How I stumbled into location independence and never looked back
I became location independent almost by accident.
I wanted to travel but was far too impatient/bad at saving to amass the funds that would see me through a year in South America. I was also about to turn 30 when I made this travel plan which had put me in somewhat of a kamikaze mindset.
Several things changed all at once.
A long relationship came to an end as I hit 29. I’d been working at the same design agency for about 6 years and was restless. My long standing dream to be a superstar DJ was (after a lot of effort and some success) definitely not going to happen. Did I mention that I was about to turn 30?
Luckily for me this turbulent quarter-life crisis came in 2009 (116 seems like an ambitious age goal I know, but to call it a mid-life crisis would be far too pessimistic and there are no other acceptable age crisis equations that I know of). The digital nomad phenomenon was already happening. Tim Ferris had already conquered the New York Times best sellers list. In short there was a lot of inspiration available online to fuel my imagination and the possibility of perpetual travel sounded very appealing.
Naivety personified
By the time I set off in January 2011 I was totally on-board with the idea of working and travelling.
I had my (horrendous and extremely heavy PC) laptop in my backpack and several travel blog posts bookmarked. But not really anything more than that. I’d been doing some freelance gigs on the side for years which I assumed would give me a decent start to life as a freelancer on the road, but that was where my planning had ended. At that point I really just wanted to get out of London and party my way through South America.
And that’s what I did. Hard.
So hard that the funds that the Lonely Planet ‘South America on a Shoestring’ guidebook had told me might last a year, were almost depleted after roughly 3 months.
That’s when the panic set in.
Hustling for survival (of my backpacking trip at least)
Another piece of good fortune meant that I was just arriving in Bolivia as my funds got scarily close to zero. Bolivia is by far the cheapest country to live and travel in South America. The perfect place for a broke designer to launch his online empire! I’d done a little ground work in Buenos Aires a few weeks before. Setting up my portfolio site and creating profiles on all the freelance jobs boards I could find. But it was in Sucre, Bolivia that I slowed right down and tried to get my hustle on.
It was the buzz of trying to make this idea work that got me through what could (and maybe should) have been a soul destroying stop. But the shame of going home 9 months earlier than I’d predicted and the desire to experience more of what that incredible continent had to offer was enough to get me through several awful $50 logo projects from Elance.
Fast forward 7 months and I had managed to slowly hustle and grind my way all the way up to the top of Colombia and in the process, lay the foundations for a decent little remote design business. I’d also been massively bitten by the travel bug and did not intend on giving up on what I’d started.
Raising the Stakes
Following a short trip home for Christmas I relocated again. This time to Shanghai which as it turned out came with quite a big rise in living costs.
Cue the panic.
For me this intense emotional state seems to bring clarity and focus. Skirting along the line between imminent failure and survival has been the position from which I’ve developed my business most successfully. Shanghai is a city of opportunity and entrepreneurialism and being in the position I was in forced me into networking more. This lead to me building some interesting relationships and eventually picking up some significant clients.
Since this time — roughly mid-2012 onwards — I’ve never used any of the online marketplaces to look for work. Everything has come via referral and word of mouth. That or face to face networking at cowork spaces and events. The challenge of existing in a place that was expensive also allowed me to avoid the trap of basing my location independence entirely on exploiting the world’s poorer economies. Which I can imagine would be an easy thing to fall into — and a big potential trap.
Where I am now
Jump forward another 4 years to the present and my freelance business has evolved into a small remote agency which I manage alongside my role as Head of Design for a Seattle based tech start-up. I’m also part of the team launching wecoco, a company formed with the aim of pushing location independence and co-living/co-working on to the next level for creatives.
I’m firmly wedded to this (currently) unconventional lifestyle and will remain so even if I become more rooted in one location. Having stumbled into it to keep a backpacking adventure going, I’ve now come to the realisation that the various qualities which define you and your business as ‘location independent’ are in fact incredibly future savvy whatever your nomadic or not. Which sounds like the basis for a much longer article… watch this space.
As it stands I’ve never been fitter or happier and I’m confident that that half baked plan I made at 29 will turn out to be the most inspired moment of my life.
And it’s probably given me the best chance of actually making that quarter life equation accurate too.
Now with wecoco I’m using what I’ve learned from my 6 nomadic years to build solid connections with location independent creatives from around the world as well as helping those who are thinking about choosing this lifestyle find their path to freedom. I’d love to hear your own location independent story, drop me a line if you’re interested in connecting.
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wecoco.co is a long-term workation that brings expert creatives together to co-live, co-work and co-travel. We share ideas and life changing experiences, connect with local communities and their creative scenes, collaborate on projects that leave an impact on the places we visit and carve out a more interesting and lucrative career for ourselves in the process.
Luke Kelly is Head of Design at Zipwire, Director at AirborneStudio and Co-Founder at wecoco. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram.
