Ask me anything on working while traveling or traveling

S

skrilla

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Dec 20, 2006
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This year I decided to use my internet monies for pure travel only. Cleaned out the closet, moved out, sold just about everything, and took off to Europe and parts of Africa.

I left Jan 3rd and return next week, Aug. 3rd.

Suffice to say its been quite the experience not having a home for 7 months. I'm actually looking forward to comming back and not moving around so much.

During my time away I learned a lot about how to set time aside just for work. My travel schedule was pretty hectic so I needed to make sure I was on top of things when it came to working overseas.

Here's the complete travel schedule.

Lisbon, Portugal (4th of January - 9)
Madrid, Spain (9 - 14)
Granada, Spain (14 -17)
Seville, Spain (17 - 19)
Barcelona, Spain (19 - 23)
Dublin, Ireland (23 - 27)
Edinburgh, Scotland (27 - 30)
London, England (30 - 4th of Feb)
Paris, France (4 - 8)
Strasbourg, France (8 - 10)
Brussels, Belgium (10 - 13)
Amsterdam, Netherlands (13 - 18)
Copenhagen, Denmark (18 - 21)
Stockholm, Sweden (21 - 26)
Berlin, Germany (26 - 3rd of March)
Prague, Czech Republic (3 - 7)
Vienna, Austria (7 - 10)
Munich, Germany (10 - 14)
Zurich, Switzerland (14 - 16)
Venice, Italy (16 - 20)
Florence, Italy (20 - 24)
Naples, Italy (24 - 28)
Rome, Italy (28 - 2nd of April)
Athens, Greece (2 - 4)
Santorini Island, Greece (4 - 8)
Crete, Greece (8 - 14)
Belgrade, Serbia (14 - 17)
Sarajevo, Bosina (17 - 22)
Dubrovnik, Croatia (22 - 25)
Makarska, Croatia (25 - 28)
Hvar Island, Croatia (28 - 1st of May)
Brac Island, Croatia (1 - 5)
Zadar, Croatia (5 - 7)
Zagreb, Croatia (7 - 10)
Budapest, Hungary (10 - 13)
Timisoara, Romania (13 - 17)
Baile Felix, Romania (17 - 19)
Brasov, Romania (19 - 23)
Sinaia, Romania (23 - 25)
Constanta, Romania (25 - 28)
Crisan Danube Delta, Romania (28 - 29)
Constanta, Romania (29 - 30)
Varna, Bulgaria (30 - 6th of June)
Sunny Beach, Bulgaria (6 - 9)
Istanbul, Turkey (9 - 13)
Cairo, Egypt (13 - 16)
Johannasburg, South Africa (16 - 19)
Cape Town, South Africa (19 - 28)
Istanbul, Turkey (28 - 1st of July)
Gallopili and Troy, Turkey (1 - 2)
Ephesus, Turkey (2 - 3)
Bodrum, Turkey (3 - 6)
Fethiye, Turkey (6 - 8)
Blues Cruise (Feithiye to Olympos), Turkey (8 - 11)
Olympos, Turkey (11 - 13)
Cappadocia, Turkey (13 - 15)
Konya, Turkey (15 - 17)
Dalyan, Turkey (17 - 25)
Pamukkale, Turkey (25 - 27)
Dalyan, Turkey (27 - 1st of August)
Istanbul, Turkey (1 - 3)
 


Damn, that's a pretty ambitious schedule.

I have a few questions to start this off....

- Is it just you traveling?
- Where are you staying (hotels, hostels, mixture)?
- How much time do you spend working vs. enjoying where you are?
- Has reliable internet access been an issue?
 
Mikesev said:
Nice.

OK, first question: your best and worst places?
Click to expand...

Best prob Cape Town. World Cup was there + natural scenery + many adventurous activities. Worst, isnt anything that stands out but I wasn't a big fan of London.

nvanprooyen said:
Damn, that's a pretty ambitious schedule.

I have a few questions to start this off....

- Is it just you traveling?
- Where are you staying (hotels, hostels, mixture)?
- How much time do you spend working vs. enjoying where you are?
- Has reliable internet access been an issue?
Click to expand...

Ya about 90% of trip was solo
About 70% hostels 30% hotels
I usually dedicated about 2 hours a day for work. Sometimes more , sometimes less.
For the most part wireless internet access was very solid. Europe is well connected. I did have some issues /w some the Eastern European countries in my hostels. There is, however, an Internet Cafe close by that could give me the connectivity I needed.

FerrisHilton said:
sick traveling man. Some pics/albums of all the stuff u saw?
Click to expand...

Took close to 4,000 pictures. I uploaded a few to my facebook. Will sort through them all when I get home.
 
Props to you, living a lot of peoples dreams. The one question I have is in terms of cost (trying not to be nosy). Once you sold everything, and no longer had monthly bills; was the cost of traveling similar to that of staying home and paying those bills?
 
OrganicOne said:
Props to you, living a lot of peoples dreams. The one question I have is in terms of cost (trying not to be nosy). Once you sold everything, and no longer had monthly bills; was the cost of traveling similar to that of staying home and paying those bills?
Click to expand...

Yes the cost was very similar. Western Europe was pretty expensive. I really had to budget myself to around 5k a month. Eastern Europe is awesome. Can get by easily with around 2-3k/month. Much cheaper than living expenses back home. Exp. I stayed in one place in Bulgaria that cost me $8 a day and it was better than most hotels I've stayed in back in the states.
 
That schedule sounds more busy than 'The Amazing Race'!

Congrats on all your travels!

What place had the most beautiful women in your opinion?
 
How was your income while traveling compared to not traveling?

did you make

  • more money
  • less money
  • same money
 
Fuck the sightseeing and all the fluffy "which flower almost brought a tear to your eye" type posts.... How many bitches in how many different countries did you fuck?
 
zimok said:
That schedule sounds more busy than 'The Amazing Race'!

Congrats on all your travels!

What place had the most beautiful women in your opinion?
Click to expand...

Scandinavian women by far. Stockholm #1, Copenhagen # 2. These girls are blonde hair/blue eyed or jet black/blue eyed supermodels working at McDonalds.

AffAholic said:
How was your income while traveling compared to not traveling?

did you make

  • more money
  • less money
  • same money
Click to expand...

Well I didn't make more money because I wasn't around as much to build relationships/improve business. I was able to retain many of my top clients just by making sure on a daily basis to follow thorugh with urgent issues.

Andrew Scherer said:
If you could do it differently what would you do?
Click to expand...

I would probably spend more time exploring off the beaten path sites. In the beginning I spent most of my time in very touristy, populated cities which got tedious and boring. Towards the end I focused on going to places that fascinated me.
 
Why are you tourist-blasting through sightseeing bullshit? 3-4 days in each place?

Why not slow down and actually experience what each place has to offer? -- Actually challenging yourself in ways that will evolve you as a man?

All of that is going to blur together if you don't already get burned out after the 2nd cathedral or tourist trap.

btw, everyone here needs to read Vagabonding by Rolf Potts.

Of all the outrageous throwaway lines one hears in movies, there is one that stands out for me. It doesn't come from a madcap comedy, an esoteric science-fiction flick, or a special-effects-laden action thriller. It comes from Oliver Stone's Wall Street, when the Charlie Sheen character — a promising big shot in the stock market — is telling his girlfriend about his dreams.

"I think if I can make a bundle of cash before I'm thirty and get out of this racket," he says, "I'll be able to ride my motorcycle across China."

When I first saw this scene on video a few years ago, I nearly fell out of my seat in astonishment. After all, Charlie Sheen or anyone else could work for eight months as a toilet cleaner and have enough money to ride a motorcycle across China. Even if they didn't yet have their own motorcycle, another couple months of scrubbing toilets would earn them enough to buy one when they got to China.

The thing is, most Americans probably wouldn't find this movie scene odd. For some reason, we see long-term travel to faraway lands as a recurring dream or an exotic temptation, but not something that applies to the here and now. Instead — out of our insane duty to fear, fashion, and monthly payments on things we don't really need — we quarantine our travels to short, frenzied bursts. In this way, as we throw our wealth at an abstract notion called "lifestyle," travel becomes just another accessory — a smooth-edged, encapsulated experience that we purchase the same way we buy clothing and furniture.

Not long ago, I read that nearly a quarter of a million short-term monastery- and convent-based vacations had been booked and sold by tour agents in the year 2000. Spiritual enclaves from Greece to Tibet were turning into hot tourist draws, and travel pundits attributed this "solace boom" to the fact that "busy overachievers are seeking a simpler life."

What nobody bothered to point out, of course, is that purchasing a package vacation to find a simpler life is kind of like using a mirror to see what you look like when you aren't looking into the mirror. All that is really sold is the romantic notion of a simpler life, and — just as no amount of turning your head or flicking your eyes will allow you to unselfconsciously see yourself in the looking glass — no combination of one-week or ten-day vacations will truly take you away from the life you lead at home.

Ultimately, this shotgun wedding of time and money has a way of keeping us in a holding pattern. The more we associate experience with cash value, the more we think that money is what we need to live. And the more we associate money with life, the more we convince ourselves that we're too poor to buy our freedom. With this kind of mind-set, it's no wonder so many Americans think extended overseas travel is the exclusive realm of students, counterculture dropouts, and the idle rich.

In reality, long-term travel has nothing to do with demographics — age, ideology, income — and everything to do with personal outlook. Long-term travel isn't about being a college student; it's about being a student of daily life. Long-term travel isn't an act of rebellion against society; it's an act of common sense within society. Long-term travel doesn't require a massive "bundle of cash"; it requires only that we walk through the world in a more deliberate way.

This deliberate way of walking through the world has always been intrinsic to the time-honored, quietly available travel tradition known as "vagabonding."

Vagabonding involves taking an extended time-out from your normal life — six weeks, four months, two years — to travel the world on your own terms.

But beyond travel, vagabonding is an outlook on life. Vagabonding is about using the prosperity and possibility of the information age to increase your personal options instead of your personal possessions. Vagabonding is about looking for adventure in normal life, and normal life within adventure. Vagabonding is an attitude — a friendly interest in people, places, and things that makes a person an explorer in the truest, most vivid sense of the word.

Vagabonding is not a lifestyle, nor is it a trend. It's just an uncommon way of looking at life — a value adjustment from which action naturally follows. And, as much as anything, vagabonding is about time — our only real commodity — and how we choose to use it.

Sierra Club founder John Muir (an ur-vagabonder if there ever was one) used to express amazement at the well-heeled travelers who would visit Yosemite only to rush away after a few hours of sightseeing. Muir called these folks the "time-poor" — people who were so obsessed with tending their material wealth and social standing that they couldn't spare the time to truly experience the splendor of California's Sierra wilderness. One of Muir's Yosemite visitors in the summer of 1871 was Ralph Waldo Emerson, who gushed upon seeing the sequoias, "It's a wonder that we can see these trees and not wonder more." When Emerson scurried off a couple hours later, however, Muir speculated wryly about whether the famous transcendentalist had really seen the trees in the first place.

Nearly a century later, naturalist Edwin Way Teale used Muir's example to lament the frenetic pace of modern society. "Freedom as John Muir knew it," he wrote in his 1956 book Autumn Across America, "with its wealth of time, its unregimented days, its latitude of choice . . . such freedom seems more rare, more difficult to attain, more remote with each new generation."

But Teale's lament for the deterioration of personal freedom was just as hollow a generalization in 1956 as it is now. As John Muir was well aware, vagabonding has never been regulated by the fickle public definition of lifestyle. Rather, it has always been a private choice within a society that is constantly urging us to do otherwise.

This is a book about living that choice.
Click to expand...
 
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Never seen Europe, but lots of Asia. Regrettably, I didn't make it to India.
Would love to see Turkey.

I found the culture of different places the most interesting part of traveling.

Question:

Which place provided the most interesting cultural experience?
And why?
 
Ever read "on the road" by Jack Kerouac? Best travel book ive ever read (even if its fiction)
 
Very cool... would have been nice to do this when I was younger was too busy taking x and smoking dope.. Now life is too busy, daughter.. wife and dog... and I like to be home..

congrats to you.
 
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