From working in a factory with a wife and mortgage to travelling the world as a location independent entrepreneur. This is my story on the transition into being a digital nomad
One grey, cold morning in March 2016, I was painting the stairs in my house. My wife had already been gone 2 months and I was struggling to pay the mortgage on a house I didn’t want or need.
A quick search for a podcast, anything will do, just need something to listen to that was not music. I found one, hit play and went back to my decorating.
The guy on the podcast spoke about how he left his old life behind and went travelling, Thailand, Nepal, Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia. How did he get to have such an exciting life? I listened with envy as I worked on my house on my one day off a week.
He kept saying the phrase ‘Digital Nomad’
He travelled endlessly, moving countries every time his visa expired. He made his money online as an affiliate marketer, selling other peoples products for a small percentage of the profits.
I used to do that as a hobby, I never made more than $200 in one month so it always stayed as just a hobby, a little extra money so I could buy the odd PC game to escape from reality.
In fact, I had lots of hobbies, I built websites, designed things using the adobe suite, flew my RC helicopter, coded a home automation system with an AI while I was waiting for Amazon Alexa to be invented, I kept myself busy.
At night, after work, I watched a show called Walking the Himalaya. I watched it again and again until I knew it word for word. The adventurer called Levison Wood walked the entire length of the Himalaya while staying in tea houses and meeting interesting people that lived in India, Pakistan, Bhutan, Nepal.
Ah, Nepal, a place that seems so far away but so fascinating. Maybe one day I will be able to afford a holiday, maybe once I have sold my house. I’ve not left the UK in 17 years. Once the house is gone I will save up for a week in Amsterdam. Nepal is just a dream, its too expensive, to exotic, too far away.
I spent all my free time building affiliate websites, desperate to make a little extra cash, maybe I can make a living from it like the guy on the podcast and experience that level of freedom.
The house was finally sold in January 2017, I brought a cheap sports car with the little I made from the sale of the house as is the rules for a newly single man.
That little MX5 made me smile, for the first time in a while.
I rented a flat with a mate on the water overlooking the Titanic birth in Southampton docks. With two of us paying the rent I finally had the chance to save up for my Amsterdam holiday.
It would mean going alone, I’ve never done things alone before, but I needed that break.
I returned to my place of work, as a CNC machinist, only to find out they were laying off 100 people.
That night I visited an old friend, one of my best friends. I sat and drank coffee while listening to his stories of travel and adventure as I often did.
I drove him to the shop in my fun car as he was getting too old to walk that far.
I told him that I might lose my job.
“Son, pull the car over.
Now you listen to me. You need to go to work tomorrow and tell them you are leaving. Its a sign, your ducks have alined, it’s your turn to have an adventure”
I will never forget the words Gordon said that evening.
I laughed it off, I could never leave my job, I enjoyed it and I have worked there since the day I left school nearly 27 years ago. Plus I just brought this car and have a flat.
I never quit my job the next morning.
I did it 2 days later.
“Son, pull the car over. Now you listen to me. You need to go to work tomorrow and tell them you are leaving. Its a sign, your ducks have alined, it’s your turn to have an adventure”
finally got my holiday to Amsterdam. It went well, I got lost, met some people to hang out with. I spent the whole time planning my future, I have done the unthinkable and walked away from a career that I loved.
I formed a plan, a dream but also a plan. I was going to get another job, sell my car, and go on a trip of a lifetime. I will head to Chiang Mai in Thailand as I heard its the hub of digital nomads. My affiliate websites didn’t take off as I had hoped but I can build and rank websites.
I am going to be a freelance web developer!
Yup, that’s what I will do. I have been building websites since 1994 I can do this.
In my rush to try and make some affiliate websites I have overlooked the obvious, I can build websites, I have been doing it for over 20 years as a hobby and I can get them high up in Googles search results.
If it doesn’t work then at least I have had an adventure. It will be like hitting the reset button. When I return I will start to build a life again but now, I need to go.
There was a problem, I still had 6 months lease on my flat and no savings.
I managed to find a temporary job fast, I started a week later. The bosses didn’t know it was a temp job and on my first day, I brought a one-way ticket to Bangkok. I worked every hour they let me, evenings and weekends, for the first time in my life I was saving money.
I learnt from that job that I never want to work for any engineering firm again unless it was my old company. I was screamed at on the shop floor, constant pressure and stress, the bosses loved to grind people down and continually threaten to sack people if they didn’t constantly perform better than the previous day.
They didn’t know about my one-way ticket until the day I walked out, on Christmas eve I was told I am working all over the Christmas break. I was not, I had a flight in 2 weeks time away from this place, this country, this life.
I picked up my toolbox and grinned my way to my car. Driving home that day I listened to episode 200 of that digital nomad podcast, I finally finished all the episodes and that was the last time I will hear it. I was going to live it.
I spent the holidays with my family, saying goodbye to my two grown-up daughters and Mother was the hardest. I didn’t know when I would be back, I was hoping for maybe 6 months away, maybe longer if I could land some work as a freelancer.
I don’t think I have ever felt fear as hard as I did on that flight to Bangkok. I have never flown long haul before, that 12 hours in an Airbus A350 seems to take days. I remember being excited that I was in an A350, an aircraft that I had worked on as an engineer. I also remember that I was scared stiff, Bangkok seemed like a different world, so far away.
What the hell was I doing?
As I left the plane I had a movie script playing out in my head, a film I watched many times, it kept repeating:
"My name is Marc. So what else do you need to know? Stuff about my family, or where I'm from? None of that matters. Not once you cross the ocean and cut yourself loose, looking for something more beautiful, something more exciting, and yes, I admit, something more dangerous. So after 12 hours in the back of an aeroplane, three dumb movies, two plastic meals, six beers and absolutely no sleep, I finally touch down... in Bangkok."
The Beach - A film I would learn to hate in the coming years.
My first memory of Bangkok was mosquito bites, not something we get that much of in the UK. I didn’t know I needed repellent and my legs were sore within hours of arriving. I also didn’t know what Dengue fever was. A disease I will experience in a few months time.
A week later I was on an overnight train to Chiang Mai.
I’ve never been on a train by myself before, yet here I am, 8000 miles from home, climbing off my bunk in the morning to see the stunning Thailand jungle going slowly past the train window.
The 12-hour train journey took 16 hours.
We kept stopping so the Monks could get off for a smoke. I did not risk joining them. The train would not leave a monk stranded in the jungle, A pasty white clueless English guy covered in mosquito bites, probably.
I booked a hotel for the first few nights so I had time to find an apartment, I was staying in Chiang Mai for 4 weeks. I didn’t know it at the time, but that hotel ended up being my home every time I visit CM for the coming years, they do monthly rentals as well as short-stay hotel rooms. I have many close friends that work there, they are my reason to keep returning.
That podcast spoke about a Co-working space called Punspace.
I had to visit, it was all part of the plan.
My first day at Punspace I sat at a desk with others. I was lucky in the fact I already had my first freelance client. A close friend back in the UK helped me land my first job.
Excited to start on my freelance career, I found a seat and got out my laptop.
Woah, being in an office is very different from working on the shop floor in a machine shop.
With the laptop open, I had a look around at the other digital nomads in the room.
I recognised many faces from my 18 months of research and obsession. There were famous YouTubers, travel bloggers and online personalities that I felt like I personally knew after watching and reading so much of their content.
The guy that was sat next to me hit his return key hard on his laptop and sat back.
A new email arrived in my inbox a few seconds later.
“New Digital Nomad podcast episode 201 now available”
That moment, I realised that I am sat next to the very same guy that spoke to me via his podcast 18 months ago when I first heard the phrase ‘Digital Nomad’.
I snapped out of this weird, surreal dream I was having as everything hit me at once.
Overwhelmed, I rushed outside into the garden.
Here I am, 42 years old, sobbing uncontrollably.
The stress of the last two years left my body instantly and aggressively.
They were happy tears.
I’ve done it!
I made it!
I’m here!
