15 ms·

No office, no boss, no boundaries – rise of the nomadic rich

183 points by chriscampbell 14y ago

sdoering 14y ago
>> "For the first time in three years of non-stop travel, I wish for a home." Something I had to learn myself. Something, I did learn and it centered me, gave me context and a lot more happiness. So I am happy for everybody living that way. If it does please them and does not hurt anyone else. But I know for me, that this is not my style of life.
- stevenbrianhall 14y ago
  Yep, same here. I'm currently sitting in a University library in Germany, working on some projects for my clients. I have an apartment in Texas, but haven't hardly seen it in three months. I'm so, so thankful for the experiences in travel that this lifestyle has afforded over the last three years. I also think that in some ways, being constantly on the move has made me a better worker, but it's time for a change. I start a full-time sit-down-in-an-office position in February, which I chose to do for exactly the reasons that the article outlines. I echo the parent comment - it's a cool lifestyle that you should try if you can, but it's not for me any longer.
sputknick 14y ago
I would like to take my skills on the road, but I have a wife and two kids. My wife does not work. Is this lifestyle practical for me? Any advice would be appreciated.
- bdcravens 14y ago
  Any discussion should be framed in terms of what you and you wife decide is best for your family and your children. There's no "I" or "me" in that conversation.
- willholloway 14y ago
  It depends how you feel about moving your kids. Because your skills are mobile and your wife does doesn't need to find a job it will make things much easier. I'm living a compromise version of this lifestyle. I have lived in three cities in four years. Instead of constantly traveling, when the urge to ride on to my next adventure strikes I book passage on a plane and rent a furnished apartment in a new city.
- gte910h 14y ago
  It is if you two can handle home schooling the children
  - chimeracoder 14y ago
    I wonder what tokenadult would have to say about this, but I don't think that that's a good environment for homeschooling.
- Spooky23 14y ago
  No. This lifestyle is basically a scheme to trick yourself into believing that you're still living the youthful college dream. Do you want your kids to grow up in hotels and short-term rentals, never having been in one place for too long? If the answer is "sure", talk to people who grew up in military families who were shipped all over the world -- it's not fun. If the idea is that you're going to travel, and the family stays put, understand that the cost is that you won't have a family at some point. Road-warrior consultants generally aren't the happiest people.
  - alexkus 14y ago
    > Road-warrior consultants generally aren't the happiest people. So true, I did similar kind of "on-the-road" consultancy for a 9 month period in a previous role and that was enough. Saved a load of money though as I had no accommodation expenses of my own in those 9 months.
  - rdl 14y ago
    This lifestyle is awesome when you're single or don't have kids, though.
  - cpursley 14y ago
    I've meet plenty of people who grew up in military families or one's that simply moved a lot for work and loved it. They have friends all over the world and a much broader perspective on life than stationary folks.
- cfn 14y ago
  One possible option is to move aboard a sailing boat. You will be able to move from place to place and work at the same time. Most marinas have Wifi and if you stay close to the coast you should be able to get internet over your mobile. There are many families that do this, just search for liveaboard.
  - cpursley 14y ago
    Yes! A live aboard (catamarans are great) is the way to go.
- grecy 14y ago
  Of course you can. Here [1] is a family of 7 driving from Alaska to Argentina... because they want to. I met many similar family expeditions during my drive [2] and it was always a joy to meet the kids - who were all bi or tri-lingual. One of my favorite quotes from a ~10 year old was "I don't like homeschooling.. I like WORLDschooling". [1] http://www.discovershareinspire.com/ http://www.discovershareinspire.com/ [2] http://theroadchoseme.com/ http://theroadchoseme.com/
- bhousel 14y ago
  Haha, don't ask us. Ask them.
- ipmb 14y ago
  Sure! I moved from my family from the States to an expat beach community last year. Being jetset with a family of 4 is expensive and not how I wanted to raise my kids, so we just settled down here. Maybe we'll move again next year, maybe not. The experience has been incredible and I'd do it again in a heart beat. Get in touch, I'd be happy to provide more advice/encouragement.
  - boothead 14y ago
    I'd like to ask some questions if I may. * Where did you decide to live? * How do you support yourself and family? * What do you do for school, is it expensive? * How's it working out? Any regrets? Cheers
vertr 14y ago
This guy is yet ANOTHER self help guru sort: http://postmasculine.com/ http://postmasculine.com/
- pkorzeniewski 14y ago
  Just shows how big demand for such stuff there is, similar to "making money from writing about making money from writing" ;)
nlh 14y ago
Anyone else have their "sketchy" filters activated after reading this article? Author mentions how he travels around the world and how he's meeting up with friends / colleagues at this conference (and that he knows them from email lists / online forums), but there's no talk whatsoever in the article about what businesses any of them run. That's usually a red flag to me -- feels like the scummy side of the Internet. Doesn't take away from the point (mostly) - that the Internet is enabling a new type of remote-working lifestyle - but I can't get over my spidey senses tingling about the underlying...
- michaelochurch 14y ago
  I think there's an exponential return on efforts for a lot of this work. Most people can't take away enough time from their day job and responsibilities to get good at it, but people who do and take an investment mentality (investing their surplus time back into their skills and contacts) can take off. For example, if I spent 6 months on an app, I doubt it would pay rent, because there's a lot I'd have to learn and it would probably (?) be amateurish. On the other hand, if I cut out 18 months and kept iterating, I'm sure I'd do better, financially, than I'm doing at my day job. I haven't won this game yet (I have a fairly typical day job for a top-5% programmer of my age) but it seems like the trick is to find an avenue where you can rapidly get better, invest heavily in yourself when you find it, and eventually be independent.
  - graeme 14y ago
    If it's something you want to do, my best recommendation is to save a large percentage of your income. I started without a savings buffer, and have managed to do alright. But there were many moments where having spare cash could either have let me outsource certain work, or avoid having to do work to earn money in the short term.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
  - lucaspiller 14y ago
    > On the other hand, if I cut out 18 months and kept iterating, I'm sure I'd do better, financially, than I'm doing at my day job. This is exactly it. At his last job, my (now) boss started a project on the side. Eventually he had to quit, not because he was making lots of money, but because he didn't have enough time to support the side project. It was bringing in money at this point, but not enough to match his previous salary. He kept at it though, and eventually the revenue grew. Twelve months later, there are 15 of us and money in the bank :)
michaelochurch 14y ago
How does this work for people with families? I'd really like to see someone turn a cruise ship into a moving, floating tech city that would move about the world (possibly spending a week in each port, allowing inland travel) so people can travel but also have a stable support network. It'd even have a school for people with kids. It'd probably be cheaper than living in New York or the Bay Area.
- ewolf 14y ago
  There's Blueseed (http://blueseed.co/ http://blueseed.co/) and recently, I read about a planned kind of entrepreneur cruise (I can't find that one right now, perhaps it's organised by Blueseed as well). Neither is intended for families, but in the long run, they might offer that.
- spydum 14y ago
  Plenty of people live aboard and travel via the ocean. Not sure how many are in the tech field (one comes to mind: the MicroStrategy CEO - Michael Saylor.. from what I understand, the guy lives aboard some massive ship and travels the globe that way). No idea on family lifestyle, but I suspect having kids would be much more difficult with that setup.
- kareemm 14y ago
  This couple is in their 50s and have been traveling / working with a child for years: http://www.soultravelers3.com http://www.soultravelers3.com
- rdl 14y ago
  ResidenSea did this, but it was priced at a point where only the super rich could afford it, and those people were so rich that they treated it as a part-time vacation residence. I've looked at this (from even the mid-1990s), and it's really hard to make the economics work. Ships are expensive, both in capital costs and especially in operations costs. You can buy used ships, but they're never very efficient or suitable, and retrofitting them is expensive. People who would be comfortable living out of a tiny cabin with limited services are almost always better off just renting a place on land for a period of time and flying in between destinations. It's only if you need a large, constant space that it makes sense, and doing that with a ship is expensive. There's also a horrible scale problem -- you could maybe make this work on a per-user cost with a $10b world's largest ship, but a $100mm ship is probably 10x less efficient, and a $1mm boat is another 10-50x less efficient. There's also the loss of freedom with a large ship. I'd rather just make enough to buy a $5-10mm boat of my own (or, ideally, $100-200mm), and have some guests sometimes, vs. try to coordinate when people get on or off or where it goes as a collective. There's the regular cruise ship industry on the low end as competition, too. You can get deals and just book 90 days on cruise ships if you want, and get the scale advantages of a large ship; the downside is boredom and being around a bunch of old people (usually) or sometimes drunk college students. Block-booking (how most "gay cruises" or other special interests are done) works. Geekcruises did some of this. What might make sense is a bunch of ships going on a specific route, with transferability across them, or big fixed platforms at sea where people can go to/from by air, boats, or bigger ships. Of course, now you're looking at many billions of dollars in capital and a very large minimum scale; it's really hard to be incremental in this market.
BobWarfield 14y ago
Aside from the bit about loneliness, which I regard as his personal problem, this is the lifestyle I aim for. I don't want to be on the road constantly, but my life and I love travel. I'm early on the path (see: http://smoothspan.wordpress.com/2013/01/06/a-solo-bootstrapping-odyssey-2012-was-the-year-i-quit-my-day-job/ http://smoothspan.wordpress.com/2013/01/06/a-solo-bootstrapp...), but it's totally doable. With a laptop and an Internet connection, I've run my business from an Alaskan Cruise Ship Cabin, a Cozumel Mexico dive trip, and a recent trip to Waikiki. Met one of my co-conspirators in Waikiki for dinner. It's good stuff. The flip side is I work 24x7. When I'm on a push to get a product out, I've been known to forget what day it is. And I have had to limit myself to doing all my marketing work after 7pm. I do customer service from about 8am-9:30am. So that's a lot of hours in a week. Wait. How's that different from a startup where I own only a small equity stake instead of 100%? Hmmmm....
ilamont 14y ago
A few years ago, I was emailed by a firm that billed itself as being located in London but the IP address was in the Philippines. The correspondence indicated that it was a native English speaker on the other end of the conversation. They had some interest in one of my blogs. Through discussion (always email, the London phone number went to voicemail) I determined that they wanted to add link-filled pages to my blog in return for $125. I suspect many nomads are following similar SEO consultant/"passive income" schemes, but I also know from previous HN threads that there are a fair number of members (many of whom I assume are programmers) living an expat life overseas: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1752868 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1752868
malachismith 14y ago
Lifestylists. (Not people doing businesses around users' and customers' lifestyles, but people doing businesses FOR their own lifestyle). Also known as dilettantes.
pinaceae 14y ago
oh well, look at the core of his site: http://postmasculine.com/10-best-ways-to-make-money-online http://postmasculine.com/10-best-ways-to-make-money-online awesome.
sushimako 14y ago
TL;DR Life as a nomadic-broke founder is fun and possible if you want to and will reward you with life-changing experiences. I personally find the topic interesting for various reasons. For once, because i've been living a "nomadic-founder" lifestyle for the last 17months (sidenote: rather "nomadic broke" than "nomadic rich" :) and because my startup creates a platform that tries to free more people from classic employment and enables them a global "workdesk". My whole journey was inspired by someone's travelling-story on reddit, which is why i'd like to share mine here. Maybe someone thinks about doing something similar, in which case i hope my story can give insights/inspiration as well. I'm in my mid-20s, IT-guy for >14years, YC alumni, don't have kids, speak 2 languages (english & german) and in the process of learning spanish (thank you duolingo!). When i started, i moved out of my apartment, gave away all my belongings but a backpack of clothes, my camera and thinkpad. I had only little money on the side and apart from my role as a startup founder, not really any perspective on regular income in the near future. Never had plans for more than 1 month ahead, sometimes plans would completely change in matters of hours. I was expecting to be living very low profile and in case money runs out completely, find some simple job to get by. Money and materialistic belongings became my lowest priority pretty soon. On the upside you gain a completely new sense of freedom. (A particular quote from "Fight Club" immediately comes to mind) So moneywise, in the first few months i was still employed and working remotely for a befriended company as a programmer. But that ended soon, because i wanted to focus more on the startup. One of my co-foundes had some funds from his former startup with which he could support the team for some time. Not overly much, but enough to get by without much luxury. Earlier that year i got the opportunity to build a funded art-installation[0] that won a price and some money. But to be honest: I'm constantly broke, but somehow there's always a way if you want to. You'll learn to enjoy your life with the little you have. You get creative eating healthy for little money (have never eaten so much good fruit in my life) and finding places to stay. Mostly i stayed in hostels or i could live with people i met on my journey. Sometimes only due to their hospitality, sometimes in exchange for work (small IT stuff, built a hostel, crafted a "designer locker", gardening and so on). When you stay in inexpensive hostels (my only requirement was wifi), you'll also meet interesting people that are in a similar situation and learn new ways to get by. For the last 6 months i've been in south america. Life here is comfortably cheap. Most of the time you can easily get by with 10$ a day or even less. And if you're schedule is flexible and you're not in a hurry it's easy to experience some of south-america's incredible nature for little or no money. And you will meet interesting people and life-changing moments travelling outside the usual touristic way of moving around these countries. What i'm trying to say: If you feel your situation is similar and you maybe even have some money on the side for the beginning: do it. You will not regret it. Don't be scared and never give up. Just always remember that, even if hard times come, there's always a way and surviving those will only make you stronger. You'll find a simple way making money on the side for food & shelter (heck, here in south america you could just be making and selling bread or cake on the street for some hours a day and get by). Needing only your laptop and wifi to work is an incredibly enabling gift. Pretty much everywhere i went i had access to wifi and could work on my startup and communicate with my co-founders. Take use of that gift and you will have a life-changing experience. Founding a startup in such a globalized way _is_ possible with some coordination skills. Our whole team is spread around the world for the whole time being and we successfully launched a couple of months ago. Shameless plug: We[1] are building a plattform that enables many many more people to live a location-independent lifestyle like ours. Our vision is that you'll be able to work directly on our site, offer your expertise and/or being presented with jobs directly targeted at what you're good at, always knowing how much money a finished job will make you. We're still in the process of collecting feedback and iterating. Getting a two-sided marketplace off the ground is hard :) If you have any questions about the story or feedback on our startup, i'd be happy to answer them here or contact us at hello@workio.com [0] http://www.ffaloox.com/wiremap-principle/ http://www.ffaloox.com/wiremap-principle/ [1] https://www.work.io https://www.work.io
josscrowcroft 14y ago
Really not a very good article. The title suggests it's going to be a glowing appraisal of a new set of people. All it really accomplishes is describing a particularly sad-sounding circle-jerk "conference" for people who write about writing about lifestyle, etc., and otherwise (I presume) contribute very little..
kristianc 14y ago
Seems very similar to Fjord's 'Digital Nomads' report, released in March 2011... http://www.fjordnet.com/sites/default/files/FjordDigitalNomads-201103.pdf http://www.fjordnet.com/sites/default/files/FjordDigitalNoma...
ryguytilidie 14y ago
Whenever I read articles like this I just read it as these people thinking "Thank god I have rich parents, because lol at any actual human being living in the real world doing this." Pretty much exactly how I felt watching the Bravo startup show as well.
gyardley 14y ago
Yes, working for yourself over the Internet can bring you financial security and scads of free time, which will let you avoid conventional life indefinitely. There's no need to take on the responsibilities that come with marriage, children, and community, which admittedly can be a huge drag. However, there's also a lot of deep pleasure in that conventional, normal life, pleasure the nomadic traveller is forgoing - wandering around the world indefinitely comes with an opportunity cost. If this was just a temporary choice of one thing over the other, I'd say 'go for it, and enjoy yourself', but I wonder if this sort of lifestyle, done long enough, can really be put down. By the time you want a spouse, a family, and a place to put down roots, will the temperamental changes brought on by your nomadic living even make this possible? The guy at the end of the article who's lonely and wants a home - he might want it, but I'm not at all sure he'll be able to get it or keep it. Perhaps I'm completely full of it. It certainly wouldn't be the first time. But I'm sure I'm not the only one who knows a long-term womanizer who can't manage to settle down, even though he now claims to want to. These guys might be setting themselves up for the same sort of problem, with 'new experiences' taking the mental place of 'new partner'.
- mikeash 14y ago
  This could easily go both ways, though. After enough time settled down, you may no longer be capable of the nomadic lifestyle, but decide you want it badly. Seems to me that either way is a risk. Is there any reason to think that the conventional path is less of a risk, other than the fact that nearly everybody takes it?
- Mz 14y ago
  As a former military spouse, I find it sort of amusing that people think a nomadic lifestyle is somehow inherently in conflict with having a family. If you also have a good income and scads of freetime, I can't see what the problem is. It sounds like an ideal family situation, where you can be a good provider and also have time for both the wife and the kids. What's not to love about that? Surely I can't be the only woman on the planet who ever viewed my husband's "nomadic" career choice as a feature not a bug.
- Mvandenbergh 14y ago
petercooper 14y ago
How does this work with visas, etc? Maybe Asian countries are less strict but in the US and EU you'd need to jump through many hoops or lie to immigration officials about intent.
- nanidin 14y ago
  In my experience, most countries want you to have a working visa when you intend to do a job that someone else in that country could be doing. Immigration law/policy hasn't really caught up with the Information Age in this respect... But as long as you aren't in a country working for clients in that same country, the country isn't going to care. I guess it's similar to how visas work for writers. There are artist visas for writers, but they seem to exist so the artist can stay longer.
  - petercooper 14y ago
    The test of your first paragraph is if the visitor says that when questioned on entry. It seems some countries don't care but if you said to a US immigration officer that you were planning to work in any form while in the country, you'd be on the first plane back without a visa, alas.
- Mvandenbergh 14y ago
  People I know doing this work only for clients outside the country they are currently in. Whether this is 100% legally ok seems to be an open question and depends on the country but I've never heard of anyone having a problem. Many countries grant citizens of wealthy countries 60 or 90 day visas pretty easily.
edwinyzh 14y ago
If I don't have two kids and the wife (I'm glad I have) I can do that too, although I'm not rich at all but I can afford the travel while working on my software products.

183 points by chriscampbell 14y ago

>> "For the first time in three years of non-stop travel, I wish for a home." Something I had to learn myself. Something, I did learn and it centered me, gave me context and a lot more happiness. So I am happy for everybody living that way. If it does please them and does not hurt anyone else. But I know for me, that this is not my style of life.

stevenbrianhall 14y ago
Yep, same here. I'm currently sitting in a University library in Germany, working on some projects for my clients. I have an apartment in Texas, but haven't hardly seen it in three months. I'm so, so thankful for the experiences in travel that this lifestyle has afforded over the last three years. I also think that in some ways, being constantly on the move has made me a better worker, but it's time for a change. I start a full-time sit-down-in-an-office position in February, which I chose to do for exactly the reasons that the article outlines. I echo the parent comment - it's a cool lifestyle that you should try if you can, but it's not for me any longer.

sputknick 14y ago

I would like to take my skills on the road, but I have a wife and two kids. My wife does not work. Is this lifestyle practical for me? Any advice would be appreciated.

bdcravens 14y ago
Any discussion should be framed in terms of what you and you wife decide is best for your family and your children. There's no "I" or "me" in that conversation.
willholloway 14y ago
It depends how you feel about moving your kids. Because your skills are mobile and your wife does doesn't need to find a job it will make things much easier. I'm living a compromise version of this lifestyle. I have lived in three cities in four years. Instead of constantly traveling, when the urge to ride on to my next adventure strikes I book passage on a plane and rent a furnished apartment in a new city.
gte910h 14y ago
It is if you two can handle home schooling the children
- chimeracoder 14y ago
  I wonder what tokenadult would have to say about this, but I don't think that that's a good environment for homeschooling.
Spooky23 14y ago
No. This lifestyle is basically a scheme to trick yourself into believing that you're still living the youthful college dream. Do you want your kids to grow up in hotels and short-term rentals, never having been in one place for too long? If the answer is "sure", talk to people who grew up in military families who were shipped all over the world -- it's not fun. If the idea is that you're going to travel, and the family stays put, understand that the cost is that you won't have a family at some point. Road-warrior consultants generally aren't the happiest people.
- alexkus 14y ago
  > Road-warrior consultants generally aren't the happiest people. So true, I did similar kind of "on-the-road" consultancy for a 9 month period in a previous role and that was enough. Saved a load of money though as I had no accommodation expenses of my own in those 9 months.
- rdl 14y ago
  This lifestyle is awesome when you're single or don't have kids, though.
- cpursley 14y ago
  I've meet plenty of people who grew up in military families or one's that simply moved a lot for work and loved it. They have friends all over the world and a much broader perspective on life than stationary folks.
cfn 14y ago
One possible option is to move aboard a sailing boat. You will be able to move from place to place and work at the same time. Most marinas have Wifi and if you stay close to the coast you should be able to get internet over your mobile. There are many families that do this, just search for liveaboard.
- cpursley 14y ago
  Yes! A live aboard (catamarans are great) is the way to go.
grecy 14y ago
Of course you can. Here [1] is a family of 7 driving from Alaska to Argentina... because they want to. I met many similar family expeditions during my drive [2] and it was always a joy to meet the kids - who were all bi or tri-lingual. One of my favorite quotes from a ~10 year old was "I don't like homeschooling.. I like WORLDschooling". [1] http://www.discovershareinspire.com/ http://www.discovershareinspire.com/ [2] http://theroadchoseme.com/ http://theroadchoseme.com/
bhousel 14y ago
Haha, don't ask us. Ask them.
ipmb 14y ago
Sure! I moved from my family from the States to an expat beach community last year. Being jetset with a family of 4 is expensive and not how I wanted to raise my kids, so we just settled down here. Maybe we'll move again next year, maybe not. The experience has been incredible and I'd do it again in a heart beat. Get in touch, I'd be happy to provide more advice/encouragement.
- boothead 14y ago
  I'd like to ask some questions if I may. * Where did you decide to live? * How do you support yourself and family? * What do you do for school, is it expensive? * How's it working out? Any regrets? Cheers

vertr 14y ago

This guy is yet ANOTHER self help guru sort: http://postmasculine.com/ http://postmasculine.com/

pkorzeniewski 14y ago
Just shows how big demand for such stuff there is, similar to "making money from writing about making money from writing" ;)

nlh 14y ago

Anyone else have their "sketchy" filters activated after reading this article? Author mentions how he travels around the world and how he's meeting up with friends / colleagues at this conference (and that he knows them from email lists / online forums), but there's no talk whatsoever in the article about what businesses any of them run. That's usually a red flag to me -- feels like the scummy side of the Internet. Doesn't take away from the point (mostly) - that the Internet is enabling a new type of remote-working lifestyle - but I can't get over my spidey senses tingling about the underlying...

michaelochurch 14y ago
I think there's an exponential return on efforts for a lot of this work. Most people can't take away enough time from their day job and responsibilities to get good at it, but people who do and take an investment mentality (investing their surplus time back into their skills and contacts) can take off. For example, if I spent 6 months on an app, I doubt it would pay rent, because there's a lot I'd have to learn and it would probably (?) be amateurish. On the other hand, if I cut out 18 months and kept iterating, I'm sure I'd do better, financially, than I'm doing at my day job. I haven't won this game yet (I have a fairly typical day job for a top-5% programmer of my age) but it seems like the trick is to find an avenue where you can rapidly get better, invest heavily in yourself when you find it, and eventually be independent.
- graeme 14y ago
  If it's something you want to do, my best recommendation is to save a large percentage of your income. I started without a savings buffer, and have managed to do alright. But there were many moments where having spare cash could either have let me outsource certain work, or avoid having to do work to earn money in the short term.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- lucaspiller 14y ago
  > On the other hand, if I cut out 18 months and kept iterating, I'm sure I'd do better, financially, than I'm doing at my day job. This is exactly it. At his last job, my (now) boss started a project on the side. Eventually he had to quit, not because he was making lots of money, but because he didn't have enough time to support the side project. It was bringing in money at this point, but not enough to match his previous salary. He kept at it though, and eventually the revenue grew. Twelve months later, there are 15 of us and money in the bank :)

michaelochurch 14y ago

How does this work for people with families? I'd really like to see someone turn a cruise ship into a moving, floating tech city that would move about the world (possibly spending a week in each port, allowing inland travel) so people can travel but also have a stable support network. It'd even have a school for people with kids. It'd probably be cheaper than living in New York or the Bay Area.

ewolf 14y ago
There's Blueseed (http://blueseed.co/ http://blueseed.co/) and recently, I read about a planned kind of entrepreneur cruise (I can't find that one right now, perhaps it's organised by Blueseed as well). Neither is intended for families, but in the long run, they might offer that.
spydum 14y ago
Plenty of people live aboard and travel via the ocean. Not sure how many are in the tech field (one comes to mind: the MicroStrategy CEO - Michael Saylor.. from what I understand, the guy lives aboard some massive ship and travels the globe that way). No idea on family lifestyle, but I suspect having kids would be much more difficult with that setup.
kareemm 14y ago
This couple is in their 50s and have been traveling / working with a child for years: http://www.soultravelers3.com http://www.soultravelers3.com
rdl 14y ago
ResidenSea did this, but it was priced at a point where only the super rich could afford it, and those people were so rich that they treated it as a part-time vacation residence. I've looked at this (from even the mid-1990s), and it's really hard to make the economics work. Ships are expensive, both in capital costs and especially in operations costs. You can buy used ships, but they're never very efficient or suitable, and retrofitting them is expensive. People who would be comfortable living out of a tiny cabin with limited services are almost always better off just renting a place on land for a period of time and flying in between destinations. It's only if you need a large, constant space that it makes sense, and doing that with a ship is expensive. There's also a horrible scale problem -- you could maybe make this work on a per-user cost with a $10b world's largest ship, but a $100mm ship is probably 10x less efficient, and a $1mm boat is another 10-50x less efficient. There's also the loss of freedom with a large ship. I'd rather just make enough to buy a $5-10mm boat of my own (or, ideally, $100-200mm), and have some guests sometimes, vs. try to coordinate when people get on or off or where it goes as a collective. There's the regular cruise ship industry on the low end as competition, too. You can get deals and just book 90 days on cruise ships if you want, and get the scale advantages of a large ship; the downside is boredom and being around a bunch of old people (usually) or sometimes drunk college students. Block-booking (how most "gay cruises" or other special interests are done) works. Geekcruises did some of this. What might make sense is a bunch of ships going on a specific route, with transferability across them, or big fixed platforms at sea where people can go to/from by air, boats, or bigger ships. Of course, now you're looking at many billions of dollars in capital and a very large minimum scale; it's really hard to be incremental in this market.

BobWarfield 14y ago

Aside from the bit about loneliness, which I regard as his personal problem, this is the lifestyle I aim for. I don't want to be on the road constantly, but my life and I love travel. I'm early on the path (see: http://smoothspan.wordpress.com/2013/01/06/a-solo-bootstrapping-odyssey-2012-was-the-year-i-quit-my-day-job/ http://smoothspan.wordpress.com/2013/01/06/a-solo-bootstrapp...), but it's totally doable. With a laptop and an Internet connection, I've run my business from an Alaskan Cruise Ship Cabin, a Cozumel Mexico dive trip, and a recent trip to Waikiki. Met one of my co-conspirators in Waikiki for dinner. It's good stuff. The flip side is I work 24x7. When I'm on a push to get a product out, I've been known to forget what day it is. And I have had to limit myself to doing all my marketing work after 7pm. I do customer service from about 8am-9:30am. So that's a lot of hours in a week. Wait. How's that different from a startup where I own only a small equity stake instead of 100%? Hmmmm....

ilamont 14y ago

A few years ago, I was emailed by a firm that billed itself as being located in London but the IP address was in the Philippines. The correspondence indicated that it was a native English speaker on the other end of the conversation. They had some interest in one of my blogs. Through discussion (always email, the London phone number went to voicemail) I determined that they wanted to add link-filled pages to my blog in return for $125. I suspect many nomads are following similar SEO consultant/"passive income" schemes, but I also know from previous HN threads that there are a fair number of members (many of whom I assume are programmers) living an expat life overseas: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1752868 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1752868

malachismith 14y ago

Lifestylists. (Not people doing businesses around users' and customers' lifestyles, but people doing businesses FOR their own lifestyle). Also known as dilettantes.

pinaceae 14y ago

oh well, look at the core of his site: http://postmasculine.com/10-best-ways-to-make-money-online http://postmasculine.com/10-best-ways-to-make-money-online awesome.

sushimako 14y ago

TL;DR Life as a nomadic-broke founder is fun and possible if you want to and will reward you with life-changing experiences. I personally find the topic interesting for various reasons. For once, because i've been living a "nomadic-founder" lifestyle for the last 17months (sidenote: rather "nomadic broke" than "nomadic rich" :) and because my startup creates a platform that tries to free more people from classic employment and enables them a global "workdesk". My whole journey was inspired by someone's travelling-story on reddit, which is why i'd like to share mine here. Maybe someone thinks about doing something similar, in which case i hope my story can give insights/inspiration as well. I'm in my mid-20s, IT-guy for >14years, YC alumni, don't have kids, speak 2 languages (english & german) and in the process of learning spanish (thank you duolingo!). When i started, i moved out of my apartment, gave away all my belongings but a backpack of clothes, my camera and thinkpad. I had only little money on the side and apart from my role as a startup founder, not really any perspective on regular income in the near future. Never had plans for more than 1 month ahead, sometimes plans would completely change in matters of hours. I was expecting to be living very low profile and in case money runs out completely, find some simple job to get by. Money and materialistic belongings became my lowest priority pretty soon. On the upside you gain a completely new sense of freedom. (A particular quote from "Fight Club" immediately comes to mind) So moneywise, in the first few months i was still employed and working remotely for a befriended company as a programmer. But that ended soon, because i wanted to focus more on the startup. One of my co-foundes had some funds from his former startup with which he could support the team for some time. Not overly much, but enough to get by without much luxury. Earlier that year i got the opportunity to build a funded art-installation[0] that won a price and some money. But to be honest: I'm constantly broke, but somehow there's always a way if you want to. You'll learn to enjoy your life with the little you have. You get creative eating healthy for little money (have never eaten so much good fruit in my life) and finding places to stay. Mostly i stayed in hostels or i could live with people i met on my journey. Sometimes only due to their hospitality, sometimes in exchange for work (small IT stuff, built a hostel, crafted a "designer locker", gardening and so on). When you stay in inexpensive hostels (my only requirement was wifi), you'll also meet interesting people that are in a similar situation and learn new ways to get by. For the last 6 months i've been in south america. Life here is comfortably cheap. Most of the time you can easily get by with 10$ a day or even less. And if you're schedule is flexible and you're not in a hurry it's easy to experience some of south-america's incredible nature for little or no money. And you will meet interesting people and life-changing moments travelling outside the usual touristic way of moving around these countries. What i'm trying to say: If you feel your situation is similar and you maybe even have some money on the side for the beginning: do it. You will not regret it. Don't be scared and never give up. Just always remember that, even if hard times come, there's always a way and surviving those will only make you stronger. You'll find a simple way making money on the side for food & shelter (heck, here in south america you could just be making and selling bread or cake on the street for some hours a day and get by). Needing only your laptop and wifi to work is an incredibly enabling gift. Pretty much everywhere i went i had access to wifi and could work on my startup and communicate with my co-founders. Take use of that gift and you will have a life-changing experience. Founding a startup in such a globalized way _is_ possible with some coordination skills. Our whole team is spread around the world for the whole time being and we successfully launched a couple of months ago. Shameless plug: We[1] are building a plattform that enables many many more people to live a location-independent lifestyle like ours. Our vision is that you'll be able to work directly on our site, offer your expertise and/or being presented with jobs directly targeted at what you're good at, always knowing how much money a finished job will make you. We're still in the process of collecting feedback and iterating. Getting a two-sided marketplace off the ground is hard :) If you have any questions about the story or feedback on our startup, i'd be happy to answer them here or contact us at hello@workio.com [0] http://www.ffaloox.com/wiremap-principle/ http://www.ffaloox.com/wiremap-principle/ [1] https://www.work.io https://www.work.io

josscrowcroft 14y ago

Really not a very good article. The title suggests it's going to be a glowing appraisal of a new set of people. All it really accomplishes is describing a particularly sad-sounding circle-jerk "conference" for people who write about writing about lifestyle, etc., and otherwise (I presume) contribute very little..

kristianc 14y ago

Seems very similar to Fjord's 'Digital Nomads' report, released in March 2011... http://www.fjordnet.com/sites/default/files/FjordDigitalNomads-201103.pdf http://www.fjordnet.com/sites/default/files/FjordDigitalNoma...

ryguytilidie 14y ago

Whenever I read articles like this I just read it as these people thinking "Thank god I have rich parents, because lol at any actual human being living in the real world doing this." Pretty much exactly how I felt watching the Bravo startup show as well.

gyardley 14y ago

Yes, working for yourself over the Internet can bring you financial security and scads of free time, which will let you avoid conventional life indefinitely. There's no need to take on the responsibilities that come with marriage, children, and community, which admittedly can be a huge drag. However, there's also a lot of deep pleasure in that conventional, normal life, pleasure the nomadic traveller is forgoing - wandering around the world indefinitely comes with an opportunity cost. If this was just a temporary choice of one thing over the other, I'd say 'go for it, and enjoy yourself', but I wonder if this sort of lifestyle, done long enough, can really be put down. By the time you want a spouse, a family, and a place to put down roots, will the temperamental changes brought on by your nomadic living even make this possible? The guy at the end of the article who's lonely and wants a home - he might want it, but I'm not at all sure he'll be able to get it or keep it. Perhaps I'm completely full of it. It certainly wouldn't be the first time. But I'm sure I'm not the only one who knows a long-term womanizer who can't manage to settle down, even though he now claims to want to. These guys might be setting themselves up for the same sort of problem, with 'new experiences' taking the mental place of 'new partner'.

mikeash 14y ago
This could easily go both ways, though. After enough time settled down, you may no longer be capable of the nomadic lifestyle, but decide you want it badly. Seems to me that either way is a risk. Is there any reason to think that the conventional path is less of a risk, other than the fact that nearly everybody takes it?
Mz 14y ago
As a former military spouse, I find it sort of amusing that people think a nomadic lifestyle is somehow inherently in conflict with having a family. If you also have a good income and scads of freetime, I can't see what the problem is. It sounds like an ideal family situation, where you can be a good provider and also have time for both the wife and the kids. What's not to love about that? Surely I can't be the only woman on the planet who ever viewed my husband's "nomadic" career choice as a feature not a bug.
Mvandenbergh 14y ago

petercooper 14y ago

How does this work with visas, etc? Maybe Asian countries are less strict but in the US and EU you'd need to jump through many hoops or lie to immigration officials about intent.

nanidin 14y ago
In my experience, most countries want you to have a working visa when you intend to do a job that someone else in that country could be doing. Immigration law/policy hasn't really caught up with the Information Age in this respect... But as long as you aren't in a country working for clients in that same country, the country isn't going to care. I guess it's similar to how visas work for writers. There are artist visas for writers, but they seem to exist so the artist can stay longer.
- petercooper 14y ago
  The test of your first paragraph is if the visitor says that when questioned on entry. It seems some countries don't care but if you said to a US immigration officer that you were planning to work in any form while in the country, you'd be on the first plane back without a visa, alas.
Mvandenbergh 14y ago
People I know doing this work only for clients outside the country they are currently in. Whether this is 100% legally ok seems to be an open question and depends on the country but I've never heard of anyone having a problem. Many countries grant citizens of wealthy countries 60 or 90 day visas pretty easily.

edwinyzh 14y ago

If I don't have two kids and the wife (I'm glad I have) I can do that too, although I'm not rich at all but I can afford the travel while working on my software products.