Hi guys,
As I explained in a previous post last summer in the heady days of regular posting on Steemit.com , we sold all our stuff and hit the road!
Why? It is an experiment for me and my wife in life design.
Freedom is about having options. But to create those options you need to create space.
And that is not always easy.
So I wanted to give you a review of 
Why am I telling you all this? I don't want to brag, I want to show you what is possible when you make conscious design choices in your life.
I am convinced, this new kind of freedom is more and more accessible. And if you made out well with the current crypto craze it's probably easier for you than most!
I will start posting again and making videos to help people design their life on purpose!
So what I said we'd do and what we did:
Step 1: Sell all our stuff
Checked... more or less. To travel as we wanted, we needed to be light.
We proudly own no furniture anymore and have radically reduced our gadgets. ( tablets, phones, ...) This is a good idea anyway because of technological obsolescence.
In the end we still had a room worth of stuff we could store at a friend's house. Since the plan is to come back to Valencia, it is no deal breaker.
Step 2. Buy a cheap second hand car
Checked. Bought a great Renault Laguna II break 150k Km, for 2500 Euro in Belgium.
It is a model and brand with a terrible reputation so the price is really low (in fact the last year of this production run had most of the issues worked out so in fact it turns out to be in great shape hehe).
In fact it is a great long range cruiser, full option and economical. Already did 10.000 Km road tripping all over Belgium, France and Spain. The paper work to import it from Belgium to Spain was a bit of a hassle but we can sell it for more here in Spain than we bought it so in the end it should actually make a profit should we sell it again!
Step 3 Go north
Checked. Our plan was to escape Spanish summer heat and go to Belgium for some rain. Belgium in August rarely disappoints, a lot of rain was seen. After 3 months of 30+ Celcius the rain was most welcome! A month well spent visiting family friends and car searching.
Step 4 Have a serious whack at this Digital Nomad thing
Still working on that one and I am betting on several horses. I still do consulting which is pretty location independent and gets me into interesting places so I will keep doing that, but I want to have more than one option.
Launched my first professional course on Udemy.com which is making its first, modest, sales. Need to double down on that. Rather than a full income I see it more as a part of a marketing funnel to obtain more high value contracts.
I am thinking of experimenting with courses on D-tube and see if that is any good!
Also, I launched a remote Life design coaching business as a side gig.
This is for fun really but might turn out to be a decent business too. It's callled:
I have great fun helping people redesign their life to escape the grind. It is really motivating to see the spark "Hey! I can do this life thing differently!".
As the logo indicates, it is all about finding leverage in your life. Finding a purpose which will help you move mountains without work becoming more important than life itself. I explained a bit on my first d.tube experiment :
https://d.tube/#!/v/the-traveller/kk9z9qy1
Want to radically change your life too? Need help ? Contact me for a free session! STEEM accepted in payment of course :) I'll explain more in a separate post.
I had almost given up hope for Steemit to become viable, but I am starting to become optimistic again about the possibility to convert ideas into value through the first real platform of the idea economy!
So I will continue the experiment to turn this into an extra stream of income.
Also, rather than cashing out into fiat, I want to bet on crypto.
I'm sure that it is a bubble and will eventually explode in everyone's face, so I will be really hesitant to bet "real money" but my STEEM earnings are going onto Bitshares to make several minor looonnngterm bets on cryptocurrency and Bitshares.
Step 5 come back south with the birds
Yep. Done it!
We took the long slow route from Belgium to Valencia in our excellent cheap car. It was definitely slow travel.
Accomodation wise we did a few Airbnb's first but the major coup was House Sitting!
Because we had the car, it allowed us to do house sitting.
If you don't know it, check out https://housesitsearch.com/
A must for a Digital Nomad wanting to go low budget and high comfort! Basically we haven't paid rent since August except for some Airbnb's and we lived in awesome places. (Had this entire Bed and Breakfast near the Dordogne to ourselves.
Right now we are house sitting an awesome place for the entire winter in Malaga where the climate is really great!
Step 6 Steemfest
Sadly this did not happen. Choices had to be made and the house sitting opportunity was too good to pass up. Next year hopefully!
Step 7 Spend some time in Brazil + Columbia
That is still on the list and in early planning stages. The great part of now having to worry about rent is that actually it works out cheaper going for longer. So a good 2 months might be the best option!
We want to visit my wife's family and again this will be a month or two away.
Not having an apartment during that time will pay for the tickets and pretty much most of the cost of life!
Step 8 Dunno!!! Skiing?
I still want to spend a while in a mountain village in the winter, right now we are actually not far from the Sierra Nevada... so kind of accomplished. Want to do a full time house sit in the snow though!
After that? We are still flexible and fine with that. Our horizon is now Fall 2018 to "settle down" again somewhere. Valencia still is a great place to live!
When I talk with friends about travel, go live in a nice place, there is often a long list of (valid) excuses that are obstacles to having the freedom to travel, explore and create a more flexible life style.
"I'd love to do what you do but...
- can't give up my job, how will I earn an income?
- my kids, can't take them from school
- my pension! only 25 years until I can retire at 65, wait ... 67 uh I guess 70 by the time it's my turn... (yea right)
- my house, need to pay the mortgage,... "
The reality is that, yes these are big obstacles, but they are not insurmountable.
- Income? There are more and more options to create an income that don't require a job, in fact the concept of "a steady job" will probably disappear for most people in the next 10 years, Learning how to make an income while travelling will probably be the best investment in your future you can make, because it creates options for when (not if) the axe falls and you lose your regular job.
- Kids? One of the most awesome things a kid can experience is going to live in a foreign country, learn a new language (remarkably easy for kids) and make new friends. Will it be easy on them? Of course not, in fact it will be challenging, but it will teach them stuff they will never learn in school.
-Pensions, sigh, who knows, do you really want to put off living for a potential payoff in 3 decades? Counting on politicians not robbing the pension funds blind? - House? Guess what, Airbnb, rental, house swap are all options that can get you around this problem.
Most people are afraid to give up a certain thing, even if they don't like it, rather than going to an uncertain, new life situation.
This leads to the "safe path" which is not so safe anymore, and definitely is less entertaining.
Don't get me wrong, it is not for everyone, and there is of course a price to pay in more than one aspect.
There are risks involved, but you need to examine another risk too:
What is the risk of continuing your life as it is now, and everything being exactly the same 5 years from now...
Can you live with THAT risk?
Check out my page and let me know what you think: https://www.facebook.com/designlifecoach/