How to travel and work

My interview with Ali: world wanderer and founder of The Effective English Company

In our Digital Nomads Interviews series we feature interviews with digital nomads and nomads entrepreneurs with interesting profiles, from all over the world. We hope they will inspire you as much as they inspire us! This week, we talked to Ali Marsland, World Wanderer and Founder of The Effective English Company

Hi Ali! So tell me who you are and what do you do.

I’m a British country girl at heart, but I was bitten by the travel bug 25 years ago. I’ve now travelled to 42 countries and divide my time mostly between Nottingham (UK) and Cape Town (South Africa), with frequent side trips to new places.

I work remotely as I travel, running a business which provides extra support to communications teams.

I am also setting up a new venture to help other people identify and live the life that’s right for them.

Can you tell us more about what you do?

My main business is The Effective English Company. I set up the company in 2012 after working as a freelance communications manager for six years (and employed as a communications manager before that). The company works 100% remotely and I have a small team of people who work with me. Between us we act as an extra pair of hands for busy communications/marketing teams, giving them extra capacity to get the job done! We do a lot of work with the UK National Health Service (NHS) but also have some smaller private sector clients.

I’m also launching a new venture which is very much based around my own personal experience and is aimed at helping other people identify and then live the life that’s right for them — whether or not that may involve any travel.

How did it all start? You’ve been traveling for quite a bit ; a real world wanderer. What motivated you and what keeps you motivated today?

It’s difficult to pinpoint exactly how and when I started — the last 25 years have all been part of my journey. I grew up in a tiny village in North Nottinghamshire, England. Then when I was 14 my Dad got a job in Malta and we sold up and moved out there. That’s when the travel bug bit me.

At the end of my degree I still had no real idea what I wanted to do but I was very clear what I DIDN’T want to do — get stuck in a ‘suit’ office job and wake up in 20 years realising I hated my life! I knew I loved travel, so I went to the careers library, flicked through the ‘overseas opportunities’ folder and found a scheme to teach English in Sudan for two months. I didn’t know where Sudan was or anything about it but I went ahead and applied anyway.

My two months in Sudan turned into a year, until I decided it was time to go back to the UK to see what was next. That turned out to be:

• A few months in menial jobs
• 2000–2002 — editor of staff newsletter in a big department store (holiday to Egypt)
• 2002–2003 — PR assistant in small PR agency
• 2003–2005 — communications manager in NHS (holiday to Morocco)
• 2005–2006 — similar role, different organisation, fixed term contract
• Oct 2006 — went self-employed doing the same kind of work; a main part of my reason for going self-employed was so I could travel as much as I wanted without having to plan holidays around other people/stay within my allocated number of holiday days per year (cue a six-week trip to Mexico, Guatemala, Belize & New York and then several other subsequent trips)
• 2011/12 — I decided that wasn’t enough and that I wanted to be able to work from anywhere rather than working in clients’ offices and then going on holiday. I made changes to the business to enable this and then in 2012 it seemed in theory that the business could work like that and I wanted to test it by going abroad for a month. I wanted a place that met various criteria and chose Cape Town. I went there for a month in Feb 2012 and loved it! I’ve now been back for a month or two every year since!
• 2012 — I set up The Effective English Company Ltd. Now I focus mainly on running the business and outsource most of the work to a small team.

Wow that is pretty impressive. Tell us Ali, what was the attitude of the people around you? Were they supportive?

My journey has been very much one of gradual change — an evolution of sorts.

As it’s been a gradual process I’ve found that naturally over time I’ve lost contact with some people and become closer to others.

The friends and relatives I have in my life now all know that I love travel and these days they’re rarely surprised by anything I tell them, but just ask me where I’m off to next!

How would you go about meeting new people on the road?

Depending on your preferred style of travel it can be easy or much harder to meet people. In 2012 I was taking my first steps towards remote working. I had made a conscious decision to change my business model to deliver our services remotely rather than in clients’ offices, and I was at a point where I felt that it should work in theory and I wanted to try it in practice. I decided to go and live abroad for a month to test it out. For this particular experiment I was looking for somewhere that met various criteria — I wanted it to be warm in the UK’s winter, I wanted it to be fairly easy to live there and to get around (so that I was focused on testing the business, not testing my ability to live abroad), and I also wanted somewhere with a dragon boat club.

A what?! I’ve been dragon boating for 15 years now and absolutely love it. It’s a fantastic team sport and has many many benefits.

I joined Mujaji dragon boat club in Cape Town for that first visit in 2012 and have now been training and racing with them every year since.

Since that first visit I’ve also become a big fan of MeetUp. Now if I’m planning to spend more than a couple of weeks in one place I sign up to any MeetUp groups in the area that take my fancy. As the whole point of MeetUp groups is to meet people it’s never uncomfortable rocking up to an event on your own, and more often than not only a few of the other people there know each other. It’s a ready-made social life and I’ve made some great friends that way.

WhatsApp and Facebook are also brilliant for keeping in touch with people wherever I am, and when I have a quiet evening (few and far between with all the dragon boating and Meetup events in my diary!) I like to sit on the balcony with a glass of wine, enjoy the view of the sea or mountain and chat with friends and family online.

What do you like most about your lifestyle, and also what are the challenges you’re facing?

The absolute best part of this lifestyle is the freedom!

I just love meeting new people and find it fascinating to see how other people live their lives.

As I travel I constantly pick up ideas and inspiration about the way I want to live my own life.

When I lived in Sudan for example, I saw and learnt many things, but one that sticks in my mind particularly is how incredibly generous and un-materialistic the Sudanese people are. Many of them have very little but they will always share all that they have without a second thought. For example, one family I stayed with had one wardrobe full of clothes — there was no distinction between what belonged to whom; there was a supply of clothes in that wardrobe and if you lived or visited there when you needed a clean item you simply took one from the cupboard.

That communal, sharing, unselfish approach was refreshing to me, and the lack of attachment to material items is something I have tried to take with me throughout my life. I would much rather spend any money I have on travel and new experiences than on the latest fashion, technology or gadget.

I think the hardest thing is the isolation and loneliness that can very easily go along with travelling. When I was planning my big trip after school several friends were keen to come with me — and I would have loved them to, but none of them got their act together to actually organise anything. I knew it was something I wanted to do — with or without anyone else, and so I went on my own. That’s pretty much been the pattern ever since. I’m quite single-minded about my travel ambitions and while it’s always great if anyone does want to join me, more often than not I go alone.

I recently had to make the very very difficult decision to leave what was otherwise a brilliant relationship.

We both realised we didn’t want the same life, and I knew in my heart that I could never really be happy living the settled life he wants. That was definitely a huge challenge, but it also turned out to be the final piece in the puzzle for me ; I now know for 100% sure that this crazy travelling lifestyle — although it does come with lots of challenges — is absolutely the right one for me.

Yes I suppose when you know, you just know. Now let’s talk about the financial aspect, which is for a lot of my readers THE question. How do you manage your budget and where do your revenues come from?

I don’t have a specific budget as obviously costs are different in different places and my income fluctuates quite a lot. Rather, I try to live well within my means at all times and I rarely spend any money on material items. It’s a constant reviewing process: weighing up the practicalities of the ideas I have about where I’d like to go, with the numbers on my bank statement and my own knowledge of what work I have coming up.

My main income comes from my business, but I also have a flat in the UK where I live when I’m there and I rent the spare room on AirBnB, which brings in a little extra money to help pay for my accommodation elsewhere.

Ali according to you, what are the top skills to start as a digital nomad?

Obviously specific skills depend on your industry, but essential general skills for a digital nomad include being super-organised and motivated. You also need to be pretty resilient and independent and ideally should be quite comfortable with your own company without relying on other people.

100% agree on the last one. Tell us, what is next for you?

Business-wise I’m focusing on marketing my established ‘corporate’ business, trying to get new clients and grow the company, and I’m also busy setting up my new venture, which is still taking shape but is based around telling my story and helping other people to identify and then live their ‘right’ life (whether travel is a part of that or not).

Travel-wise I’m based in Nottingham, UK for the next few months with short trips planned to Venice, Spain, Lisbon and Estonia, and then I’ll be spending three weeks in Malawi Oct/Nov (volunteering), December in Colombia and then back to Cape Town late Jan to mid April — and then we’ll see what 2018 has in store!

Well that’s quite the travels list and I wish you all the best on the coming ventures

Thank you ​Ali for sharing your experience with the DN:m community! If you like the article, spread it by giving a 💓 and subscribe to the DN:m newsletter

All images: credit of Ali and used with her permission

This article was originally published on digitalnomadsmedia.com on June 14 — Find more about Ali in the full article.