

Is A Nomadic Lifestyle Cheaper Than Living In One Place? - swombat
http://locationindependent.com/blog/2009/04/16/is-a-nomadic-location-independent-lifestyle-cheaper-than-living-in-one-place-a-12-month-breakdown-for-2008/

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mixmax
I live on a boat, and find it to be the ultimate in nomadic and independent
lifestyle. Just fill her up with diesel and water, and I can go wherever I
want. The biggest advantage is that I don't need a lot of planning to go
somewhere - I've got my whole home, clothes, personal belongings etc. packed
up and ready to go at any time. It's pretty cheap too, since I don't need to
eat out all the time, and the only rent I need to pay is when I'm in a foreign
harbour somewhere. And I still have the comfort of my own home.

The disadvantage is that I can't go across the globe, partly because it would
take too long and partly because my boat and lacking sailing experience would
make it a dangerous endeavour to sail across large oceans.

~~~
herdrick
Are you kidding? What kind of futuristic non-money-sucking boat do you have?

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electromagnetic
It all depends on the engine and the boat. You'll probably only get a mile or
two to the gallon, but then you're not driving it around like a car. You then
also have to consider that people regularly drive around in vehicles on a
daily basis that aren't all that more fuel efficient.

If you actually care that much, you could always spend a bit more money and go
solar. Boats is one of the few vehicles where solar power works well and has
proven itself (for example, the first usable solar boat is thought to have
been made in 1975). You also don't have to go just solar, boats have been
powered by wind for centuries and the water generally has much stronger wind
than land anyway.

I wouldn't doubt that it would be easy to go green and make your fuel cost
zero.

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mixmax
Mine goes roughly 2 kilometers on a liter of diesel, which is pretty cheap by
boating standards. The reason is that the engine isn't terribly large, and
thus cruising speed is around 7 miles an hour. If I wanted to go 30 miles an
hour my fuel consumption would at least quadruple.

~~~
herdrick
OK, but I was talking about maintenance/repair costs. You know, "A boat is a
hole in the water you pour money into".

~~~
electromagnetic
And a house isn't a hole in the land you pour money into?

Acceptable home maintenance costs are between 1 and 4% of the house value,
however this doesn't necessarily extend toward the higher home prices.

Of course all these prices vary, some people pay ridiculous amounts for home
maintenance because they can't do simple tasks and some people pay almost
nothing because they can do everything themselves. However, I'm sure the same
goes for boat maintenance too.

It's the mere fact that paying $4,000 in home maintenance of a house costing
$250,000, and paying $4,000 in boat maintenance on a boat costing $50,000 that
you live on.

I suppose your food costs would be significantly cheaper if you like fish
though. Well if you're a good fisher. Personally if I had to rely on my
fishing skills I'd probably die from blood loss.

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colinplamondon
The problem is that environment really _does_ matter.

I worked from Thailand for three months on Koh Tao, had a great experience and
learned a lot, but at the end of the day sketchy wireless + drunk spring
breakers really put a damper on things. In Argentina everyone I knew was
supportive of what I was working on, and all my friends always wanted to know
what was up, take me out to grab drinks at a tango club, go to a drum concert
on Monday evenings- my environment made it frictionless to work on a

startup. (obligatory pictures: <http://www.flickr.com/photos/copla201>)

Being in Thailand on the island of Koh Tao, though, had the downside that 70%
of the population turned over every couple of weeks, and the people that live
there are there to escape from the world. Now, I completely respect that- if
you're choosing between a 9-5 and scuba instructor on a beautiful Thai island,
easy choice. And there's a lot of cool people who make that decision- however,
those aren't the same people who are gung-ho on building a great business, or
necessarily think that doing so is a worthwhile undertaking. It was an
environment where just going to work was an exercise in friction.

That doesn't mean that I didn't head out to the cafe to make progress every
day, or get to read up on the topics that allow me to build what I build today
from the gorgeous Echo Bar, but it does mean that the environment wasn't
conducive to building a startup. I saved money, I had some great experiences,
and I wouldn't take it back, if only for the learning experience- environment
matters.

Yes, you can work from anywhere, but that doesn't mean you _should_. However,
as I write this I'm packing up my things to move to Budapest on Sunday- my co-
founder is Hungarian and after working together online for seven months we're
going to push to launch working in-person. The difference between Budapest and
Koh Tao is that in Budapest there's already a support network in place- all
the friends of my co-founder's who have already supported us at every turn.
And it's that support network that's so crucial when building a startup.

It's ok to take on the world, I wouldn't work on anything that _didn't_ take
on the world, but you damn well need to have an effective environment to work
in when you move halfway across the world.

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shalmanese
This is a disingenuous article. The real comparison is between the difference
of what you make vs what you spend. While travelling in the 3rd/2nd world is
cheaper than staying at home, unless you have a very particular job, it's also
hard to pull in the same amount of income.

~~~
loc_independent
The business we run whilst we're doing this pulls in more than enough to
support the outgoings; whilst it's not easy to set up a business that does
this, it is more achievable than many people think.

~~~
TimothyFitz
I'd love to see posts about this side of things: how did you build that
business, what were the challenges, etc.

~~~
swombat
Looking at their blog, it seems to me they already have quite a lot of posts
on the topic!

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swombat
Personally, as I'm about to embark on a similar life, I find these articles
(as in, the articles on this blog, as well as this specific one) extremely
interesting.

It's good to see numbers that prove that it's possible to leave more cheaply
in an idyllic location while still working on my start-up, blog, etc.

I wonder why more start-up founders don't take that option. What ties you to a
specific place? For me, until recently, it was a relationship..

~~~
fortes
Relationships are a big one. Not just dating, but being isolated from family
and friends can be hard (I lived in Beijing for 4 months, and enjoyed it, but
it does get lonely).

Also, not every one is ready to live somewhere foreign. Especially if they
don't speak the language.

~~~
swombat
I guess I feel that less since I jumped country (from Switzerland to the UK)
once already, so I feel less attached to where I am (though I do have many
friends around here).

With respect to language, it seems to me there are so many ways to learn
common languages these days, that this should not really be an excuse. Anyone
can go on Bit-Torrent and download some language courses, and speak a language
passably well in a few months... (well, unless it's a ridiculously hard
language like Chinese...) Btw, for that, I recommend a combination of the
Pimsleur courses, + a book about grammar, followed by reading a fiction book
in the target language, before actually moving there.

~~~
fortes
Dating someone who speaks the language (before, as well as while you are
there) is also very, very helpful. (I didn't do this in China, but my friends
who did definitely had a leg up).

~~~
randallsquared
If you do this, beware that some languages are enough different for male and
female speakers that you may end up learning lots of gender-confusing idioms.
I've read that English-speaking men in Japan sometimes end up speaking fairly
fluent "Japanese girlfriend" rather than the Japanese they'd be speaking if
they'd mimicked other males.

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edu
No, living in cheaper countries is cheaper. Be Nomadic in UK, Ireland, France,
Germany, Austria... and it would be much more expensive than doing a sedentary
life in Thailand.

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listic
I think your answer is right in regard to OP. But it seems to be not so
interesting to everyone :)

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bonaldi
The figures aren't quite honest: the UK prices are extravagantly high for
mortgage anywhere apart from London, which is one of the world's most
expensive cities. Elsewhere in the country you can expect to pay c. £700 or
less, which brings the yearly total down to £15k -- well below the travelling
costs.

~~~
loc_independent
Author of the article here - as the post states, the mortgage figures include
other items too, not just the mortgage. The figures include: Council tax,
contents insurance, buildings insurance, all utility bills (including
phone/internet & mobile phones), TV licence etc. etc.

We recently came back to the UK for a few months and had to go through all
this setting up of bills etc. again and were shocked at how much all the
extras add up, which you just don't get when you live overseas in furnished
rental apartments. I think many people would be shocked if they added up all
these extra little bits too.

~~~
iuguy
If you don't mind me asking, where in the UK were you came back?

Also it sounds like you were buying somewhere, not renting. A furnished rental
apartment shouldn't require buildings insurance, contents should either be
part of the rent or not at all (as the landlord is required to insure their
equipment by law - but not yours - you'd do that separately but you'd
certainly have to do that anywhere else I've been), a TV licence is optional -
you only need it to watch live TV and all the major channels have on-demand
Internet equivalents that are perfectly fine unlike other countries you may
have been (we're looking at ditching the licence when the Digital TV switch
kicks in). I'm surprised you're putting phone, internet and mobile phone in
there - unless you're flatsharing I'm not aware of anyone that would include
those as part of the rent, especially mobile phones?

I guess my point is that it's not a like for like comparison to compare your
rental costs in one country with mortgage + all inclusive of everything, even
secondaries in another. Rather than defending it, and I appreciate it's a PITA
to do what I'd suggest and may contradict what you're trying to achieve, I'd
like to suggest that you write a followup comparing like for like costs with
their equivalents and provide explicit examples alongside the benefits and
drawbacks of each - e.g. being near the beach at Cape Town versus being near
the beach at Blackpool.

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wallflower
As the old saying goes, whereever you go, there you are.

As someone who does not have an Internet-based income stream (e.g. has a job)
and has been close to pulling the trigger on this several times, I think you
have to consider why you want to be in a different location. I think I was
thinking that I'd do a radical lifestyle/social makeover (e.g. all-in =
quitting job+going abroad) but that probably would not be the case.

~~~
colinplamondon
Totally works.

Just stay at a hostel for the first month in the new country. You'll meet a
ton of people from all over world, including some who will be staying in the
country, so you'll have friends for at least six months. Hostel folks tend to
move around a lot :)

For meeting people, it'll be lifechanging just to see how easy it is- "where
are you from?" "how long are you traveling for?" "where are you going next?"
"where have you been so far?"

Everyone's in a foreign country, everyone's looking to meet people, so
everyone makes themselves super easy to meet. If you're in a good hostel (I'd
HIGHLY recommend Hostel Suites Palermo in Buenos Aires, ~$10/night) then this
won't be something you'll consciously be thinking about, it'll just happen.

I worked from the patio of the hostel the first day and wound up going to
dinner with eight folks from all over the world, by the end of the night you'd
have thought we had all known eachother for years. Give it a shot!

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rgrieselhuber
I've had similar experience. My wife and I did a RTW trip for about $27K (and
we lived it up quite a bit) covering 12 months. We were surprised at just how
affordable it is to travel, and it's cheaper to travel long term than short
term.

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acgourley
What about the costs of constantly finding new accommodations/services in
unfamiliar countries?

I'm sure there are certain time savings from not having a long term domestic
existence, but it seems like overall you're spending a lot of time to make the
nomadic life work. I'd like to see this time cost broken down in a similar
fashion.

~~~
bemmu
I can only comment that in Thailand it is super easy to find accommodation in
the island, at least off-season. We could just walk around and just run into
places that were very affordable. We found clean hotel rooms, small cottages
right at the beach and nicer bungalows a bit farther inland all for $10-$20
per night. I imagine with more knowledge of our options we could have had even
nicer places for the price. One thing I learned is that the 3G Internet
connectivity advertised does not actually work in any usable way at least in
Koh Samui / Koh Tao / Koh Phangan where we tried it, and had to rely on wifi.
It was kind of a fun pastime to try to find places to stay in by scanning for
wifi spots and walk to the direction where it gets stronger.

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outscape
for something more stationary, but somewhat similar in spirit, check out this
place built right on the ocean on a tropical island in Panama:

www.cocovivo.com

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drinian
Similar in spirit: Bemmu posted this idea on Hacker News some time ago, but to
the best of my understanding, he had to pull out.
<http://www.coworkthailand.com/>

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banned_man
Although it's not quite the same thing, this reminds me my semester in
Budapest (undergrad math program). I actually saved a few thousand dollars by
doing so. American tuition is just really expensive.

