moved into self-employment in a variety of different training, coaching and counseling roles in 2005. At the end of 2008, I took my business online and since then I’ve focused on creating online personal development resources to help people take action on the best ideas in the best personal development books (at www.bottomlinebookclub.com) and offering life and career coaching consults via Skype (at www.agileliving.net).

What is South Africa like?

It’s often only through visiting other places that you’re able to see what makes the place you were born in unique. South Africa’s uniqueness is in it’s rich diversity and multi-dimensionality. It’s a bridge between developed countries and undeveloped countries because South Africa is such a wonderful mix of first and third world.

Of course, if you’re living and working in South Africa, this creates incredibly complex and interesting problems to solve, because we have both the worst of the developed world’s problems (like lifestyle diseases such as obesity, heart disease, kidney disease, and extreme opulence, selfishness and greed) and also the worst of the undeveloped world’s problems (like lack of housing and sanitation, unemployment, illiteracy, HIV/AIDS and so on). When you consider this, together with the 50 years of Apartheid and separate development that took place in our recent history, it’s easy to see how racism and crime has thrived in some pockets of South Africa.

But this diversity and multi-dimensionality also makes for incredibly interesting solutions, inventions, art and design, music, storytelling, community development projects and unexpected surprises. You can go to a remote, rural place like Bulungula, on the East coast of South Africa, and find pristine, beautiful beaches (in spite of the high population and poverty rates in the area) and great 3G internet connection (in spite of the fact that 70% of the people living there are unemployed, literacy rates are high and there’s very little income). They’re doing amazing things to bring together the best of first and third world at Bulungula. Beyond the eco-friendly lodge, they’ve helped the community start a number of 100% community-owned and run businesses including agricultural ventures, horse riding, canoeing, fishing, guiding, baking, sewing, cooking, wood-carving, environmental protection projects, massage services and a restaurant. My favourite was the bicycle powered blender at the lodge, where you can have a morning cycle and make your breakfast smoothie at the same time! They’ve helped the community to form a non-profit called the Bulungula Incubator, which has rehabilitated a local primary school, built and run our world class Early Learning Centre, embarked on a number of ambitious agricultural projects, implemented various clean drinking water initiatives and lots, lots more.

You’ll also find party experiences in South Africa that you just wouldn’t find anywhere else – like Mzoli’s butchery. Yes, in Cape Town, one of the most popular party spots is a butchery in the middle of a large shanty town called Gugulethu. They only sell meat and samp (a porridge-like substance made of corn). You buy your meat raw and they cook it for you over an open fire – if you want to be fancy and have salads, utensils, drinks and so on, then you bring your own! The place rocks all day – great party music, people come dressed in everything from their dirty overalls to their suit and shiniest bling, and we party together out on a dusty street sidewalk. You’ll mix with students, politicians, high-powered entrepreneurs, artists, tourists, unemployed drunks and more. I don’t think I’ve ever been anywhere that’s so “come-as-you-are” with so much mixing across different personal income statuses, skin colors, religions, ages, sexual preferences and so on.

So there are the pockets of high crime and awful racism in South Africa, but there are also these examples of diversity, love of difference, ground-breaking platforms for speaking of the truth, homegrown creativity, humor, technological innovation, new music genres and a willingness to innovate and just “get the job done” rather than faffing with bureaucratic rules and restrictions.

How did you end up in Calgary?

Our moves have usually been determined by 2 questions: is there stimulating work for us? And would we be exposed to different experiences? Andy got the opportunity to work for a great company and, being from South Africa, snow is a novelty to us, so we thought, “Hey, let’s go live in a very snowy place for a while…”

Was it easy for your husband to get the visa to work here?

When we came over to Canada in Feb 2010, there were specialist IT work permits that were easy to get, and he already had the job offer, which made it easier. In October last year Canadian immigration dropped this specialist IT work permit, so it’s now more difficult to get a work permit. South Africans generally have a tougher time getting permission to live and work in other countries than Canadians, Americans and Europeans do, but governments open and close their borders in reaction to economic changes so the visa opportunities change every few years. If you’re not self-employed, your best chance of being able to work in other countries rests on being a young degreed professional in a growing industry.

What do you think of Calgary?

For us the most important factor in determining whether we feel “at home” in a new city is the friendships we form. In Calgary we fairly quickly and easily found a few really excellent folks and formed strong friendships with them. We’re very proactive about seeking out and nurturing new friendships, but we also liked that many Calgarians seem to be quick to invite you into their homes for dinner (as opposed to meeting in pubs and restaurants like folks tend to do in London). I think this helps develop the intimacy and sense of community more quickly.

We also love the Rockies and often head out into the mountains. We’ve enjoyed the snow – it still amazes me how beautiful it is, and we’ve been enjoying snow-shoeing, snow-boarding, curling, and Andy’s joined a hockey team.

I do miss the diversity, multi-dimensionality and dynamism of South Africa and London though. In comparison, Calgary is fairly one-dimensional in terms of art, culture, work, design, architecture, lifestyle and food choices. I’ve also been surprised (and frustrated!) by the endless bureaucracy that has to be negotiated whenever we want to do anything in Canada. Getting anything done is slow because of the 6 to 12 month bureaucratic run-up that has to take place before you have the necessary permissions to test out new experiences. And chatting with a lot of our friends here who are new to Calgary, it seems difficult to first break into the Calgarian job market – Calgarian employers seem to strongly prefer people with Calgarian experience.

What is the Kidney Raffle that you are working on?

We’re running an online raffle from 7 till 9 June. Seth Godin, Martha Beck, Pam Slim, Danielle LaPorte, Adam Baker and 40 other top authors, coaches and teachers (including you – thanks, John!) have donated an array of personal and business development prizes totalling over $12K for raffle participants to stand a chance to win. It’s a “donate-what-you-wish-when-you-enter” raffle because we wanted to open it to anyone anywhere in the world, with any budget. We’ve set a goal to raise $45K for kidney research through the raffle.

Can you please tell us about your baby and personal health problems that lead up to the Kidney Raffle?

I have an hereditary kidney condition and last year while I was pregnant my kidney health deteriorated significantly, placing both my life and our daughter’s life at risk. We endured a lot of really difficult conversations with doctors who urged us to consider whether it was wise to continue the pregnancy, considering the risks. We were already in love with and totally changed by our daughter, so ending her life was just not an option for us. When we discovered these concerns for her and my well-being, the “Juggernaut” nickname we’d given her stuck, as we and all our friends and family hoped that she’d prove to be “an unstoppable force.”

But at around 5 months gestation, we discovered that her heart was no longer beating. I’ve written about the day we delivered, met and said goodbye to Juggernaut – both the best and worst day of our lives. Juggernaut was our first child and because of the risks involved in another pregnancy, we won’t try to get pregnant again, so it’s been a tough series of losses to deal with altogether – my health, our precious daughter, the chance to ever birth a child naturally.

How has all this changed you and your husband?

We’ve been changed in so many ways by the weird mix of the miracle of becoming parents and the trauma of being faced with our own mortality and the reality and mystery of death. I’ve actually had a personality change reflected in my Myers-Briggs profile. I used to be an INTJ and now I’m an INFJ, so I’ve shifted from making sense of the world and making decisions by way of rationality to relying more on emotional intelligence instead. That makes sense – I think both birth and death are so mysterious that it’s impossible to fully understand them and the experiences we had last year were impossible to manage or control with rationalism, so we were forced to learn to make decisions with our hearts.

Also, loving and losing Juggernaut opened up emotional worlds I had never experienced before and I seem to have a more intense emotional reaction to life these days. I’ve been surprised to find that, although I still sometimes experience deeper sadness than I ever though possible, I also often feel more peace, awe at simple things in life, and a greater capacity for compassion and love than I ever thought possible.

I think being faced with death and the heart-opening experience of growing and loving a child has made us realize the preciousness of life in a way that we didn’t feel before. And because of that, we’re much clearer about what’s important to us and much less willing to compromise on our values or be something that other people want us to be. Health, emotional wellness, community and contribution are our clear top priorities and we’re doing a much better job of living those priorities these days. The Kidney Raffle project has affirmed these priorities – the sense of community and contribution has been incredibly healing for me and I’m hearing from many folks who’ve been involved that it’s been really healing and helpful for them too.

Are traumatic events like this necessary to get people to focus on what is important in their lives?

Good question. There is a prevailing view in the personal development world that all traumatic events are actually “gifts” sent to you to help you be more of the person you’re meant to be. That perspective jars with me. As a Social Worker, and as a South African, I’ve lived and worked with many people who experienced trauma that did not make their lives better or help them to be more of the person they wanted to be – it broke them and made them mentally ill or awfully cruel instead.

I think what trauma does is it completely breaks our prevailing belief system – that’s part of what makes it so painful and shocking. At that point, there’s enormous potential as we begin to adapt and learn a new belief system, and we’re really at a fork in the road where we can let the breaking down of our old selves open our hearts more in love, or close our hearts more in fear. Through a lot of hard work and soul-searching, we can turn the trauma into treasure and learn a new belief system that’s much healthier and supports much more authentic future choices. But I don’t think that’s automatic.

The trauma itself is not the gift. The gifts are the resilience of the human spirit to be able to create treasure out of the bits of trauma, and the community that surrounds that person and supports them to do so.

As a life coach, what do you see as the biggest barriers holding people back from pursuing their dreams?

I’m a big fan of Brene Brown’s research and model for living a meaningful life. She says that the biggest thing that gets in the way of us pursuing our dreams and being the person we want to be is shame. I used to think it was just generally fear that got in the way, but I think she’s right in that all our fears essentially stem from two major fears: fear or failure and fear of rejection. And perhaps it’s really just one fear – the fear of rejection, because we fear failure only because we believe failure will mean we’re not good enough and we’ll be rejected by others.

Shame is both a social and individual dynamic – we shame each other and we shame ourselves, and the pain of feeling that shame demotivates us and disconnects us from our resourcefulness, creativity and confidence, and then we don’t pursue our dreams or be the person we want to be.

We’re held back by shame and to become more of the people we want to be and pursue our dreams, we need to develop what Brene calls “shame resilience,” where we build a lifestyle and daily habits that make us more able to protect ourselves from being shamed by ourselves and others. Building compassionate communities around us is a big part of building shame resilience – you can’t build shame resilience in isolation, because shame is partly a social dynamic.

What can readers do to support the Kidney Raffle?

Thanks for asking, John! There are 2 ways you can be a part of Kidney Raffle and make your contribution to the community:

1. 1. Join us from 7 to 9 June at Kidney Raffle and make a donation when you enter the raffle to stand a chance to win one of the awesome prize bundles.
2. 2. Help us spread the word about Kidney Raffle so that more people will contribute and we can reach our goal of $45K for kidney research. You can do that by joining our Facebook page and if you help to share about Kidney Raffle on Facebook or Twitter, we’d like to thank you with a gift of 17 inspiring and info-packed author interviews from my Bottom-line Book Club.

Links
Kidney Raffle – Make a donation to win some fantastic prizes.
Kidney Raffle Facebook page
BottomLineBookClub.com – Fantastic author interviews with Cath Duncan’s coaching tips and summaries.
Agileliving.net – Cath’s private coaching blog.
Cath Duncan on Twitter

Don’t forget to make a donation at the Kidney Raffle now.

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 beach!’

I thought I could do better and decided the way to do this would be to tell the stories of local people. So I set up the ‘Meet a Local’ series with the hope of getting a television deal. TV wasn’t and still isn’t open to the idea that one person can do it all.

Not long after I finished my first ‘Meet a Local’ program, Lonely Planet produced a show of the same theme. I realized then, if I was going to make this work, I had to become my own TV station, raising my own advertising and sponsorship funds.

Before Youtube, in 2001, I envisaged the internet as the next great broadcast medium and set up an online travel video channel. I was lucky to get in early and get a head start, but even now, I am still fine tuning the various revenue streams, and it has only really been since the advent of Youtube, that the profile of my work has grown.

Video seems to be the way of the future, have you discovered that video is more popular than blog articles?

After music, I think the audio visual medium is the most powerful storytelling tool to get across emotion. Look at some of the videos coming out of the Middle East, the Egyptian Uprising, from the people, by the people, such powerful narrative.

This is what I love about video on the internet, the truth can prevail. People outside powerful media organizations, can have a voice.

In the travel industry, I think video is still largely an untapped resource. There are so many people writing travel blogs but very few really nailing it with video.

I think the problem is people just copy what they see others doing. They see someone running a blog, selling an ebook and do the same, not really thinking outside the box.

The way I make money from travel videos is not the only way, and maybe not even the best way. I think the main thing is to follow your passion and build on that.

I’m seeing more and more clever tourism operators include video in their online marketing campaigns. In the same way most tourism businesses now have web sites, I see a time when all business will have videos on those sites.

Your videos are very high quality, do you lug around lots of expensive gear?

It is now possible for one to carry a broadcast quality kit, in their carry on luggage. I made a video recently of my current kit.

I’m always trying to lighten my load and next plan to buy and even smaller broadcast quality camera (1kg) which I am quite excited about as it will mean I will be able to film in more places, without attracting too much attention

How do you earn an income now?

Video production is my main source of income. When I am in Australia I do commercial video production, business profiles, videos for tourism regions, etc. I also make online ad revenue from my videos, and sell DVD’s and video downloads on Overlander.tv.

Recently I filmed in New Zealand.  On this trip I wanted to test whether I could get paid to travel with my camera. It was a great success. I had money coming in from my monthly Youtube ad revenue payments, and did a number of tourism business profiles.

I made a majority of my money doing the profile videos. I usually find clients by approaching them and telling them the benefit of online video. I always try and deal with innovative businesses as it makes it easier for me to tell their story.

I think there is a lot of smoke and mirrors on the internet, a lot of people writing their own copy, making out they are better than they are. In business, face to face is most important in closing a deal. And with online video, it doesn’t matter how fancy the production, if it doesn’t get seen, the campaign is a failure. My online social network (Youtube, Facebook, Twitter) ensures any video I produce gets views. This is an important selling point to business.

Youtube ad revenue has picked up quite a bit in the last 6 months, but only provides me a part-time income. There are Youtube partners making six figure incomes. I can’t reveal the exact amount I make from Youtube but currently I get about 600,000 views a month just on Youtube, and also have a revenue deal with another site Blinkx. I have tried all the major video sites and can tell you there are a lot of cowboys out there. Some, despite 1,000s of views have never paid a red cent. Youtube is the current king, but you need a lot of views to make any coin.

So with my model of production, it is a matter of balancing several streams of income, both passive and active.

What are your plans for the future?

I am currently planning a round the world trip to really test the ‘get paid to travel the world with your video camera’ idea. It will be interesting, as some countries are more open to video than others.

I was interested to see the success of ‘Eat Pray Love’ and my next series will explore travel for personal growth. My most honest and popular film was my Camino de Santiago pilgrimage.

So I want to get back to that really raw portrayal of travel, the good and the bad.

I have been researching how to legally work in foreign countries, and have found some amazing information, particularly with regard to how corporations do it, all these schemes like the double Irish and Dutch sandwiches. The five flags theory also may be of interest to your readers.

I’m also looking at ways to cut travel expenses, secure sponsorship and deal with foreign languages. Many of these issues I will probably end up video blogging about.

Do you have any advice for aspiring travel videographers?

The main thing is follow your passion. As I mentioned before, my way of doing things is but one of many. There are numerous ways people can make money and travel with a video camera.

Stock Footage:
There are a lot of sites set up to distribute stock footage. With the right equipment and a good eye, one could film beautiful locations around the world and sell the footage, earning a nice passive income.

DVD Production:
If you have a passion, whether it be permaculture or pristine wilderness, with the right marketing, you can find an online audience. Don’t narrow your distribution options, by just listing on your blog, get it into bookshops and amazon etc.

Get a broadcast deal:
Don’t want to do it all yourself, wise move! I can think of two individuals, Community Channel and Graham David Hughes, who have got broadcast deals on the strength of their ideas and Youtube profiles.

Set up a website highlighting all the best travel videos on the internet.
This one seems like a no brainer, but I’m amazed only one site is doing it: MatadorNetwork.

Given that Youtube embeds, run ads for their producers, most would be happy having their work displayed on another site. And the owner of that site can collect any additional ad revenue from ads on their pages.

So always be willing to look outside the square. Take from what successful operators are doing, and build on it, the space is always changing ( remember myspace!)

Try and find your own voice, feed on your passions and when you do start getting noticed, read contracts carefully and try and not get locked in to exclusive deals unless the rewards are enormous. You don’t want to be paid yesterday’s prices for a growing market.

Marrying commerce and art is never easy so try and stay true to what people like about your work. Branded content doesn’t have to dull and obvious.

Finally, if you want to get paid to travel the world, become a flight attendant, video is only but one means.

Links
OverlanderTV
Follow OverlanderTV on Twitter

Related Links
Make a Living with YouTube Videos on JetSetCitizen

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 in 2007, basically the day after I read the Four Hour Work Week. At the time I was working as the Vice President of Operations for a small manufacturing firm, and even though I was making good money, I wasn’t able to afford the kinds of adventure and freedom I wanted in my life.

At that job, I started hiring web developers and experimenting with outsourcing to improve our marketing. As I learned about things like SEO and web development it dawned on me that by becoming an expert in that stuff I could make a living from anywhere. After the business made its first few sales I quit my job and took off to travel.

I don’t want to portray it like one day I was just free and galavanting around the world. Although I can work from anywhere and do a lot of cool stuff, I still have tons of responsibilities (like payroll!) and its not all fun and games. For me, building a lifestyle business is a ton of work and freedom increases gradually and by degrees, it doesn’t just arrive overnight.

Where do you spend most of your time?

I’d describe my lifestyle as semi-nomadic. I travel a lot and generally spend about 3 months in a location. Since I quit my job in San Diego I’ve pretty much been drifting from condo to condo. I’ve spent time and done my work from San Diego, Pennsylvania, New York, Montreal, Saigon, Hanoi, Bangkok, Manila, Dumaguete, Puerto Galera, Phnom Penh, and Bali. I’ve set up offices and hired employees in Vietnam and the Philippines, and checked on our suppliers in China. This year I’ll be renting a space in Bali to meet and hang out with my TMBA interns.

Please introduce your main sites, Tropical MBA, OutsourcetothePhilippines and the LifestyleBusinessPodcast.

The TropicalMBA is basically my personal blog where I occasionally offer paid internships for aspiring digital nomads. I started the Lifestyle Business Podcast because I’m a radio nerd and wanted to have my own show, and OutsourcetothePhilippines.com started as a place where I could share my experiences setting up a business in that country.

You wrote that you had sales of more than $800,000 last year, exactly how do you earn an income?

We aren’t known for giving satisfying answers to this question. If my product were an information product I’d be showing everybody everything, but with hard goods its a zero sum market. There can be a downside to revealing how I make my money. For example: one of the products I sell is a particular kind of safe. If I start publishing on the web how much money I’m making there, and show the key terms, it really has the potential to damage my business.

In general, we basically do niche marketing but with manufactured products. My business partner @AnythingIan is a product designer. We got started in business by designing and manufacturing products for niches that we felt were under-served. We develop industrial products for hotels, restaurants, and we also have a line of consumer cat furniture.

We got two new interesting sources of revenue in 2011:
1) Contracting. We’ve started to do environmental design and contracting within the parking industry, which is really exciting because the deals can be quite large. We are currently working on securing new contracts and
2) Information products. This year I’ll be launching a private membership site for entrepreneurs, a guide to setting up a business in the Philippines, an expat living guide to Bali, and a product that helps people make money by flipping used cars.

I love the idea of the TropicalMBA, can you please tell us about that?

Starting the TropicalMBA really changed my life. Exploring the world while I work is really a dream come true for me and I’m so happy to get to help others make the same transition. I came up with the idea when I was in the Philippines looking to hire a PHP developer. I had a budget which was pretty decent. It occurred to me that when I was in a job hoping for things to change, I would have jumped at the chance to have that salary I had budgeted for a Filipino employee, provided I could earn it from anywhere and have a good learning experience out of it. So I bought the domain and put the offer up there. You can still see the first post on the site now.

The response was pretty overwhelming– I got some incredible applications for both semesters and ended up hiring two incredible guys who are now great friends of mine and still working for my business.

I’m really in love with the idea of the program, and if our business continues to do well I hope to provide many more internships in 2011.

Why did you go the podcasting route for the Lifestyle Business Podcast?

The podcast has been up until this point a 100% passion project. I’m a total radio and podcast nerd. I used to skip high school to listen to the Howard Stern show, and I still listen to tons of podcasts.

Podcasting is a lot of effort, but for me its so much fun. I feel I am learning to communicate better. I think the people who listen to our show have a more intimate and trusting relationship with us than if we were writing.

I’d say if I could do only one project for the next 5 years, it would be the podcast.

You wrote that you have more than 80 domains, can you give some advice on choosing profitable niches?

I think one thing about niche selection that isn’t talked about much is expertise, this is especially true in conversations surrounding affiliate marketing. The more you know about a niche the more likely you are going to be successful in it.

I’d also suggest that you chose niches that you love. Any way you slice it, being successful takes tons of work, so it sucks to slave away at niches you don’t care about and it’s difficult to keep up the energy for it. I’ve been successful in a few niches I don’t care about (safes?!) and I’ve handled it by hiring myself out of that role.

What country do you pay your taxes in?

We have a California S-Corp and we’ll be finalizing a corporation in the Philippines this year. We have an accounting firm, an office and warehouse in California, and we offer health insurance to our employees.

Have you had to set up a business or get any special visas or licenses to work in other countries?

Oh my! I could go on for days… Right now we’ve got people on the payroll in Vietnam, China, the Philippines, and the USA. Currently, all but our US employees are technically independent contractors. I’ve gone through all kinds of visa stuff to operate overseas, but in general, you can operate on tourist visas as long as your primary corporation is in the US and you aren’t making money in the country you are in.

Can you give some advice about outsourcing?

My favorite outsourcing site at this time is Odesk.com. My best advice about finding employees overseas is that you should treat them just like you would any other employee. I think a lot of internet marketers and online business people underestimate the time and commitment it takes to have an employee on board.

If you were new and starting today, what would you do differently?

I would find one small creative project that I could pour all of my energy in to. I have a zillion things going on right now, which is cool, but sometimes I’d like to have a little more focus. I also would not do hard goods again. It’s too tough to make a buck. I’d focus on information products and software. If I had to start form scratch, I’d just wake up every morning and do the Lifestyle Business Podcast.

Links
TropicalMBA
Lifestyle Business Podcast
Outsource to the Philippines
Follow The TropicalMBA on Twitter
Follow The Lifestyle Business Podcast on Twitter

I have a house in Japan that is currently empty. I am still debating renting it out or possibly making it available for travelers and digital nomads. It would be a completely set up house, with high-speed internet, a proper kitchen, furniture and bedding, etc. for up to about 6 people comfortably. The rent would be relatively inexpensive as I am just looking to cover costs.

I would like to keep my house in Japan as a place to return every year, but I don’t want to pay for a full year to only stay there for two or three months. If I can rent it out for at least an additional 3 or 4 months per year, then I will re-furnish the house and get it ready for others to stay there.

Japan is actually not that expensive, particularly if you have reasonably priced accommodations and don’t live in a major center like Tokyo.

The Idea

In a previous post I mentioned the difficulties in getting set up in a new apartments in new countries. Dealing with shady real estate agents is a big pain and apartments are often dirty, poorly equipped and/or have lousy Internet connections. It can often take several days to find decent accommodations at a reasonable price. Even then, you will have to make some sacrifices to keep your costs down.

I am hoping to put together a small network of houses or apartments in different countries that are clean, fully set up, have good internet connections and a decent kitchen. Basically, on your very first day of arriving in a new country, you could go directly to the home you rented and be completely ready to work without stress and difficulties.

For those of us trying to work online, a network of comfortable accommodations would offer a much higher quality of travel and allow us to be up and running as soon as we arrive at a new destination.

Location #1 Nara, Japan

The house is in Nara-Prefecture about 40 minutes from Nara- City by Train. Kyoto is 1 hour away (with Bullet train access to Tokyo in 3 hours). Osaka is about 50 minutes away. Kobe is about 75 minutes away and the Kansai International Airport is about 85 minutes away by train and a comfortable limousine bus ride directly to the departure floor.

My house is in a small city, about 5 minutes away from a good grocery store with great fresh and inexpensive sushi. There is a convenience store about 1 minute away and the nearest train station is a 13 minute walk. There are beautiful temples and shrines nearby (Sakurai, Kashihara-jingu mae, Nara-city, etc.) and it is still in a densely populated city.

It is secluded enough to be able to work without distractions, but has easy access to all the major centers of central Japan.

I haven’t worked out the costs yet, but I expect it to be about $1500 per month with all utilities and bills included for the peak season in spring and fall and about $1200 per month in off seasons. Visits less than one month would be possible but not ideal because of extra costs involved with cleaning and administration. Longer stays could be cheaper.

Digital Nomad Network

Ultimately, I would like to schedule overlapping time to connect with other location independent professionals. We could meet to share ideas, work on projects together and generally connect in person. For me, one of the best things about traveling is meeting other travelers. I hope we can create a good core group of people that regularly meet around the world. A few people are already interested so I don’t think it will be so hard to put together. We just need to start committing to dates and locations.

Do you have a house to add to the network?

I hope to set up the next location in Budapest, in 2012. If anyone else has an apartment they could add, in a popular location around the world, please contact me. Again, the goal is not to make a lot of money, I just want to share quality accommodations with a small group of people that I know and trust.

If you are interested in renting my place in Japan please contact me before March. I am visiting Japan for a short time in March and will need to decide before then if I should re-furnish the house and reconnect the Internet and all utilities.

Please contact me or comment if any of this sounds interesting.

Today’s interview is with Craig Martin of IndieTravelPodast.com. Craig and his wife Linda have been travelling full-time for more than 5 years now and are funding their adventure through their websites, podcasts and the occasional English teaching. Craig talks about how they got started and how they have bulit their location independent lifestyle.

0:22 Tell us about your travels, where are you now and where have you been?

(Currently in Vietnam, their first time in S.E. Asia. They have been to 22 countries this year including South America, Europe and New York. Craig shares how he and his wife funded their travels by working hard to save money and then teaching English around the world. )

1:48 Do you have a homebase?

(Only a P.O Box where Linda’s father collects mail. “Home is where the backpack is.” He talks about why they started their travels in Malta. )

3:26 What did you do in Malta?

(They taught English. They got into English teaching in order to work around the world.)

4:24 Is Malta a good country to teach English?

(“Not if you want to earn any money.” Two weeks teaching in Italy earned the same amount of savings as three months in Malta.)

5:03 Tell us about IndieTravelPodcast.

(They started the site after they left Malta. They realized they made many dumb travel mistakes that guide books didn’t cover. They wanted to create a website for independent travellers that plugged the gap that guide books weren’t covering. The now have over 170 podcasts. They are looking at practical ways that people can travel long term.)

7:20 Why the podcast focus?

(That was almost by accident. Blogs were quite saturated but no one was really doing a podcast.)

8:17 Are there any advantages or disadvantages to podcasting?

(It’s very time intensive. He goes into detail about what is required. 20 minutes of audio often represents 5 to 8 hours of work.)

9:32 Do you find your listeners value the podcasts more than just a blog post?

(It’s something very unique. People can download it and take it away. “You really get in their ear and they begin to trust you.”)

10:29 Is IndieTravelPodcast funding your travels?

(It is now covering 70 to 80% of their costs with the rest being made up by English teaching. They now have about 25,000 unique visitors a month and they have half a dozen other websites as well. They reckon they will be up to their goal of US$100 per day by the end of the year which will cover all of their travel and living costs.)

Links
IndieTravelPodcast.com
Follow Craig Martin on Twitter