How old are you, where are you from, where are you living now and what took you there?
My, oh my! Isn’t a woman’s age her secret? Ah well: I guess there aren’t many secrets left in the online world. Here goes: I’m 33, I’m from Canada, I’m currently living in rural Australia, and I got here via a very circuitous route called “happenstance”!
How long have you lived there and how long will you stay? What keeps you there?
I’ve been in Australia for a year and a half, and I expect to be here for one more year (tops). However Australia is just one of many stops along the path of my full-time traveling life. Since closing shop and selling everything in Canada in 2006, I have traveled through or lived in eight countries. As such, I live a financially sustainable life of traveling the world – extremely slowly. I probably fit somewhere between “expat” and “backpacker” in terms of my travel style. I would not normally have stayed in Australia for this long, however life threw my boyfriend and I a few opportunities masked as curve balls (or vice versa – we’re not sure which yet), and we decided to set up shop here for a while to field them.
What do you do to make a living?
I am a freelance writer and Professional Hobo. I’m also an actor/singer/dancer, entrepreneur, and outdoor professional (which means I like to do outdoorsy things like hiking and climbing and get paid for it – which rarely happens, but is a nice idea nonetheless). In fact, none of the above pays particularly well, but the good news is that my style of travel doesn’t cost a lot either.
Describe your average weekday and weekend day.
I try to work no more than 3 days per week – an evolving process that looks more like 4-5 days per week right now. Working days involve stumbling from the bedroom to my laptop for about 7:30am, and not moving (except for pee breaks and the occasional bout of nourishment) until about 4:30pm. In that time, I participate in a flurry of internet activity (from social networking to fielding emails to researching and drumming up new work to sending/posting what I’ve written). While wasting time online (did I just say that?), I also try to cram some actual bona fide writing in there.
Weekends (or non-work days) see me getting outside and enjoying nature, volunteering at community events, visiting with friends, exploring places I haven’t seen, or just laying in a comatose state contemplating how many emails are accumulating in my in-box.
I must note that my current routine is very much one of just that: routine. Having been in Australia for as long as I have, complacency has set in and sometimes it takes some effort to get off the couch. In 2010, I expect to be doing more active travel around Australia, as well as some neighboring countries. Daily routines will continue to be flexible, as I balance travel with work on a daily basis.
What skills have you learned while living abroad?
Earning a location independent income as I do, my professional skill sets have largely been centered on the evolution of my business, and learning how to harness technology to help make my working/traveling life easier.
Personally, travel and lifestyle skills learned include flexibility, communication, humour, and a good dose of humility. And of course, there is the more tangible set of travel skills I’ve learned, like how to travel the world full-time for $14,000/year or less.
What are you missing (professionally) by not being in your home country?
The biggest thing I miss not being in Canada is performing. Be it musical theatre or film & television, I miss acting/singing/dancing (and occasionally being paid for it). As a writer though, there is very little I sacrifice in doing it from abroad. Many of my editors are scattered around the world anyway, so there are no particular benefits to being in any one place from a freelance writer’s perspective.
If you could live anywhere, where would that be and why?
My travel tick list is far from complete, so there are a number of places I’d like to live. Central and South America however are particularly enticing, as there is something mesmerizing to me about Latin American culture, and I’m eager to become fluent in Spanish.
What is your favorite gadget that makes your work life abroad better?
Without a doubt, my laptop is my favourite work-abroad-travel-gadget. I’d throw myself in front of a bus to save my laptop, if it weren’t for the fact that my laptop would be pretty much useless to me if I were dead.
Do you have a favorite book that inspired you to travel or consider a different way of living?
I’m a big fan of travel memoirs in general, as they provide me with both travel inspiration and writing fodder. My inspiration to adopt a full-time travel life didn’t come from a book though…it was borne of a lifelong dream to travel and was catalyzed through innate impatience and an inability to wait until retirement to do it.
Like many others, I also draw entrepreneurial inspiration from Tim Ferriss’s The 4-Hour Workweek. It helps to keep me on-track to working efficiently and effectively.
And I would be amiss not to mention the greatest book of all (said with no bias whatsoever): 10,001 Ways to Live Large on a Small Budget. Not only is it packed with great tips for living well within your means, but I am also a proud co-author, and I practice what I preach. (Again: no bias here).
Other than yours, do you have a favorite expat blog?
Expat Alley, of course! (smiles)
Links:
Web Site: http://www.theprofessionalhobo.com
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/hobonora
