Nomadtopia Radio

Since she was a teenager, Caz has made travel a priority in her life. As a solo traveler, then with her husband, Craig, and now with two young daughters, the travels have continued—and along the way, she and Craig have built one of the world’s most successful travel blogs. Their most recent adventure was an 18-month road trip around their home country of Australia, and they’re already gearing up for their next road trip in the U.S. in late 2016.

Jasper travels the world while renting out his apartment in Amsterdam on Airbnb. He spends most of his time between Asia, the US, and South America. He typically stays put for a month or two in a city to focus on work, alternating that with a few weeks of scuba diving.

A honeymoon in Thailand led Lewis and his wife, Jenny, to quit their jobs to start traveling, which turned into more than three years on the road. They have recently returned to the UK, where Lewis has taken on a six-month contract job, and they’re finding that just as travel gives you a better perspective on your home country, being home gives you a better perspective on your travel!

Shannon and her husband currently live in Shanghai, China, where she is a freelance writer and he teaches English and business skills. They enjoy being serial expats, settling down somewhere but being able to travel and try new places after a while. This allows them to balance the needs/career of one partner who is more location independent and one who really needs/wants to do his job in person.

Aglaée and her husband have been digital nomads on and off since 2010, both before and after their son was born. She is also a registered dietitian whose work has been greatly influenced by her travels. In 2015 her family spent time in rural Québec and Costa Rica, with more adventures planned for the coming year.

James is currently based in St. Louis, Missouri, but from July 2014 to July 2015 he was on a road trip around the US. He stopped perpetual travel to focus more closely on building his business. While he can work from anywhere, James has found that he doesn’t have to be on the road all the time in order to be location independent, and he’s created a lifestyle that offers him both the security of having a place of his own and the flexibility to travel when he wants.

As the host of Nomadtopia Radio, I’m busy interviewing lots of other nomads and don’t often have the chance to share more of my own background and experiences. So to celebrate Episode 60 of the podcast and the first of 2016, I invited my friend Jill Sessa (whom I interviewed in December 2014) to come on the show to turn the tables and interview me. Jill did a fantastic job digging into the back story of how my own Nomadtopia came into being back in 2004, my early days as a freelancer, meeting my husband in Argentina, how we travel together, what I've learned from the pressure I sometimes feel to fit a certain image as a nomad, and so much more.

After spending most of her adult life outside her native New Zealand, Vicky moved back in 2014 and is now enjoying a nomadic lifestyle living in a bus and traveling around the country. Along the way she realized she didn’t want to continue her coaching business, and that thanks to her simplified lifestyle she doesn’t need to work right now, giving her even more freedom.

Now a web developer and digital marketing strategist, Tamala first started exploring the world of online business as a side hustle in the late ’90s, and she’s been location independent since 2010. All along, she’s been motivated by a deep desire for freedom, and in 2015 that led to her first international adventure in Costa Rica. When we talked she was back in the States, regrouping and figuring out what’s next.

Yasmine has lived in eight countries and describes herself as “a typical third culture kid trying to find my place.” She’s on a mission to visit every country, and is currently traveling to connect with friends she’s met all over the world. As she travels, she continues to work helping small business owners develop systems to scale their businesses, and she enjoys developing a daily routine to work and live like locals do wherever she goes.

DJ/music producer and entrepreneur Marc Freccero spent 10 months visiting 10 major cities in the U.S. and produced a song about each city that was his personal reflection of that city's ambience, culture, musical influence, and vibe. Not only that, he did the whole journey on a lean budget and while living out of his van. Stay tuned to the end to hear a clip from “GPS,” the bonus track Marc created once the trip was over.

Mollie negotiated with her employer to work remotely so she could continue furthering her own professional development while also supporting her husband as he does the same (he's a pro baseball player and spends six months a year on the road). They keep a home base in Nashville, Tennessee, and Mollie has found that no matter the city, the team, or the time zone, being a digital nomad has enabled her to thrive professionally and personally.

Danny has been a nomad since 2011 and has been based in Thailand for almost a year. He enjoys finding ways to hack everything from sleep to email, and while he travels he writes books, records podcasts, creates video courses, and is launching a digital magazine to help people live the life of their dreams.

In 2013, Shawn rented out her house, got rid of most of her stuff, and shifted to an online business model. Ever since, she has been wandering the world while running her coaching business. She’s passionate about the work she does, and she’s passionate about exploring new places, so she takes an intuitive approach to deciding when to move and when to stop.

After spending nearly a year in Southeast Asia, Curtiss and Ashley’s Nomadtopia is emerging as a nice blend of his web design business, her savvy with Airbnb, and their combined forces living in exotic locations for a few months at a time. At the tail end of a two-month stay back in the States, they joined me to talk about how they make the lifestyle work for them.

Annette is a freelance journalist from Ireland who lived in France for many years and has been living a nomadic lifestyle since January 2013. She spends most of her time in Malaysia, Indonesia, and Australia, staying in small hotels and homestays, with friends, or cat-sitting. She writes mainly about environmental and human rights issues, as well as health and well-being.

After spending time in the Peace Corps in Africa, and living a “regular” life back home for several years, Katherine set off to travel and do more volunteering in Europe, then taught herself the tech skills that now allow her to work online and be location independent. When we spoke she was wrapping up another extended stay in Europe while working as a contractor for a U.S. company.

When Brittany met her husband, Bruno, in Mozambique several years ago, they quickly found a way to weave together their different travel backgrounds and experiences to create their own version of Nomadtopia: (very) slow overland travel in a homemade campervan. I caught up with Brittany while they were taking a break in France after extended travels in Africa and the Middle East.

Betsy and Warren left the US in 2010 at the age of 40 after saving and downsizing for two years to make their dream come true. These days, when they aren’t traveling the world you can find them writing their next book in a small, whitewashed village in Spain.

Since she quit her job on Wall Street a few years ago, Laura’s been splitting her time between New York and Southeast Asia, and is also starting to scope out a third location to use as a base.