What It's Like To Travel the World While Working

2018, Oct 10    

Remote working can be as glamorous as you make it. I have never actually ran into anyone who traveled while working for the glamour of it. If I believe in the Law of Attraction, and I do, then naturally I wouldn’t. You won’t find me sitting on the top of a cliff with my laptop although I did climb mountains. Nor am I taking calls in the middle of the desert. I prefer not to work when I’m playing and exploring.

I originally choose to work remotely to be with my family whenever they needed me and whenever I wanted to see them. I added travel a few years later when my youngest child graduated from high school and not long after I had overcome my almost lifelong fear of flying.

There are a lot of people who travel but don’t want to do so while working. Or maybe they don’t think it is possible. I knew it was very possible, but I also knew one or two trips a year was not the kind of travel work lifestyle I wanted. It felt as though having to choose one or the other meant either I was putting my life or business on hold. The reality was I had three really big goals I wanted to achieve in 2017 and no matter what you do life doesn’t wait on hold.

There was so much I couldn’t have known or predicted about traveling the world and running a company. Working and living in 16 countries in 12 months you don’t leave a lot of room for predictions. I can certainly tell you it’s not all glamorous and at times it was downright awful. No one gets to escape life and yet I wouldn’t change a thing. Life is full of surprises and it’s those surprises which lift your spirit and make you look at the world with the wonderment of a child. As though anything is possible.

I could write about how productive I was. How I achieved all of my goals last year which were hosting my first virtual summit, teaching my first online course, and writing my second book which became a bestseller. Traveling and remote working aren’t your golden ticket to productivity. You can be productive and meet your goals no matter where are you. Life is about possibilities. When you travel the world suddenly you believe anything in the world is possible.

The idea of creating more possibilities for myself was not one of the reasons I decided to travel the world. It didn’t even occur to me at the time. I’m a pretty driven person so I knew whether at home or abroad I was going to achieve my goals. I used to tell people who asked about my travel that if I’m going to work a lot in 2017 to achieve my goals when I step out my front door I want to be in a different country.

What I didn’t know is that each time I turned the handle and opened the door in another country I wasn’t just opening door to my apartment. I was opening a door that had new possibilities waiting for me each time I stepped outside. Some possibilities turned into opportunity. Many opportunities were in the form of business and some of the most precious were in the form of creating lifelong friendships.

Almost exactly a year ago on September 29, 2017 it was possible for me to visit Dubai, not a city on my original itinerary, to visit a friend. A close friend, whom I met in the very first city I lived in abroad, Buenos Aires. This is not a love affair but a true friendship and we are still friends. In fact, I was even able to see him when I returned to the States this past January.

Even though I was headed to Dubai on that day last September my thoughts were of Buenos Aires. That is where I met Leo (not his real name). Traveling to see my friend I met all those months ago seemed unreal. Who knew this would be the next time we would meet in a country so far away? Certainly not me.

That is the great thing about travel. Possibilities and opportunities. I don’t always take advantage of what life has to offer but on a day in January 2017, in the cafe La Panera Rosa in Buenos Aires I did. I walked up to a stranger and very nervously asked, “Are you from the States”? His response, “No.” A week later I said goodbye to one of my best friends.

Work will always be there for me. In fact, I can always create more. Making new friends, true friends is one of the most exciting parts of traveling the world. Whether you are bonding with those you travel with or you make new friends along the way there is something special about travel and friendships. I love the feeling of knowing that I can go to just about any country in the world and there is a friend I can call when I get there.

Now, is this the experience you will have? Who knows? You are your own person and uniquely different from me. You have your own possibilities and opportunities. The world doesn’t need another me anyway. The world does need people who are willing to do new things. Try new things. Explore new things. Make old things new again.

What does all this have to do with remote working? Almost nothing. Remote working and traveling the world while working are very different. I’m not here to tell you one is better than the other. Although my preference is to travel while working.

Traveling whether in your home country or abroad literally forces you to see things differently. Whether it be different than you once thought or different than those you are surrounded by things are simply different. What could be more “out of the box” thinking than this?

You don’t have to become a digital nomad to travel the world while working. Nor must you become location independent. However, I would highly suggest you, at some point, bring work along during your travels.

My work is better because I chose to travel while creating it. I explored the world, met new people, made new friends, did things for the very first time every month, if not every single week for an entire year!

What’s it like to travel the world while working? It’s like when you were a young child and someone asked you what you wanted to be when you grew up. You might have answered with doctor, lawyer, astronaut, president, rockstar, actress, professional athlete, etc. and you truly believed no matter your circumstance you could grow up and to be whatever you wanted. Traveling the world while working makes you believe in all those things again.