Wanderlust to Wisdom – Lessons Learned Whilst Traveling the World as a Spiritual Entrepreneur

One of the popular travel trends at the moment is taking a year off to work and travel in the digital nomad space. I wanted to share my experience of doing just that… from how it came about to what we learned along the way and most importantly how you can do the same.

We thought we might be gone for 3-6 months – 16 months later we have only just returned to Australia to sort out our things and put the plan in place to make this our permanent lifestyle moving forward!

We are asked all the time how we did it (without blowing our savings account up!) and what we know now that we didn’t before. So this blog is going to touch on some of the biggest lessons we learnt on the road in all areas of business, life and travel while living the digital nomad lifestyle.

Part 1- A gentle nudge from the Universe

To set the scene, the year is 2022 and my partner Slim and I were living our busy lives on the Gold Coast juggling work, business and personal life- traveling was something on a distant bucket list.  Then in October we received an unexpected call from Slim’s mum in France with the news that she was having some health issues. Now it had been 7 years since he had been home to France to visit his family and we were long overdue for a visit so we started to consider a short holiday. Then as we started to plan we had this sudden realization that we could likely make the current business contracts work from overseas for a few months and see how we go. And just like that we were started on a new path.

Part 2- Taking the leap

Next thing we knew we have one way tickets booked and just one month of accommodation in France booked on Airbnb with no plan past that. Exciting! But you know what was not exciting- the month of frantic organizing, decluttering, budgeting and Visas. Then the even less glamorous tasks of packing up our apartment, putting everything into storage, downsizing and squeezing things into as few bags as possible. 

It was also a huge undertaking to get the business ready. Something that made it easier for me was that our business was not new. I had been building the design studio for 2.5 years and was already working from a home office with regular clients and a steady stream of referral business. This base allowed us the confidence (and budget) to know that we could sustain our lifestyle while we were traveling. One of the greatest tools we have these days is technology. I could not have run this business the same way 10 years ago, but today jumping on zoom calls has become a regular thing even with a team that work in the same city, so living abroad is no longer a barrier. I also found that by speaking openly with my clients before we left, we arranged our schedule to always put the clients first and align our schedule with the Australian timezone. 

Part 3- Going global

When we landed in France, the first few weeks were spent aligning to our new working schedule. We quickly realized the benefit of being online early (at 5am) and then getting our work done so we could then log off to enjoy long afternoons of exploring and taking everything in. After about 6 weeks, with the excitement of a European winter starting to wear off and we were in a stable routine. Not for long!

We were looking for our next Airbnb one night and casually started checking out prices in slightly warmer locations like Croatia or the Greek Islands. And on a whim we booked an Airbnb on Naxos Island for a month, our first of many trips that we just booked on impulse – and now one of our favorite places in the world! This is the point where it really sunk in that we can let go of having to plan in advance and just follow the signs to end up where we needed to be. 

Part 4- A new mindset

When you are living this lifestyle, you realize that you’re not in a hurry to see everything you can in a few days and then move on (like on our usual OS holidays!). This is both expensive and tiring! You need to manage work with adventure and be mindful of making time for both. 

Our first few impulse bookings not only awakened our new mindset but also led us to figure out two of our favorite digital nomad hacks – booking for a whole month and traveling in the shoulder season! 

By booking for a whole month, we not only got better pricing for accommodation (hello long term stay discounts on Airbnb!) but we also got to explore our destinations like locals. We were able to take our time and wander with no agenda, meet the locals and get lost in conversations with strangers. 

The other benefit of traveling in the shoulder season is there are a lot less people and when you’re planning to visit somewhere like Santorini.. You will thank me for this tip! We were blessed with clear skies, empty streets and no battling the crowds for the perfect photos.

Part 5 - Blowing up the Bucketlist

As we approached the 3 month date we had initially flagged, we decided we were in no rush to return to our old lives and that we really were just getting started. We were also feeling pretty confident in our ability to manage this new lifestyle- so with that we started to plan our biggest (or busiest!) part of the trip, 6 weeks through the USA, Canada and Mexico. 

Now this part of the trip was a whirlwind of bucket list adventures, unimaginable sights and creating memories that will last a lifetime - and we hardly even scratched the surface!

It was also the most expensive part (worth every cent!) and the most tiring - the travel schedule combined with client work was a pretty insane undertaking, and I was definitely questioning my choices as my alarm woke me for a client coaching session at 2am in New York - but we would do it again in a heartbeat.

This is where planning well was our super power - given we had agreed we would always prioritize the business, this entire trip was planned around these commitments. We had decided from the start that we would only work 3-4 days so that we could enjoy the places we were visiting.

This allowed us to break this portion of the trip into week long stops to fit everything in - we would use travel days as work days, I mean what else will you do on a 5hr layover or a long flight anyway? And we made sure that our accommodations were both comfortable, located close to the things we wanted to see and had everything we needed to work along the way.

While this trip was equal parts amazing, unforgettable and left us with so many more places we want to see - we returned to France exhausted and ready to lean into a relaxing Euro summer!

Part 6 - Following our inner guide

For the next few months we enjoyed a more laid back travel style, taking long stays and weekend trips, exploring off the track villages and following our intuition to find unexpected adventures.

This is what I found to be the most liberating part of the entire experience - the ability to embrace the unknown, follow that inner guide and not question anything. When you step out of the life you have become so chained to, you really do get to see things from another perspective - you don’t have the same obligations which makes room for experiencing life on your terms.

Part 7 - Destination Asia

With our Euro summer hitting a peak (along with a heatwave I did not expect!), we started to look towards our next target - Asia. We booked our tickets to Thailand and planned to hop around from there for a few months before making our way back to Australia, this turned into 7 months!

If you’re looking for a country that is geographically stunning, has amazing history, great food, welcoming people and is super affordable - it would be hard to beat Thailand. We absolutely fell in love with the lifestyle there, people just seem more relaxed, less phased by the small things in life and overall happier. 

During our time in Asia we also spent time in Vietnam, Malaysia and Singapore but there is so much more to discover.

As we approached 16 months on the road, with neither one of us wanting to return, but the reality of needing to deal with everything we left behind in Australia rearing its ugly head (cars, expired bank cards, no valid drivers license!).. We decided that the sooner we get back here and put everything in place… the sooner we can make this our lifestyle long term. 

But being back in Australia we have a new drive and passion for helping other soulpreneurs build businesses that allow them the freedom to chase their dreams too.

Bonus thoughts- but what about the $$$??

Now I know you’re thinking, “this all sounds great but really.. This is not realistic, it must be so expensive!”.. But that is where all you really need to do is take a look for yourself. You will find (just like we did) that if you come from a country like Australia (or any other western country with a strong currency - USA, Canada, UK etc) and keep earning your currency, it is more than likely going to end up cheaper living on the road than living back home!

When you are traveling like this your lifestyle changes from how it would normally be in your home country. You find your spending habits also change, our rent for example was much higher in Australia for 1 month than in most other countries we visited, the difference allowed us to pay for travel and flights. Where I used to spend money on clothes or personal care, I now spent on experiences (because 1. baggage limits and 2. having to carry everything you own!) - we went from loving our creature comforts back home to being total minimalists traveling with carry on only wherever we could. 

Conclusion- let me bare my soul :)

In life, I think that we waste so much time doing things we don’t enjoy, spending time with people that bring us down and working in jobs (or businesses) that don’t allow us any freedom - for what? For a life that inevitably was chosen for us, it’s often not even a reflection of what YOUR ideal life would be, rather it is what you were shown growing up is how life should be.

Never did we imagine that after 16 months we would still have no desire to come home - but if we never left we would have never known. If you have ever found yourself dreaming about what life would be like if only you followed your dream, then all I can say is.. it’s worth finding out!