Lots of new visitors come to my site and probably wonder what I’m all about. The task is not made any easier by the fact most of my original blog is still offline and it would take yonks to read through it all anyway! So here is a short recap.
My story begins begins back in 2002 when for some unknown reason I decided to go and travel around SE Asia for three months. That three months turned into one year and included trips to NZ and Australia.
I came back to the UK in November 2003 a changed man. Within a short while I was back in the London rat race from which I had escaped in 2002. It was at this time I started to create small websites as a hobby. I was working as a web developer on contracts with my background in I.T. nerdy stuff.
Fast forward to September 2005 when I was possibly a little depressed (more so had England lost the ashes) and thoroughly fed up living and working in London. It was then a timely thing happened as I was made redundant from my job. It was time to turn a negative into a positive and to book a one way flight to Bali, with laptop in tow!
Although I had some savings I did not want to rely on them. I was earning a modest amount from my websites, around £400 month, which was enough to live comfortably in SE Asia.
For the next three years my nomadic existence allowed me to visit many different countries, meet some great people, experience some unforgettable adventures and all while being occasionally ripped off along the way, particularly in Asia.
As with any journey it’s not all been plain sailing and I have had times of feeling lonely and thinking ‘what the hell am I doing with my life!’.
With some luck, determination and hard work I have now managed to build up a sustainable online business and can live a comfortable life pretty much anywhere outside of Scandinavia. However, like any business, things can fall away and I don’t really have a plan b.
Going back to working in an office would involve a reluctant step back into my past. I do try and look forward these days. I know they’ll always be other options.
I have learned so much about myself over the last four years. Sometimes it feels like none of it ever happened but I guess that is true of many things. I remember when I finished University and it just never seemed I was ever there (true in the case of law lectures!).
Do I regret it? Well I could do. There is a gaping hole on my CV that could be easily filled with the words ‘Beach Bum’ or ‘Techno Hippy’ but that’s an opportunity for me to be creative. I think as I have become older I generally regret less because I have come to realise that there is little to be gained from regret.
So follow your dreams people, whatever they are. Like me, they might not always end up where you expect them to be, but that’s half the fun.
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