Comments on: Location-Independent Freelancing: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

By: Josh

Josh

This is just what I needed. I am about to take a 3/4-month trip to Cuba, Mexico and Central America, and plan to work on the road. WiFi is pretty much non-existent in Cuba so I’ve written that off but I think I was quite to naive to assume it would be much better everywhere else!
I realise it’s going to be tough – particularly when you constantly have to make careful decisions about EVERYTHING, which will be very draining – but I am determined to make it work.
Thanks to you and commenters for all your tips!
J

By: Anne from Viajar y Amar

Anne from Viajar y Amar

Phew! Somebody said it! It is hard to work while traveling. It is awesome to travel. It is awesome to have some money. But the getting to the balance is really hard. And that’s if you *don’t* get the Guatemalan gut rot or Dengue. I’ve done some really good work while holed up in Boquete, Panama (5mbps) and Medellin, Colombia (10mbps!!!!) but the Costa Rica days were super hard. I pretty much quit trying.

I’ve come to a similar conclusion as you, so let me try to refine that mezcla here: holing up in a beautiful, wifi-strong, infrastructurally-sound area is awesome for getting work done for a few months, but then taking time to let our minds and hearts breathe in a place for a few weeks where the power goes out for 1/2 days at a time creates the much-needed break from digital life. We’re creative people. We need to stop treating ourselves like robots.

The beauty here is that we CAN get month- and week-long leases in beautiful places. We DON’T have to stay put. We CAN go back to our favorite places to get work done and we CAN go take a break somewhere cheap and close and beautiful.

We’re getting it figured out… slowly. 🙂 BTW we’re in Medellin, Colombia and we’re loving it for our city phase. It is a big city and it is beautiful. If you’re looking for potable tap water, lively city parks, and a metro that connects you to everything, this will scratch that itch.

By: Quinn

Quinn

In reply to Tina.

That is amazing. What an incredible journey you’re on.

I prefer slow travel too. I feel like I really know the places I’ve been and I think that’s pretty cool.

And yes Managua sucked, we could barely leave the house. But it was the fastest connection I’ve ever had on the road with 2MB/s downloads.

By: Dave Dean

Dave Dean

In reply to Suzi.

Suzi — I’m also a big fan of Crashplan, and recommend to anyone who will listen (and to be honest, anyone who won’t as well… ;-))

Regarding the geo-location annoyance: I’d suggest using a VPN like Hotspot Shield or Witopia to let you choose a location that Facebook likes a little more than the one you’re in. You could use a proxy service instead, but given the significant extra security benefits of a VPN, you may as well go for that option.

By: Tina

Tina

Gah, it’s so nice to hear from someone else that they don’t have it all figured out.
I’m currently in Nicaragua for a few months in Matagalpa, and have a solid internet connection. Sometimes I find these places easily, and sometimes it is one headache after another. I haven’t had any issues with electricity yet, just water. I’m sorry that you got stuck in Managua, that place really is the pits for travelers. (I’m working on my write up of it as we speak.)
I think that the worst for me is exactly what you said, finding these new places…over…and over…and over again. It can get exhausting.
That and trying to explain “my job” to people. That only seems to get more complicated the more that I travel and the more that it webs out in all different directions. Friends and family back home think that life is all sunshine and rainbows with one exciting adventure right after another, but what they don’t get is that I’m really more of a dispossessed expat than a wandering backpacker 😉
The best part for me though is getting closely acquainted with the culture, and seeing sites that aren’t in any travel guides. I currently live with a woman who survived the war and the revolution, and I love hearing her stories. I have lived with multiple families in multiple countries, and I learn so much from each and everyone of them. <3
Best,
Tina of Full of Wanderlust

By: Quinn

Quinn

In reply to Suzi.

Thanks Suzi. I’ll have to check out CrashPlan. I’ve heard of it before, but haven’t really looked into it.

I have been using Cubby and Dropbox, but I DO NOT recommend Cubby. It’s super buggy, customer support sucks (took a month to reply to my support issue and is still unresolved 7 weeks later). AND, it uploads at about 20% of the speed that Dropbox does and is often missing files when it says it’s fully synced.

I often have to reauthenticiate because I change my location on accounts, but I’d rather deal with that pain in the ass, than be less secure.

By: Quinn

Quinn

In reply to John Wilson.

I know right. I was shocked at how much the power was out in San Juan Del Sur. In one of those weeks, we only had 1.5 days of online time. The power was off all day, but worked flawlessly at night, bastards!

Never crossed my mind to think that a popular tourist town would have power issues that badly.

Long term, it is about slowing down. We found that vacation rentals seem to be our best bet for a minimum of one month. Currently in Puerto Vallarta for six to launch Never North. We really needed the stability and break.

I learned how important environment and work space are to my productivity and that’s something I could have never realized before I left home. You’re right about that!

By: Suzi

Suzi

Awesome post!!

I think one of the toughest parts is realizing that when you have your own business, you can never fully take a vacation unless you formally cease work on projects. I’ve become jealous of friends who can take purely fun vacations with the mental break from work, because I’ve always gotta be checking my emails to make sure nothing urgent came up.

The tools you mentioned for putting your resources online are topnotch–I’d add CrashPlan to the list. As a photographer, I’ve got terrabytes of files that I continually have to reference, and carrying around physical hard drives is a pain. Services like CrashPlan are great for eliminating that.

Also, I do a lot of remote work in social media and have found that sites like Facebook make this nearly impossible with their geolocation trackers–half the time, I need to (with guilt) tell my clients I need them to unlock their Facebook accounts b/c Facebook detects I’ve traveled to a new location. A big pain I haven’t found a solution to yet.

Thanks again for the blog, and I’m excited to try out freelancing from Thailand next week–my first trip out there!

By: John Wilson

John Wilson

Yupper, you cannot figure this stuff out ahead of time.
Who’d believe that a popular tourist town would NOT have power for hours or days at a time?
How can you not have electricity or internet – in the middle of no where? LOL
I stayed in Waslala for a week, and they had 1 internet connection at a local Menonite store for the whole town.
It took me about 4 months to realize =- SLOW DOWN!
It’s not the places you visit that are important – it’s the people you meet that make it worth the effort.
2 to 3 months in one place was ideal – got to know the town, a few people and where I could connect to the internet that was good.
I don’t think if you live in the States or Canada (Possibly Europe) that you can realize the challenges that are faced daily by 70% of the world population .
Questionable electrical service, off and on wifi connections, corruption that interferes with your travels. roads that are nor passible to get where you want to go, questionable hotel services and amenities, and so much more.
But, that’s the intriguing and challenging thing about traveling the world and making a bit of money while doing it.
Like the saying goes – It ain’t the destination – it’s the journey that’s the fun part.
Great that you have found a way to “settle” in with your travel and work.
I could relate to many parts of your article and empathize with the challenges you face.
Cheers

By: Quinn

Quinn

In reply to grasya. Glad to know I'm not the only one! :)