This report asks, Do I have to come home from travel?
When I was young, I always thought of travel as a journey that begins and ends at home. I am not absolutely sure why I thought that. Maybe it was because everyone always came home to tell stories about faraway places I had never been. People always came home.
So this report answers the question, do I have to come home from travel? The answer is no. You do not ever have to come home from travel. Let me explain.
One of my mother’s good friends was an international traveler. When she got home she would tell stories for hours. She explained how the new place was similar to or different from other places she had been. She would talk about where she would go next.
She always came back to tell stories. She always came back. I remember how excited my mother was to hear these stories. How excited she was to retell these stories to her other friends. So, at an early age, travel took an almost mystical place in my mind.
My mother’s traveling friend died of cancer when I was about 10 years old. My mother used to help her take baths at the end. My mother loved to listen to her stories about the world. My mother used to say, “Jean died too young but at least she got to see the world.”
My mother longed to travel. I am not sure why my father and mother never traveled to faraway lands. Most of the flights seemed to be to see family in middle America. Maybe my father didn’t want to get away from his work for too long. We took mainly short trips in the car.
Luckily my mother got to travel the world later in life, with her best friend. She loved to tell stories when she returned. Before she passed away, she had seen more of the world than most anyone I knew. More than her friend that died of cancer. But she always came home.
So travel had always been something you came home from. You had to come home or nobody would ever hear your stories, right?
Do I have to come home from travel?
When I was 21 years old, I took my first international trip as an adult. I flew to Jamaica with friends and we had fun. After a few days, I remember asking one of my friends, “Do we have to go home? I love this place. I could see living here.”
With a few exceptions, every year, I have taken beautiful trips whenever possible. Not just annual vacations, but long weekend excursions to nearby fun places. I find travel really helps me unwind.
During trips, I always asked myself, “Do I have to come home from travel?” For most of my life, the answer was always yes. You see, I didn’t have enough money to quit work and my work required me to go home. So the answer was always yes. I had to come home.
But all of that began to change in 2010. I quit my job and I started working remotely on my laptop. I could be anywhere in the world that had a stable Internet connection. So I no longer had to go home when I traveled. I just moved forward to the next place.
So I no longer had to come home from travel. Instead of asking myself, “Do I have to come home from travel,” I started asking something new.
Where do I go next?
Once my office was my laptop computer, I quickly learned that I didn’t have to come home from travel. I could just keep moving forward from place to place. I would stay as long as I wanted and move when I wanted.
I even rented out my real estate in my home country and hired a property manager. That means I had no empty bed in the world waiting for me to return. Plus, the income from the rents helped pay the mortgage so I didn’t have to pay for an empty bed anywhere in the world.
If my visa expired, I could just visit a nearby country for a few weeks or months and then return for a new visa. So I no longer needed to come home from travel. I just moved forward slowly traveling the world. I would stay in each place for a few weeks or a few months.
I almost never bought roundtrip tickets. I would just read about the part of the world I was in. I would get excited about some nearby new place and go see it. If the weather got too cold or I wanted to see another part of the world, I would head to the airport.
I never buy round-trip tickets. I just moved forward in the world, whether by bus, train, ferry, or airplane. I just moved forward. And I am not alone. There are many others like me in the world. There are many asking the new question, where do I go next?
I often met these others when I travel. We help each other answer this question–where do I go next? We discuss our favorite places in the world. If they love the same places as me, and they love somewhere I haven’t been, there is a good chance I will love where they love.
Off we go in different directions.
Sure, I flew home to the USA once a year or so, to see family and friends. I would fly home for weddings, large family events, illness, to work on my property or other family matters. But I would leave as soon as I was able. I would ask the question again, where do I go next?
However, because of the way the human mind works, we often ask other questions based upon whatever the biggest pain points are that remain in our life. You see, when we solve a big problem in our life, there is almost always a smaller problem behind it that we need to solve next.
You see, I was free to travel the world, but I was still working. I wasn’t old enough to retire yet and get a pension. And my other assets were not enough to retire yet. I was working for someone else on my laptop but I wasn’t having fun anymore.
When I was younger, I had fun working for myself. So I knew it was possible for work to be fun. If you already have enough money now, or you will retire soon and will have a large enough pension, this won’t be a problem for you.
But I wanted to maintain my freedom traveling the world but continue to make money doing something fun while doing it. Work didn’t even feel like work when I was self-employed. So the biggest remaining pain point in my life was … waking up to do work I wasn’t loving anymore. So I started asking a new question.
Can I Start My Own Online Business?
Is there a way I can work for myself on my computer so I no longer need to answer to a boss? I could create something that was completely mine, that I was in charge of. Win or lose, it would be my baby?
You see, when I was younger, I had worked for myself. I really loved working for myself. I was excited every day. It felt more creative working for myself. There is something about working for yourself that is so energizing. I missed that excitement and energy.
Yes, I was one of the luckiest people in the world already, because I could travel the world. I wasn’t stuck in one place. But I also missed the excitement of working for myself. The freedom of deciding what direction my life would go today. That was exciting.
So I started wondering, is there a way to make money doing what I love most? I spent five years answering that question. I was already in my fifties by then. I didn’t want to make another bad decision. I wanted to really have fun this time. I wanted to make money doing something I loved. So I refined the question a little more.
Can I make money with my favorite thing in the world?
No, not sex silly. I am talking about your favorite hobby. The thing you do after work for fun. What is it? Gardening? Coin collecting? Fishing? Writing a novel? Playing the harmonica? Salsa dancing? Reading about history? Arts and crafts? Computer programming? What is your favorite thing when work is done for the day?
If you retired today, what would you do to keep your mind fresh? Playing chess? Cooking? Teaching something? You see, there are people all over the world publishing videos about their hobbies. Go to your computer right now and you will find people making “How to” videos about your favorite thing in the world.
You see, when you are retired, you need to keep your mind engaged. You can’t just sit around. Your brain and body will atrophy. You have to remain active and engaged in life. So, if you think about what I am saying, it makes sense. What if you could make money doing your favorite hobby?
And, what if you could make enough to retire early doing it? Then you would be setting up a hobby income for life that made your retirement both fun and profitable. Plus, you would make sure your mind didn’t atrophy as you age. You would be killing two birds with one stone.
Most people are spending their own money doing their hobbies. But what if there was a way to make money doing your hobby? Can you get paid to do your hobby? Some people are. Let me give you an example. Some people make money creating YouTube videos that help solve other people’s problems.
However, most YouTubers are not making an extra $1000 per month. Do you know why? They never get enough viewers to make much money on YouTube. So why do you think many keep making videos even though they are not getting paid? Most of them are just sharing what they love expecting nothing in return.
There is nothing wrong with that. They are making connections with other people that love that hobby. People like sharing what they love. And others like learning and then communicating with the people that have helped them solve a problem.
Do you believe that I am excited about typing these words? I am. I am excited that one of you may change your life doing what it took me years to figure out. Am I a geek? Yes. Guilty as charged. But isn’t there something you would be excited about too?
I am excited about slow traveling cheap all over the world and teaching people how to pay for it? I love it. Can you imagine how exciting it is for me to have unlocked the holy grail of making money as I slow travel the world? And, then teaching other people how to do it?
Go to YouTube and see for yourself. Search for people doing “How to” videos on your favorite hobby. Most of the people you will find in your search are not making any money. They are doing it for free. Nothing wrong with that.
Some of them get thousands of views on videos. Why? Because people are able to search for “how-to” videos on very specific problems and they have videos on that problem. Why? Because they want to share in a few moments what took them years to figure out.
Some YouTubers just give up after a few months because they are not making any money. But they have totally missed the point. They should not be thinking of YouTube as a way to make money. It is a way of finding their audience.
YouTube is just a way to attract people interested in your specific hobby. Yes, you may make money someday with YouTube, but if you make videos about what you love most, it is like you are being allowed to advertise for free. You build followers interested in what you know.
Your YouTube Channel attracts the people interested in your information business.
The Information Business Behind Your YouTube Videos
Once you have established competence, people will naturally trust you in your favorite hobby domain. So you need to have an information business behind your videos. The information business behind the YouTube videos is where you offer memberships teaching others how to do what you love most in the world.
YouTube is just a way to establish yourself as someone that solves problems quickly and elegantly in your favorite hobby domain. It is like building a business with free advertising. YouTube is free advertising. The actual business is information about your favorite hobby domain that you have acquired with years of experience.
The YouTube Channel just establishes your knowledge and creates trust in your viewers that you are the go-to source in that hobby domain. Just keep your membership prices low and people will see the true value.
Luckily, you don’t need YouTube to pay you to make money in your favorite hobby domain. To make money with your hobby, you don’t need to have thousands of YouTube subscribers. Just think of YouTube as a place you can advertise for free.
To find out how to monetize your favorite hobby using YouTube as a way to connect with people interested in your hobby domain, visit The Hobby Income Course on VagabondBuddha.com.
The Hobby Income Course is presently a bonus to both new and existing members of VagabondBuddha.com, whether $9 monthly members or $ 99-lifetime members. Existing and new members can take the course starting now.
Make sure to grab a free copy of my eBook, “How I Fired My Boss and Traveled the Word for 14 Years.”
Thank you for checking out my report, Do I have to come home from travel?
This is Dan of Vagabond Awake, the YouTube Channel for VagabondBuddha.com. The world is your home, what time will you be home for dinner?