The Trip Tribe

 

 

 

 

 

Johnny Ward is a full time traveler and entrepreneur who has been scouring the globe since 2006. After graduating school, he took off to teach English in China with the intent of taking a year to get travel out of his system before beginning a finance career home in the UK. That plan ended up changing, though, and he’s still on the road. He’s the epitome of a lifestyle designer, running multiple online businesses that allow him the freedom and funds to continue traversing the world full time. We caught up with him as he was visiting New Guinea to learn more about his experiences and how he does what he does.

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You are a big proponent of “lifestyle design” and building a life and career that allows you freedom to do things like travel the world. What is one step you would advise someone to take right now to get started building a life like that?

There are 2 vital aspects to being a successful lifestyle designer. 1) Work for yourself 2) Generate money from your laptop. So for any budding designers, find a way to generate revenue online and throw all your effort into that. Within 12 months, anyone can be free. (Note: check out Johnny’s site’s section on Lifestyle Design to learn more.)

You have an awesome Bucket List on your site of all of the experiences you want to have and have checked off quite a few of them. I’m sure it changes frequently, but which five are you most excited about now? I know your 100 country mark is coming up soon. Of the ones you’ve done, which 5 have been the best so far?

Wow, I’ve been so lucky to do what I’ve done! I guess my 5 favourites are:

1) Climbing Kilimanjaro

2) Diving with Great White Sharks

3) Boozing at Oktoberfest in Munich

4) Sleeping with villagers in Papua New Guinea

5) Hiking a ride on a Chinese cargo ship up the Mekong river to China

The next 5?

1) Hitting up my 100th country in 1 month!

2) Driving an RV around New Zealand next week

3) Visiting Antartica next year

4) Carnivale in Rio, Brazil

5) Learning Spanish in Central America

Are there any destinations that didn’t live up to the hype for you? Any that went way beyond your expectations?

I was disappointed with Vietnam and South Africa. The first because I felt people were chasing my money, and the second because I could feel the racial tension in the air. Beyond my expectations – Iceland and Ethiopia, both absolutely amazing!

You run multiple online businesses while you travel. Is there one skill in particular that you consider invaluable to someone who wants to do this?

Yes – outsourcing and delegating! That’s everything you need to know, if you can do that – you’ll be flying

What do you do to stay organized and on task for your business projects while on the road in exotic places?

I have a number of assistants who look after the bulk of my business, I just deal with the finances, really.

What do you think are the necessary ingredients of a perfect trip?

Lack of planning is key to an awesome trip, that and compatible travel buddies.

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Learn more about Johnny at his sites, OneStep4Ward and Maiden Voyage.

How many times have you sat in your cubicle, staring at your computer, hacking away at a spreadsheet, and thought,

“I should just drop all of this and see the world. “

Don’t fret. You’re not alone in dreaming. I’ve thought about it twice today already.

But did you know there are people out there who did do it? Who changed their lives in order travel the globe?

Better yet, some of them can even teach you how to do it.

Here’s a list of our favorite blogs by people who did escape the rat race and can show you how to do the same.

The Art of Nonconformity

When most people say they want to see it all, they really mean they want to see their personal list of coolest places. They probably don’t mean they plan to visit exciting locales like Tonga.

Chris Guillebeau, on the other hand, really means it when he says he wants to see it all. In 2007, he set a goal to visit every country in the world by April 7, 2013. He’s now been to 192 of the 193 countries listed by the United Nations, with only Norway left to go. That is impressive.

Fortunately for us, Chris is nice enough to share his secrets of how he’s been able to accomplish such a feat. He’s one of the foremost experts in travel hacking, aka racking up obscene amounts of flyer miles, hotel points and the like. He’s also an expert in entrepreneurship and knows how to build businesses that give the freedom required for such travel.

Just as important, though, he writes about what it takes to reject oppressing norms and expectations of society and create an unconventional life.

Learn more bout Chris and everything AONC has to offer here.

Everything Everywhere

In 2007, Gary Arndt sold his house and took off to do some traveling. He figured he’d be gone for a year or two. Now, nearly six years later, he’s still going.

On his site, Gary shares his amazing experiences and offers tons of travel advice. He writes travel tips, reviews of gear, summaries of his trips and commentary on locations.

If you want to drop it all and travel, Everything Everywhere is a great place for motivation, as this is exactly what he did. Literally, his stuff is still in storage after all this time.

Learn more about Gary here.

Legal Nomads

Jodi Ettenberg had a big time job as a lawyer in New York City. But she longed to travel and after working for five years and saving enough money, she decided to make it happen. So, in 2008, she quit her job and took off to travel the world. She expected to return after a year or so, but, lo and behold, she’s still on the road.

She’s turned her experience into a career through writing, photography and the blog. On Legal Nomads, Jodi documents her travels, with a focus on exploring places slowly and the food she tries around the world.

Learn more about Jodi here and check out her new book about how to dine the right way on the road here.

Four Hour Workweek

Tim Ferriss literally wrote the book on replacing your job and traveling the world. Notice I didn’t say “quitting” your job, but “replacing.” In his famous bestselling book, The Four Hour Workweek, Tim brought the idea of “lifestyle design,”  where you create freedom to live the life you want to live, to the mainstream. In his example, he drastically scaled down the hours he worked on his company and traveled the world while maintaining income.

His blog covers a range of topics from dieting to entrepreneurship, and has tons of resources on world travel and starting location-independent businesses. If you want to create a job that lets you travel while still making money, check out his case studies or see his posts on traveling.

Hack the System

Speaking of Tim Ferriss, Maneesh Sethi is one of his all star students. Inspired by the Four Hour Workweek, he started building businesses that allowed to him to make money while traveling the world. Since 2008, he’s been circling the globe while building location-independent businesses. On his blog, he aims to help others achieve their dream lifestyle.

Maneesh is an expert in travel hacking and offers tons of advice on how to travel anywhere for free or very cheaply. He also offers a lot of resources on self improvement, lifestyle design and entrepreneurship.

Learn more about Maneesh here.

Wandering Earl

Earl calls himself a “Permanent Nomad.” Why? He’s been traveling the world on a “post-graduation trip” for over twelve years.

He shares his experiences and advice from life on the road at Wandering Earl. His goal, as he puts it, is “to show you that long- term travel is not a crazy fantasy, but a very real lifestyle option instead.”

Learn more about Earl here.

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Feeling motivated to leave it all behind and see the world? How could you not?

These people made their dreams a reality. Will you?

 

As a child, you never said: “When I grow up, I want to spend 2,500 hours every year in an office.”

Nobody wants that. Yet, most accept a lifestyle they don’t want. For many, it’s because they focus on the final destination — a distant comfortable retirement —  and not the journey.

In just two minutes, the creators of South Park – Trey Parker and Matt Stone – capture this dilemma brilliantly. Watch the video:

The lesson? Live life! Every day. Enjoy it. Dance and sing to the music; don’t wait for the last note. Naturally, daily obligations won’t let you be a full-time hedonist, since everyone must maintain an income and lifestyle. We can’t completely discard the future in favor of today. But we can enjoy this week, this month and this year and not over-emphasize some uncertain future that may not happen. Don’t put all of the eggs you have now into a future basket.

Pay attention to the musical score for your life. Each note matters, not just the finale.

Bottom line: roll down the windows today and crank up the music. If you feel like quitting your job today, let us know below what you would do instead.

NOTE: By the way, have you noticed how exceptionally talented some creative people are in their chosen art? Parker and Stone could have delivered their message in writing, but they did it in an animated cartoon.

The happiness research team from Harvard and University of British Columbia is at it again with more findings on what buys happiness. More income only increases your happiness up to a point and that level is probably not as high as you’d think. In the US, general happiness increases slightly as your salary approaches $75,000. Above that level of comfort, there is essentially no measurable difference in happiness levels.

Most important, though, is their findings on how what types of spending make you happier. As we’ve known all along, it’s about the vacations and traveling:

“A decade of research has demonstrated that if you insist on spending money on yourself, you should shift from buying stuff (TVs and cars) to experiences (trips and special evenings out).”

Have you ever bought an electronics product or a designer outfit that you liked better than a vacation? We sure haven’t.

“Travel is a search for meaning, not only in our own lives, but also in the lives of others. The humility required for genuine travel is exactly what is missing from its opposite extreme, tourism.” - New York Times Opinionator: “Reclaiming Travel”

Why do you go anywhere? Is it for a tour bus to shuttle you through a city’s landmarks like a widget in a factory? Or is it to truly experience the destination?

Real meaning comes from the people you travel with, the people you meet, the full understanding of the way they live and how you could live there. Real travel changes you. It opens your eyes and gives you perspectives and dreams that you didn’t have when you left. It brings you a greater connection to the place you’re visiting along with a booming appetite to see more of the world. Tourists may come home with snapshots and local trinkets, but travelers come home with new meaning in their lives.

Photo by gnuckx

Want a cold drink on the rocks?

Check out this whiskey tasting Glenfiddich held for wounded veterans at Everest Base Camp:

 

Imagine having an unlimited lifetime first-class airline ticket to anywhere worldwide. Then meet the people who actually got one for only $350,000.

What a dream! How many places would you fly in a month? In a year?

Here’s our idea for the first five years:

Year 1 — fly twice per week, covering 100 cities worldwide. Explore, experiment, meet people, choose the best places to visit, live and return to.

Years 2 through 5 — pick the 24 best places to visit and live. Fly every other month for 48 months. Visit each of them, rent an apartment and live the local life for two months.

What would you do?

Photo by Richard Moross

 

PopPhoto.com has an amazing list of “The 25 Best Places to Photograph on Planet Earth.” It includes stunning locations like the Galapagos, Angkor Wat, Petra, Cape Churchill, Kangaroo Island and more.

What would you add the list?

Photo by dicktay2000

The Road Forks, a great blog about travel and food (excellent combination, we think), posted an awesome list of 99 lessons they learned while traveling the world for a year.

Our favorite? “”The more we see, the more we want to see.” We can definitely relate to that.

Check out the whole post here. What are some interesting or unexpected lessons you’ve learned while traveling?

Photo by Benson Kua

In his post “Idea Tourism,” genius marketing wizard Seth Godin hits the nail right on his shiny head.

You can’t get the full experience of a place or an idea with just a drive-by. You need to live it and experience it firsthand. People who just stop by a tourist sight to snap a few photos are usually missing the point.

Everyone can travel in their own manner, but the most enriching experiences come from immersing yourself in the destination, the activities, the special events that make a place what it is. If you want to understand a place, meet the people, try living in their shoes for a period of time by participating in the activities that make it special.

Only then, as Godin rightly observes, is your mind opened, allowing you to learn and change your life in the process.