If you have ever traveled to a foreign country, it can be daunting at first. But it doesn't take long until you catch the travel bug. What if you could become rich, traveling the world too?
Armed with your passport, you have access to planet earth. That is incredibly empowering. Sure, you have to be able to fund your travels with airline tickets, hotels, etc. But after you learn the tricks for that, it becomes very easy and somewhat organic. The key is why you would do it.
In a world where a 2 week vacation per year seems to be the norm (and a work culture in the USA that even has some frowning upon taking that time off), you can never escape the clutches of the day to day treadmill. Life gets consumed with the endless repetition of commute, work, home, etc. Rinse & repeat. You spend whatever you make (and some) and you become further and further indebted when your spending exceeds your earning. We "invest" in our education, only to find that it is irrelevant for the true reality of life. We purchase things we are told we should have, but we know we can never afford, or we don't yet deserve to own such luxuries. But with the media blasting the message that "You deserve this", like some evil devil on your shoulder whispering in your ear every few minutes, you eventually succumb to that car, that house, that furniture, that TV, etc. Then you are trapped and you can't escape the treadmill.
What if I told you it didn't have to be that way? That you could learn how planet earth really worked by roaming it. That you could make money, have a business, and it would travel with you. It would follow you anywhere you went.
And that you would encounter opportunities that you can't see back home. Because everyone else is seeing the same opportunities. That means unless you have some strange mental disorder that lets you see something others don't, you really can never break free of the herd of peers that are on the same treadmill, buying the same cars, the same houses, being enslaved to the same masters, and never being able to have that vacation. And when they eventually can, they are exhausted and just want to lie around on a beach somewhere, desperately wanting to refresh batteries only to return to the same drudgery that they were trying to escape all along.
It doesn't have to be that way.
Despite what the TV news might want to tell you, if you visit country X you won't be kidnapped, killed & tortured. Unless you specifically want to be a victim and do stupid things, you will find that your destinations are welcoming, the people friendly, the experiences amazing and you will feel like you have been lied to. That those back home don't want you to leave because you are a part of a massive system that benefits the slave master. When you eventually realize this is what is going on, then you can take the Red Pill and break free. But this takes a leap of faith.
If you find yourself thinking that there has to be a better way. That your life has to be more than it is now. That nothing you were taught is making sense. That things just have to be better than this, it might be time to do this:
GO WHERE YOU ARE TREATED BEST
These 6 words are powerful. And they are the mantra of a person that I've become a huge fan of. Andrew Henderson, from Nomadcapitalist.com
If your travels were not a 2 week escape from your job, but a lifestyle choice that you can take advantage of and do for extended periods of time (ie. 1, 2 or more years), then you might want to read on.
You see there are huge financial advantages to you in travel that you probably don't realize. When you find yourself in a foreign country, you see it as an outsider sees it. The longer you are there, the deeper you get to see the culture, traditions, language, people. You get to see needs & wants. You can to see challenges that your natural background might just have solutions for. You get to see opportunities that don't exist in your home country. And you get to do business with those that want your skills and your perspective.
Think like Marco Polo. You can trade with locals and bring goods back to your home country that they might not have access to. Or you can see needs in the foreign country and service those needs with products & services from your home country that they don't realize exist. And if you can do that using the Internet as your trading platform, that platform will follow you to anywhere on this planet that gives you an Internet connection.
There has never been a time in history when this could be done. The traders of 30 years ago, had expensive phones, postal mail and weeks to wait to get things delivered. Banking was a challenge, and travel expensive. It was only the world of the rich international players that could trade. Today the doors are open to all willing to pass through them.
I grew up in Australia. It is a long way from any other English speaking country, with the exception of New Zealand. So my first international trip was New Zealand. It was a lot of fun, but I really felt like I had just gone to another state in Australia. The cultures were not that dissimilar, and although it was a 4 hour flight to get to Auckland, it didn't feel like I was an international traveler.
I play guitar. Have since I was a kid. The best electric guitars were always made in the USA. Fender, Gibson, etc. Everyone I knew who played wanted one. But in Australia, at the time, the customs & duty was so high that the cost of buying a Fender guitar in Australia was 4x the cost of buying one in the USA. The cost of an airfare to Hawaii or the mainland California coastline was about $1500 Australian dollars. How could I afford to pay for that airline ticket?
Then I realized the answer. If I was to go to the USA, and purchase a guitar, I could carry it on the plane and re-enter Australia with "my guitar". If it was used, there was no way to determine that I had purchased it overseas and pay customs & duty. Sure, I probably should have declared it, but the purchase of a $500 guitar in the USA, allowed me to sell it for $2,000 in Australia, thereby funding the airline ticket. It wasn't a burden to carry one back. And I could secure someone in Australia who wanted a specific model, color, style, etc. and just bring it back. They would pre-pay for it, and I wouldn't be out of pocket. It worked - I managed to cover all of my travel costs by doing this. Arbitrage is a wonderful thing if you are willing to give it a try.
Once you land in the foreign country, then you see the wonder of everything else it has to offer and discover things you never thought you would find. How cheap certain things are. How wonderful the people are. How beautiful the landscape is. How great the food is. And how you are different and people gravitate to you because you speak with an accent or you just see the world from an exotic or foreign perspective. Sure, sometimes you have to overcome pre-conceived perception of who you are based on your nationality, but that is half the fun. You can prove to the locals that you are you and you are different. Just be nice and don't act like a jerk. You'd be surprised just how far that goes.
The rest is history. I discovered a world that offered me far more opportunity than I had back home. A chance to escape the treadmill. If I played my cards right, I could be successful. I was. I became one of those immigrant millionaires.
It is so much easier to roam today, than it was 30 years ago when I started. The Internet brings everything a bit closer, and airline travel (despite it still being a pain in the ass), is so much easier and cheaper. Credit cards offer you massive troves of frequent flyer award bonuses, along with accumulation of points by redirecting spending through the right cards you probably use anyway.
But the most important thing you have today is the ability to be a digital nomad. That means you can start digital businesses that are location independent. Blogging, Amazon FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon), private label inventory, SEO, website development, programming, content creation, etc. These are the future industries that exist today.
A good operator can easily rival their income from a job, while living in a place where the cost of living might be 1/5th of the cost of their home country. Places like Bali, Thailand, Portugal, Mexico, Central America, South America, eastern Europe, South East Asia, etc. all offer locations that are inexpensive, safe, have great Internet and are frequented by thousands of other digital nomads so you will never feel lonely. You can surround yourself with those that speak your language, or you can start to learn other languages. It is all about just how adventurous you want to be.
There are plenty of forums online for digital nomads, so I would encourage you to Google and discover.
So let me go back to my recommendation on Andrew Henderson. He is an American who spent over 10 years roaming the world. Like a modern day Earnest Hemmingway, he discovered just how wonderful life outside of the USA is, and he started blogging about it, runs a popular YouTube channel and spoke about it.
Here's one of my favorite videos he did on the subject:
Andrew Henderson presentation - The Road Ahead
He discovered investment opportunities in real estate, stocks, businesses, trade, etc. He discovered that others wanted to follow him through the door to internationalization. But that the knowledge to do this was difficult. That understanding and navigating through the legal mess of both their home country and their destination country not only involved understanding immigration laws, but also business and taxation laws which differed from country to country. You had to be an expert in multiple jurisdictions.
And then there is banking. This is one of the most challenging parts, because if you wish to open an offshore bank account (particularly for US persons), it can be a nightmare. Not only are you battling with the FATCA regulations that the US has forced upon foreign banks, but you also have to deal with the laws back in the USA regarding reporting, etc. or be in a world of hurt with the IRS and FINCEN.
I have amassed a team of people that I work with to help me navigate through all of this, but there is now at least a central point of reference that you can get on the subject.
I don't often plug specific books or companies, but when I feel that they really have something to offer to those that want to be unconstrained, I'm happy to do this.
Andrew Henderson has a book out that you can get on Amazon here:
I would also suggest you visit Nomad Capitalist YouTube channel here as there are hundreds of free videos on living the life of a Nomad Capitalist:
Nomad Capitalist YouTube Channel
This is the most important 6 words you can ever hear. A good friend of mine once told me a saying that is so true.... "You can never be a wise man in your home town". He is right. It is human nature to dismiss the locals as knowing less than the exotic person from a foreign land. You can be that exotic person.
