Everyone should consider location independence — even if they never plan to travel or relocate
Digital nomads aren’t the only ones who can benefit from this modern lifestyle set up
Digital nomads have been roaming free and blogging about it incessantly for more than a decade now. Location independence sits at the heart of that modern tribe’s philosophy. But they don’t own the term. In fact you don’t even have to travel to start thinking about location independence — and you should. It’s the most future proof way of setting up your life.
In my previous post I covered my accidental journey into long term location independence. Whilst I may have stumbled into this lifestyle as a way of extending a backpacking trip, I have since invested a lot more time and energy into considering what it means to be location independent. My conclusion is that it’s about the smartest set of lifestyle adjustments you can make in the current climate.
Two words. Trump. Brexit.
Whichever way you fell on those two era defining results, it’s impossible to ignore the sudden shift that has happened in our global consciousness. It’s been a seismic year (and scarily, there’s still two weeks of it left as I write this). The only idea that has universal consensus now is probably that ‘our systems are broken’. Our democracies, our economies, our politics, our media, our environments. Across the board there are problems. Big changes appear to be on the horizon and there is a lot of conflict about just what those changes should be.
But this is not a political post (any of my Facebook friends would testify that I’m definitely not the type of guy to get into long ill-advised online rants on topics like Brexit…🙊)
Even without the turbulent year we’ve just had, my conclusions would be exactly the same. In fact I wrote something along these lines on my site in 2012 as I was just getting going. Not the doom and gloom about everything being broken — a more positive spin on how technology is changing the world we live in at a rapid pace. From Shanghai in China I wrote:
“…The tipping point was the fact that rapid technological advancements are making the world smaller and smaller by the day. Social media is changing the way we interact. Smartphones, tablets and their apps are transforming our day to day lives in ways that just a decade ago would have seemed unimaginable. The world is changing at an incredible rate — my plan is to change with it.”
Once I’d got beyond my backpacking year that was how I felt. It had been liberating — and so incredibly possible — to be able to work from anywhere in the world. It was also glaringly obvious that it was only going to get easier and more common to live and work like this. I felt empowered and inspired to carry on down this path.
A burgeoning movement
As it turns out that confidence was well placed. It’s amazing how much development there has been in this area in the last five years. Co-working has exploded and is a key part of most city’s work landscape now. This is the case all over the world, on every continent, in cities small and large — and co-living is the next big ‘disruptor’ on the horizon.
Ownership is becoming an unnecessary burden
In London where I’m from, Millennials have increasingly found themselves squeezed out of the homeownership equation. Add to that the very disposable nature of most of the products we buy — from iPhones to H&M clothes — ‘things’ are not designed to last and many products like music and books have even gone from the physical to digital realm. They don’t exist in the third dimension anymore.
Then you also have cooperative schemes like the car sharing company Zipcar which makes owning a car in many big cities seem like a ridiculously unnecessary burden. Software is now mostly subscription based.
Clearly the way in which ownership is viewed has fundamentally changed and this set of circumstances is mirrored the world over.
The classic ‘job for life’ is also not something we Millennials, let alone Post-Millennials, desire or even imagine to be possible. 40 years at the same company working your way up the ladder with a nice pension at the end? It’s not even close to the reality we’re living in. The gig economy, internships, start-up culture, entrepreneurship, zero-hours contracts, self-employed, freelance. That’s where we are.
And that’s before we even talk about automation and the end of human labour as ‘paid work.’ By almost all estimations, those realities are not very far away.
The times they are a changin’
So why do I think location independence is a good response in this exciting/daunting state of flux we find ourselves in? To answer that I’ll first define what I think being truly location independent entails:
- Arranging your work/business in a way that separates it from the physical location you’re living in.
- Re-thinking your relationship with ownership.
- Pushing the boundaries of digital communication.
None of that necessarily means travel, or even re-location. What it does mean is maximum adaptability and immediate readiness for a move should the need or desire arise.
In this age of uncertainty that must be a good thing right?
Beginning to think along these lines and taking some action would be a smart piece of future proofing. After the year we’ve had, it would be mad not to consider the possibility of significant change. It’s happening. However we feel about it.
Stationary location independence, what the…?
How might that look in the real world? Some examples of things you might do that don’t involve moving city:
- If you’re a London based freelancer or digital based service business, start looking to spread your client base over more than one local economy. Pitch for work in Canada and Australia. Visit events in Berlin. Raise your online profile in a way that is actively seeking to connect across different locations. Collaborate across continents.
- If you’re employed full time, negotiate with your employer to build some remote work into your schedule. There are loads and loads of stats that will back you up. It’s great, that’s been proven. Win your boss over.
- Focus on refining your cloud communication/organisation setup. Make sure you’re taking full advantage of tools like appear.in, Slack, Asana, GitHub, InVision, Freshbooks, Google Drive, Dropbox etc to organise your work (and life).
- Avoid getting into long personal contracts. Forget the free iPhone that comes with 24 month commitment to Vodafone (or any other provider). Buy it full price and pick up one of the really good value rolling contracts all the networks offer instead. It’s usually cheaper anyway.
- Consider moving yourself or if you have one, your whole team, into a coworking space. You can still have your own space and put branding/art on the walls if you need to — it doesn’t have to mean hot desking. But you will avoid long term leases and the responsibility for bills etc.
- Look into accepting and trading in Bitcoin and/or other crypto-currencies. Diversify. Don’t put all your monetary eggs in one basket.
That is not a blueprint or in any way an exhaustive list. Just a few ‘user stories’ that give you an idea on what location independence can mean in reality. It’s not really about travel at all — that’s just one of the many perks. It’s about taking a bit more control of your destiny in this rapidly evolving world.
Conclusions
Ultimately, it’s my belief that we’re moving towards a hyper-connected and fully globalised world whether we like it or not. But as the last year has shown, the transition may not be an entirely smooth one. For me, that makes it all the more important to be ahead of the curve when it comes to technology, the economy, the environment, citizenship and tax.
In essence, that‘s all being location independent is about.
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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.
