The Myths & Traps Of A Location Independent Life
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Wandering barefoot across golden beaches in Thailand and eating authentic, delicious Pad Thai (that costs just over 80p a dish) one month…Swanking it up surrounded by super-yachts in the Marina and eating Michelin-starred meals in Dubai the next…Diving with great whites and sampling world class wines in South Africa the month after that…
The Myths
It is easy to believe that location independent living is a lifestyle for the rich, famous or those with large trust funds only.
It’s easy to believe that a location independent life is only for those who are *extremely* fortunate and you’re not one of them.
It is easy to believe that you’ll never create the location independent lifestyle for yourself if you’re just starting out and you’ve got multiple hurdles to leap over.
It is easy to believe that once you start your location independent life, all your worries and troubles will be over and you’ll live the life I described above, trotting about the globe without a care in the world.
It is easy to believe that you’ll find the *perfect* place you can call home and that once you’ve found it, everything will feel alright.
The Traps
It is easy to become addicted to the excitement and adrenalin rush of visiting exotic new destinations every few months.
It is easy to look forward to the next destination so much that you sometimes forget to enjoy the here and now of where you are currently.
It is easy to compare one place favourably or otherwise to another and not take it on its own merits.
It is easy to let the time zones get the better of you.
It is easy to get distracted by your new surroundings, take too much time off and forget to focus on your business or means of income.
Some of you know me already, some of you might not.
The lifestyle I’ve described at the beginning of this post is mine…a 30 year old ‘normal’ person, who grew up in Nottingham (the gun capital of Europe, if you really want to know), who doesn’t have a huge trust fund but does consider herself *extremely* fortunate.
Jonathan, my husband, and I have disproved all of the above myths and fallen into all of the above traps. If we can do it, so you can you…enjoy the ride.
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Comments
I’m wondering if you have a specific end-time goal for your Location Independent lifestyle, or if you anticipate doing it as long as you are able..
When I was travelling for an internet-based non-profit http://www.worldtrek.org, at around the 18 month mark I realized I didn’t have the energy to do it anymore and since then I’ve only lived in a handful of places. I also got married and had children…. 
While one of my goals is to maintain separate residences and go to them seasonally, I don’t know if I currently have the same amount of energy/stamina I had in my mid-20s….
Do you ever feel like you want to “settle?” What about luggage? Do you pack everything in or do you parcel post items to your next destination?
How long have you been LIP’s, and are you at all “tired”? or do you anticipate living your life this way for years to come?
Just curious…
Monica
@Maria - Thanks Maria, nice to hear from you again and glad you enjoyed the post!
@Monica - Good questions! We don’t have a specific time frame at the moment - we just plan to keep doing what we’re doing until we no longer enjoy it and we’re no longer having fun…or we find a place that we like so much that we feel we want to stay there for longer.
We’ve only been doing this for 15 months so far and people keep telling us we’ll have to stop when x, y and z happens but that’s assuming you play by the normal rules which we (I) don’t always like to do! We did realise though that moving around so much last year was way too stressful so we’ve done it a bit differently this year and have learned to choose our destinations better which means we often end up staying in each place a bit longer - so it never feels like we’re on the go constantly.
Re. luggage - we pack everything with us and often send things ‘home’ rather than onwards; I love living so simply and with hardly any stuff - we really don’t need it and it feels so liberating to me to not be tied down to our possessions.
I know that my own LIP life on the road is going to be one hell of a ride, but I honestly can’t wait to take on every challenge that life on the road will throw at me.
Great post, Lea. Thanks for the inspiration!
This is very inspiring, Lea. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.