44. What It’s Like As A Full-Time Nomad (Pro’s & Con’s)

A full time nomadbergs traveling and working remotely. I don't have a house, selling my car. I bought two new suitcases which would really help. And I'm back on the road as of time of recording. Three days time, I'm off to Thailand for a month as my first destination.

Welcome back to another episode of the Bennenberg show with your favorite MBA and high school dropout. Today we're talking about how I have become a full time nomadbergs traveling and working remotely. I don't have a house, selling my car, bought two new suitcases which have really helped because that's all my shit in there right now. And I'm back on the road as of time of recording. Three days time, I'm off to Thailand for a month as my first destination.

So what you're saying is you're just fancy homeless, mate. Well, what's the proper one? It's Vagabond, where you don't have like a fixed address.

I say that to people at conferences like, oh, where do you live? I'm like, oh, no, I'm homeless.

Crypto, mate.

Just ruled it. So, yeah, as of seven months ago now, I used to live in St Kilda, Melbourne. Got rid of that place and I've been traveling full time ever since. I've always wanted to travel, but the business that, you know, we're in and, you know, we're a fully remote life, laptop lifestyle allows me to be able to be a full time nomad. I'm very, very grateful to be the, you know, in this business that can support that. And obviously I don't have a rental, so I'm saving a shitload of money not having a place. So I'm basically putting that money into being able to travel and going around. I went to a few places last year, went to Singapore, Dubai, the U.S. i think that's it. And this year got a few more on the list. But I guess today burgs, we wanted to maybe go through what it's like traveling full time and working, you know, remote work, pros and cons, how I do it, how much it costs, and a few other things that maybe we can walk through.

Absolutely. And we're in the studio together, which is amazing. You're in Perth. Came to the promised land, mate.

Oh, yeah, I'm not loving it so far. No, I'm kidding.

He's literally talking. He's like, oh, man, I'm at the best hotel and it's not too hot. I had a cracking breakfast and I went to the Gym. This is sick, mate. It's so awesome.

I bag it out because Berg's just like shits on Tasmania all the time, you know, he never wants to come, so I'm not even part of the mainland.

You're just this little thing. You're like this little cancer that hangs off Australia, mate. Oh.

That might be a bit stronger. Sorry, sorry. Tasmanians.

We have our, our own island. It's very precious. We don't leave anyone in, you know, you have to reach a certain standard to enter the state. You probably wouldn't meet those standards though. You probably shit on it, mate.

No, I don't mind Perth. Perth is nice. I mean, the weather over here is cracking, you know, got nice beaches. I spent a little bit of time over here over the last couple of years, but, you know, it is nice. The only, only shitty thing is it's, man, it's five hours away from Tassie. You live in the past over here. Like we're already three hours behind, you know, even sunrise and stuff. What, it must start like what, 4:00am here, 3:00am Even the news. If you were in Melbourne, you'd get a three, three hours beforehand. But they delay it post over here. Like you're just living in the past.

We don't even have daylight savings here, mate. That's how bad it is. Maybe, maybe we're the true cancer of Australia.

You're a little bubble over here.

Our own little bubble. Look, eventually they're just gonna like drill us out. We'll become our own country, mate. Keep all the mining royalties for ourselves.

So, yeah, basically, you know, first of all, I wanted to maybe go through travel plan. So the next month I'm going to Thailand to work from remote planned. It's just a hotel for the first week and then I actually haven't booked anything from there.

You're so good at doing this. So Ben's come to Perth for three days and then he's flying to Thailand from here. And I just got in, my mate. Oh, you're going to Thailand. Like, how's it going to be like, mate, I haven't even thought about it. I'm like, bro, this is a huge move. You're going to be there for a month. And you're like, yeah, now that's three days away, man. So crazy. Where are you actually going to in Thailand?

So I'm going to Phuket. I've never been there before, but there's a really big remote working nomad community over there. So there's a lot of, a lot of Co working spaces. A lot of people that work remotely that have gone to Phuket, I guess, for the beach lifestyle. It's cheap, the food and I've been to Vietnam and Cambodia before and absolutely loved it. I was supposed to go to South America about this time, but it's a bit of a bloodbath over there politically, so we thought, no, we wouldn't do that. I was going to go with a mate of mine but he put out. Now I'm just going to go to Thailand on my own and honestly, I should prefer to travel on my own. Anyway, you do your own thing.

You're thinking about Bali as well. But it was too. The weather wasn't that great.

Yeah, wet season in Bali, so I'll probably. I'm actually doing that middle of this year. But yeah, honestly, I just, I don't know, man, I, I just like traveling, I like experiencing new things. I get excited about it. You know, there's obviously pros and cons to it, but yeah, especially going to like Asia. Like it's, it's relatively cheap. They've got great Internet. Well, I haven't been, I haven't been sort of talking out of just what I've read, but yeah, I'm looking forward to it.

They have huge digital nomad communities and incentives as well. And even all through Europe, like, even Portugal has one where you don't pay any tax. It's crazy to attract those kind of people to your country.

Exactly.

And this is not just available to. Is anyone working remotely. And even if you're in an office and you go in a couple of days, you can even talk to your manager and ask them like, hey, for two or three weeks I want to go here. It'll be exactly the same as I'm delivering now. I'll just be somewhere else. And it's a really awesome opportunity that the majority of us have nowadays.

Well, I probably, I don't take for granted. I'm very grateful that I'm able to do it. But I guess what is interesting is that how few people do it and the idea of just going to a place for a month is so foreign to a lot of people, especially my, you know, back in Tasmania, when I'm talking to some of my friends and family, I'm like, yeah, I'm going to Thailand. Like, oh, what for? Just to work. Well, is there like, you're speaking over there? Like, no, I'm just going like, oh, like, how long? For four weeks. You go for four weeks. We can do over there. Work, work, where are you staying? I don't know yet. I'll figure it out.

That's exactly it. And there's. So with these, you know, geo arbitrage opportunities, if you go and live in a country that's got a cheaper cost of living, first of all, it's cheaper to live there, but you could also potentially rent out your house or you don't have to pay your rent because you're not living here. There's those added benefits and then you can use that money to travel, have different experiences. And when you look back on your life, you're going to be like, yeah, I spent an extra month in my house. Yeah, well, remember that crazy month I spent in Thailand?

Yeah. And I think, you know, in my 20s, if I think about my 20s, like I want to look back on my 20s going, you know, I really gave it a crack. I was able to travel and you know, and again, I mentioned this before, but a great, you know, not everyone has the opportunity to do, you know, the traveling work, you know, full time. So really, you know, awesome to be able to have that ability to go and do it. So I just want to take it by the, the kahunas and just go and get after it.

That's awesome, mate. And you said you've got, you're going there for a month and you want to take a week off during that month.

Yep.

Go to resort and just chill.

So I was gonna do a resort and chill, but I'm now doing Contiki.

So.

I've never done Contigu before. I am going over because I haven't really been able to take a break. I took a bit of time over Christmas but, you know, we had the Australian open deal and it's just, yeah, it was, it was chaos. So a lot of work. So yeah, we're gonna do Contiki. One of my buddies is coming up. My business buddies from EO is coming over from Melbourne. He's gonna meet me in Phuke and we're going to do, yeah, five or six days of traveling around the islands around Phuket. 24 people. And it's going to be wild. It's gonna be wild, man. So I'm looking forward to that. But yeah, what I'm most looking forward to is just being able to like get in a good routine. There's a, there's a space. I'm gonna, I think this is where I'm gonna book. It's like a co living, co working space. So think like a massive, you know, apartment complex with an attached Co working space with a pool and a bar and a cafe. So you can go and sleep in your. In your room and you can go down and work with other co. Sorry, other independent workers. So that's what I'm most looking forward to. I did a little bit of that. Well, actually, nothing specifically like what they've got in Thailand. I think Thailand and Bali is really set up like that. When I've traveled to Dubai and the us, it's a little bit different. You sort of. More you get your Airbnb, you go to a co working space. But yeah, I'm really looking forward to that. In Thailand, it's pretty cheap. Like I got flights from Perth to Phuket for 700 bucks return.

Amazing.

And you know, accommodation and, you know, co working in Thailand, I actually don't know how much it is. I think it's like a thousand or two thousand bucks for, you know, two or three weeks. So that's wild. If you look at that in comparison to having a rental and all the costs and things, the co working space you have all together, it kind of worked out about the same.

So I saw this on an episode of House Hunters. You probably haven't watched it because you've got a life. Like when it's like later when it's like, you know, you just after dinner and I just want to sit down and watch something boring and just, you know, de stress, I'll put that on. And generally it's like, you know, a couple or a family, they're moving somewhere overseas. International House Hunters. And the real estate agent will take them through three different houses and then they'll have to decide which one they want. They actually did one. I'm pretty sure it was Thailand and a guy was choosing between the different houses. He chose one of those houses you described. So he's like, no, I'm going to bail out. Of all the options you gave me, I'm going to do this instead. And he was so funny. He was. He's like, you right big wanker. And he's like, he's a. He's a tech bro. And then they had a share house, had like, I think 10 different rooms and then areas you could work and everything. And then he gets up at the end, he gives a speech and it's like this motivational speech and like people listening. He's like, today, like whenever you're doing this, that is not a day in the calendar. You have to put it in. It's like he's taking just. It was so funny. It's the biggest wanker. Totally reminded me of you. But the actual working space looks amazing because you're going to a different place. There's people from all over the world. You can live together, you've got people there, you can work together, you can go to pubs and everything. It's a really great setup.

Yeah. And I like the freedom, honestly, to just be able to go and just try new things out, do things on your own schedule. Obviously I'm, you know, continue to be pretty busy, but over an evening or a morning or, you know, during lunchtime, you know, check things out weekends and honestly, just to change up the scenery, meet new people, you know, I love all of that part about traveling and just being able to, like, have a suitcase and just having the freedom to go and do whatever. Like, you're not restricted to anything, you.

Know, I love that we are both suckers for personal growth. And you get a lot of personal growth when traveling. You don't understand the language. And how do I find a toilet? Fuck. My ATM car is not working. How do I get money? Is this guy going to stab me in the cab? I mean, like, I'm going back to a girl's house. Is she going to rob me?

I always see a lady. Boy.

Mate, you got to watch out.

You're going to Thailand, mate.

So that's like a lot of the pros, obviously, the cons, as you just mentioned there, boys, I mean, the cons, the downside is like, you know, sometimes you do miss having a physical location, being able to build an office or has a recording studio constantly. Like, I've got a suitcase all. With all my content, podcasts and camera stuff. Yep, suitcase, all my clothes and everything else, so you have to carry that all around. And sometimes, you know, moving hotels can become annoying. But, you know, the traveling I did last year, you know, across those, you know, the U.S. dubai and Singapore was. Was honestly really fun. It is. It is tough the first couple of weeks, especially traveling alone. I remember Dubai. I was like, fuck this place, man. I was like, you know, because that.

Would be completely, Completely foreign.

Yeah, so foreign.

And you had a lot of work to do by yourself.

There's a lot going on. I went there for work and it was difficult, but once you get in the swing of things, it's awesome. And then you meet people and you sort of become friends and connected and it's just a different, you know, it's just unique, you know, And I just like the idea of trying new things, you know, and that's what motivates me to do it.

And you're gonna have just those bend challenges, like when you're in Dubai and you're trying to work out your washing machine, mate.

Oh, my goodness, the washing machine.

Yeah. Or you're trying to iron your shirt when you're going for a date and.

It ends up more quicker, more quicker than it was before.

So good luck to that. When it's all in another language, mate.

People must just think and look at me like, you're just a typical tech bro. Just got no idea what he's doing outside of. Outside of business.

You got the soft hands, mate. Honestly, everything is like, is there an app for that?

At least this will help you grow some teeth, mate. You'll actually be able to lie if your mum's not around to do your laundry, mate.

No, like, you're looking forward to it. So, yeah, coming back and then from Thailand and then you're going to the. Going to the US for a few weeks. We've got the crypto conference coming up in April, which I'm looking forward to.

That's going to be huge. So we'll keep people apprised of. Of what Ben's doing in Thailand. It's going to be interesting us. We'll still be doing video conferencing for the pod.

Doing the pod.

And I'm sure you have some cracking stories, mate, I can't wait to hear them.

Yeah, no, I'll be. I'll be living them out on the pod. So, yeah, mate, I'll be reporting from there. And yeah, if you've got any questions about you wanting to travel full time or you just wanted to get out there and try the remote working, feel free to tweet. Tweet at me at Bensonau, on Twitter or at Babybackburg. And we'll. We'll try and get to your questions.

On the podcast and we'll see how digital nomading really is behind the scenes.

Behind the scenes.

If it's actually worth it or people just want this. Oh, look, I'm in a beach on Bali. But really, you're crying all the time because you miss your mates, because you miss friends.

Yeah.

So we'll see how it goes. We'll keep people apprised.

Ronnie, mate, jump into memes. Maybe the meme of the week.

I got a couple and these. These made me laugh. So first one is beautiful one, Steve Carell, where he's, like, young and he's got a mullet and a bum bag. He's shaking his manager's hand and it's manager telling us we are a family. And there's Steve Carell where he's like me, who has applied families this week. So one of our advisors, t, he hates this phrase, as do I. Where companies like, we're a family. Here it's like, no, motherfucker, we ain't a family. I'm here for that cash, son. Like, God damn. Like here we have a contractual obligation. Like, this is what we have. We are not a family. Anything about families, like, families, like, treat you like crap all the time. You know, they're really annoying, but you stick by them all the time. Businesses are not that. They need to, like, treat you really well. You're there to do a certain set of things. We are absolutely not a family. If you treat me crap, I will find another family. And then the next one there's old mate and he just looks hilarious with his, like, kind of comb over. And he's basically hanging off a building and someone's leaning down, just grabbing his hand and it says 99.99 of bacteria. He's going, God, oh. And he's whimpering because he's about to fall. And then the 0.01% of bacteria at the top holding his arm, saying, I got you. I got you, brother. And then Danny DeVito appears out of nowhere. This big lump of wood is like, sanitize hand sanitizer. Oh, no, you don't just bumps him in the face with a big lump of wood. This one really cracked me up because all sanitizer is like 99.99 of germs. It'll get rid of. And we think that's fantastic. In my old job, I used to sit next to a guy and he was the head of infectious diseases. He's like, bruh, it's like, you know that.001%, that's like over 200000 different type of bacteria. So we think we're all good, but now you get slaughtered.

This one got me in the feels. So it's a kid. And it says when someone asks me why I'm always on my phone and the caption is, it prevents me from being alone with my thoughts. And I was like, oh, bruh, this is what we talked about last week, where people are afraid to be bored. You always need to be entertained because otherwise you have to deal with your shit. But if you deal with your shit and you do the hard thing, you'll have a much better life.

Ride the feels.

Ride the feels. And this one is for Ben. This is Ben, it's a chimp. And it says the caption is just think twice, bro. I didn't even think once. And this is just you, mate, jumping into everything. And after you be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait. Why are we doing this? What does this mean for our business? What resources do we need? This is like Thailand. Just go to Thailand. Book. Done. And I'm like, have you done anything apart from that?

No, bruh.

It's all good. Taking my suitcase. I've got some new suitcases. I'm going, man, I'm going. At least you've booked a week, Contiki.

Yeah.

So you got your first week sorted?

Yeah. Everything else I'll figure out.

Bloody hell.

Right. Nice work. Meal of the week, man. What are you.

Have you seen one of these before?

No, I haven't. It looks like a.

What kind of cuisine would you say this is?

Is it? I was gonna say Indian.

Yeah, boy. All right, so this is masala dosa. So what this is, it's like long, thin, it's like fermented rice and it's like really long and thin and they fry it and on the inside you've got like curry potato and it's just absolutely delicious. And then you got all your dipping sauces. So you got the kind of spicy one on the right, the cooling one on the left, and then the one where it's like kind of like a onion curry sauce type thing. So this was at a local curry spot. Amazing. And this came to me through the Indian grapevine, through my mum. Right. Because all Indians get together like, this place is really good. And we couldn't go there for a while. They lost their chef. Now they've got a cut down menu. But we went with our friends who haven't seen in a while, which is amazing. Sit out the front, beautiful weather, nice glass of wine, and this was just incredible. This would have been about 60cm long and you just, you're just breaking off this amazing crispy dosa and it's got that kind of almost sourdough taste to it and you're just dipping in. It was just brilliant. Brilliant, mate. And honestly, there's nothing wrong with this at all. I would give this a 10 out of 10.

Amazing. It looks good.

It was brilliant.

It was cracking. Right, I'm back to my chicken days, mate. It's been a minute since I've brought a chicken dish. On to middle of the week. Here we have. Bergs is a cracking chicken parmigiano at the Melbourne airport. So what we've Got here at the airport.

Wow. Yeah.

Went. Went down to the airport. Now, the lounge, I reckon the lounge is overrated. The lounge foods are bang average. So I said this. I'm going to. I'm going to the restaurant. Went at a wicked chicken parmy. Just a nice double slice of ham. Chicken was, you know, sort of, you know, sort of thick, juicy. Good. Good coating, not too much batter, good chips, well seasoned. With a glass Coke, mate. And can I just add a glass? Cokes are so much better than, like, plastic or can, bro.

I completely agree with you. Even when I have, like, gin and tonic, the tonic in a glass is so much better. But when you go to other places, like in. When I went to London, there bottled plastic Coke was like our glass Coke.

Really?

We get stiffed over here.

Yeah, man. I think we get stiffed. The other thing too. I will say, like the. Over the bar, the. What's it called when they have it on the. On the tap?

Oh, yeah.

Post mix. That's cracking as well.

Yeah, but they got to get that mix right. Like, sometimes there's way too much syrup.

Or way too much water. You're like, man, this is just like, water.

Sometimes you just have it and it's got that kind of, like, taste. And you can actually taste the, like. You know how they got a special recipe. There's, like some different spices in there and it just bubbles on your tongue. That's the good Coke.

That's a good Coke. So, yeah, burgs, this is about a 9.5. I wasn't overly happy with the. With the tomato sauce, the sort of relish that goes on. Not relish, but you know. You know what goes with the parmy.

Yeah, yeah.

It's a little bit lumpy, the tomatoes. But everything else, mate, was pretty good. So I'm gonna give it a 9.5.

Mate, look at that token salad. Someone just gave up on life, it looks like.

I didn't touch the salad.

Yeah.

You know what this is? This is an 8. I remember the salad. I didn't even touch the salad. That was like, you know, the. It's like the old bag of, like, the woolly salad that's been left over from last night's dinner at Nan's house. And they've just jammed it on the.

It's like shredd coleslaw, but shredded on, like, the worst grater you've ever seen. They haven't even used a mandolin and they've just put some kind of random brown vinaigrette on it. And it literally Looks like you remember, like back in the day whenever you went to like, you know, chicken Treat or Red Rooster and you get the coleslaw if you left out in the sun for six weeks and it was just dry and old and disgusting and half moldy and they just put it on your plate.

You know, when someone's moving house, they had like that, you know, leftover stuff in their fridge. This is like the thing that your mate like gave you their leftover bag of like salad that you didn't want that's been in there for like three months and they've just jammed on there.

You know what this looks like? This looks like when one of your mates has been sick after a big night on the sauce and they have a big vom and then you go out the front the next day and it's all dried. That's what that looks like.

That's what that reminds me, fam.

This has gone from a 9.5 to like a 6.

Oh, mate, how good.

Nice work. Cool. Now, is there any. Do we have any accountability at the moment? I think, I think we're probably.

Yeah, we caught up with all that. We did a big update last week and then, you know, doing week to week updates, like still lifting, still doing it. But, you know, we want to give you progress. We want to give you the beans.

I want to give you the beans. If you want an update on how Bergs is dunking, you can listen to episode 39 and also my social media stuff, you can head over to episode 39, but we might wrap it up there. Burgs, there's a good episode for those that want to get out there and start working remotely again. If you have any questions, feedback. If you like this podcast, we'd love for you to send it to a friend. Otherwise you can tweet at us, BenSmason, AU on Twitter and Babyback Berg and mate, we'll see you on the next episode.

Catch you, champions.

Thanks, guys.