It's been 5 years since I left my job at Microsoft to become a digital nomad, that is, to live traveling the world while I earn my living online.
In all this time, I have been in more than 25 different countries where I have lived unforgettable experiences:
I have visited the palace of the Dalai Lama in Tibet
I have seen Spain (lost) in the World Cup in Brazil
I have been in a wedding Indian 3 day
I have eaten in the best restaurants in the world in Peru
Or I have climbed to the top of Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, among other things
Besides that, I have had the opportunity to live for a longer or shorter season in cities such as Chiang Mai, Medellin, Barcelona, Budapest or Prague.
And meanwhile, my business has not stopped growing.
Today, Living to the Maximum has more than 200,000 readers per month, more than 80,000 subscribers and more than 1,500 students, and my products and articles have changed the lives of thousands of people, which is something that I am very proud of.
Being able to live this lifestyle for the last few years has been a real dream for me.
I consider it one of the best stages I remember and I would not change it for anything in the world.
But every beginning has its end, and although it is hard for me to recognize it, I feel that the time has come to say it:
I have grown tired of traveling
while the body asked me for novelty, to know, to discover, to move from one place to another, now he asks me to the contrary: routine, to be calm in a place that I like, and to enjoy everything that a more stable life can offer me. And I have decided to listen to you.
In this post, I will tell you what are the reasons that have led me to take that difficult decision.
These are personal reasons, which have to do with changes in my personality and in my circumstances, but which have made living traveling stop making sense to me in this moment of my life.
In addition to that, at the end of the article, I will tell you how I am going to face the issue of travel from now on and what my plans are for the near future.
I hope you like it and, above all, that it makes you reflect
Why I have decided to stop living traveling
I no longer have the same desire to travel as before
I remember that when I left Microsoft I had a crazy desire to travel.
There was nothing that I wanted more in the world.
I had never been away from home more than 3 weeks in a row and I had not made any solo trips either, and I needed to live that experience.
I wanted to meet new people and new places, try different things ...
So that's what I did.
I got on a plane with destination to Bangkok without a return ticket.
Today, 5 years and many kilometers later, I feel that the time has come to turn the page.
I've been a backpacker, I've traveled all I wanted to travel and I've done everything I wanted to do, and now I'm ready to close that stage of my life and start a new one.
Without regrets or sadness.
I do not know about you, but I think that throughout life we all evolve naturally.
At each stage, you have to do what you play, what the body asks of you, and I think it is important not to resist or deny it:
If you travel, travel
If you're single, enjoy being single
If you play like an animal to get ahead a project, work as an animal
Only then you can move on to the next stage and be at peace with yourself, without missing the past because you lived well what you had to live.
I also think it's important to know when a stage has been exhausted and not try to cling to it, no matter how happy you were years ago.
I experienced this not much ago with video games.
As I had always loved, I wanted to be followed enchanted, and I bought some once in a while hoping that I would hook up as before.
But it did not work.
I got bored like an oyster and felt like I was wasting my time.
Finally, I had the courage to accept that I no longer liked to play the computer or the Xbox, and I changed that hobby to one of the undertakings, which is also a game, but much more fun and with much more sense at that moment in my life.
Right now I feel like I'm at a similar point.
Living traveling no longer feels like filling me up as it filled me before, and the best thing is to accept it, close that stage and start a different one.I've tired of "resetting" my life again and again
Most activities require a certain continuity to be able to do them well and enjoy them.
For example, let's put the Crossfit or in general any sport.
The first two weeks after a break are horrible, because you're going to train and the next day you have some stiffness that you can not even move.
But little by little, as you are completing more classes, you are recovering the form and you start to find better.
You no longer have a stiffness (or at least they are not so terrible), you can go to the box more often and the workouts are more satisfying.
And then, when everything goes smoothly, you go on a trip.
3 weeks in Asia, return home and start again: stiffness, low form, laziness ...
So until you return to recover the routine and, once again ... you go back to travel.
Well, that has been my life in 2017.
Regular "reset" not only in my training routine but also in my work routine, my writing routine and any other routine that I have tried to maintain.
In the past, as I traveled alone and for long periods, I managed more or less well in this regard.
I organized to write at least 1,000 words every day, and always interspersed periods of seeing things with periods of routine in a city that I knew well as Chiang Mai, to balance.
However, when you make several short trips a year with different people, it is very difficult to have any kind of continuity, because your schedules vary and the plans do not depend only on you.
In the end, I got tired of carrying this rhythm.
It is exhausting to dedicate so much effort to get the ball to start walking and, when it is finally moving, stop it and start again.
Now what I'm looking for is just the opposite: a continuity in my life that allows me to function 100% every day, and take advantage of that inertia to build worthwhile things.
I want to dedicate my time to projects that need to be in the same place
The last quarter of 2017 has been a very reflective period of my life in which I have asked myself several times the following question:
"What would I do if I did not have to worry about money and could do what I wanted? "
I will not go into depth in the answers that came to my mind, but some of them were ...
Do a web programming course and create tools that I think should exist (yes, I really want to re-program)
Create products and articles that solve complex problems for which right now there is no good solution
OR learn to speak Czech fluently
If you realize, all these projects require that stability or continuity of which spoke in the last point.
And, to learn a language, write a book or create a web application you need to have a routine.
You need to sit down to study, write or schedule every day.
You need to surrender 100%, and you can not afford to be half a week KO by jet lag or waste time in making and unpacking luggage, booking Airbnbs or find the nearest supermarket.
Besides that, there is the subject of my girlfriend, which is another "important project that requires being in the same place" (in this case, in the city where she lives).
Because for a relationship to work it is necessary to dedicate time to it regularly. If you are out there all day and your partner does not travel with you, it is impossible for that to come to fruition, so there comes a point where you have to choose.
I already saw myself at that crossroads in his day and I chose to live traveling.
At that time, traveling the world was my absolute priority (far ahead of the relationship) and being a digital nomad was the perfect lifestyle to make my dream come true.
However, now that my priorities have changed, traveling several months a year has become more of a drag than an advantage.
Hence, he has made the decision to stop and lead a different kind of life.I want to be 100% present in my travels
One of the biggest challenges I have faced in these years traveling the world with my laptop has been to combine work and pleasure.
For people who have a normal job is very simple: when you are at home you work and when you travel you enjoy without worries.
However, when you have to manage your business while you are traveling (because you are always traveling), the thing is not so simple and you have to organize yourself.
If you travel alone, you can ride it as best you can without explaining to anyone.
For example, you can ...
Work in the morning and be free in the afternoon
Work in the afternoon and be free in the morning
Work as long as you have space
Work hard several days a week and be free the rest
Work a lot one month and another almost nothing
... or any other combination that comes to mind.
The real problem comes when you travel with people.
Unless all your companions are nomads and organize trips of several months during which you go together to coworking, having to work while your girlfriend or your colleagues are on vacation is a real nuisance.
Because of course, they want to take advantage of and do things with you, not to spend 4 hours in front of the laptop in a cafeteria, as is normal ...
Until recently, my way of resolving this situation was to take time away from where I was to fulfill my work obligations.
I intentionally erased some plan to stay at the hostel while I was working, I used to answer e-mails while having breakfast or I would get up early to write an article.
And although this worked more or less well, I had the great inconvenience of not letting me disconnect.
My responsibilities were always in my head, and I could never be fully present in what I was doing.
For that reason, and given that lately I travel accompanied, I have decided to change my way of traveling.
Instead of living traveling and throwing myself away for several months each year in "nomadic mode", with my attention divided between work and travel, I prefer to spend more time "at home" with my attention set to 100% at work and in my projects, and make punctual trips that I like very much and enjoying them without worries.
This last summer I tried to travel without a laptop for the first time for 5 years and it has been an incredible experience.
Not only have I enjoyed my vacation with my friends, but I have returned home with a fresh head full of ideas and eager to work.**My body is not what it used to be **
When I started to live traveling, back in 2013, I was 27 years old and I was indestructible.
I did not care to get 18 hours by plane with 3 stops, sleep in shabby hostels with people snoring or stay until 5 in the morning drinking beers, which the next morning worked without problems.
Unfortunately, with the passage of time my "resistance" has progressively worsened, and where I have most noticed it has been in the dream.
If I do not sleep well one night, when I wake up I am not a person.
I spend all day in zombie mode, and I am neither productive nor enjoy what I do.
That's why I almost never stay in shared rooms-I know that as a snorer hits me or someone arrives drunk in the middle of the night and I wake up I'm sold, and every time I get lazier transoceanic trips with 8-hour jet lag.
I have also noticed a big change in how nocturnal outings affect me.
A night of splicing is suicide.
Not only because the next day is a lost day, but because it really hits me physically.
For example, this Christmas has been to go out 2 times at dawn and immediately get bad with fever both.
A disaster.
Well, as a drink I do not even tell you ...
Now the hangovers last 2 or 3 days and are worse than ever: S
Ojo, that does not mean that I have become an old man who wants to stay at home in front of the TV. Absolutely!
I am more willing to do things and with more energy than ever.
However, I did realize that the cost of traveling and committing excesses is increasingly higher, so I have to moderate in both aspects to continue enjoying.
And now that?
In most of the interviews that I have done in recent years, after telling my story, the interviewer asked me the following question:
"Well, Angel, and what do the people who are hearing us have to do to live like you? "
And I always answered the same thing:
" Living traveling is not a panacea. It has its pros and cons, like any other option. Therefore, I think that in the first place you should consider if that is the lifestyle that will make you happy, and only in that case go for it. "
Today my opinion on this issue remains exactly the same.
Although I have decided to stop being a digital nomad for the reasons I just explained, I still think it is a fantastic lifestyle for many people and a miracle that it is possible to live like that.
So if that's really what you want ... go ahead!
I encourage you to fight for it with all your strength (here are my best tips).
For me, this has been one of the most beautiful stages of my life, in which I have learned a lot, I have lived experiences that have defined me as a person and I have met some of my best friends, and I am very happy to have done it. what did I do?
Similarly, if you feel that is loaded with the laptop while traveling is not for you, nothing happens at all.
You can travel equally, and you will not be less cool for not being a digital nomad.
In fact, I think that for most people who want to live traveling, it's a better idea to take a gap year that allows them to travel without worries and then go back to work, start their own business or whatever, get into the mess of managing a business while traveling.
As for me ... I'm not going to stop traveling, that's clear
Traveling is one of my passions, and I think it will be during my whole life.
I'm just going to travel less and I'm going to do it in another way.
My idea is to live most of the year in a fixed place (right now Prague, from March certainly Barcelona), and make several punctual trips (less than before) with my girlfriend and with my friends in which I can completely disconnect and Do not have to take the laptop with me.
I also want you to know that I will not stop writing.
Living to the Maximum has never been a travel blog or digital nomads, but a blog to help you define what that you suits want and create a life you, and that is what will remain.
In fact, my decision starts with that idea. Of having clear what it is that you like and makes you happy in each moment, and align your life in that direction.
Summarizing!
That this 2018 begins a new phase of my life.
A different stage.
A stage that I do not know where it will take me, but I'm sure it will come full of good times.
Thank you very much for being part of it and for accompanying me through this blog
A big hug,
rodrigo
