Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea of travel hacking and working from the road, which is a very nice dream to fantasize about. But in reality, I don’t think I’d actually enjoy that life. The problem is I’m too much of an extrovert, and I need the consistent company of trusted people to sustain my sanity. So if I were to move that often and not having any stable place to call home, I would find that too unnerving. Even though I would be happy to meet new people and create new communities everywhere I went, none of them would last long enough to be sufficiently fulfilling for me.
At the same time, I’ve also learned that I hate staying in one place for too long. So the common practice of keeping one permanent home and then taking frequent trips from there while working remotely is also an unattractive prospect for me. After a while, I would get tired of always coming back to the same place time after time. And in the same vein as above, I’d also get tired of constantly traveling and being on the go, on the road, that frequently.
On the other hand, I am also aware that I do still tend to move fairly often. Looking at my housing pattern over the last 5 years, I’ve moved 10 times and on average about every 6 months. So it would seem that my ideal term of residence is about 6 months, and then I feel the inexplicable urge to move on and start anew somewhere else. It doesn’t even have to be that far away. Despite moving 10 times in the last 5 years, I stayed entirely situated in the California Bay Area. So clearly I don’t need to move far to feel that sense of starting fresh.
So if I were to take both of these into consideration, I imagine I’d like to create a new kind of mobile working lifestyle. I don’t want to be constantly on the go, but I do want to be able to change my surroundings every 4-8 months. So I’m not sure yet what that will entail exactly, but I’m excited to explore how I can construct this ideal lifestyle of mine. How can I maintain a life of moving every 4-8 months, without disrupting the nature and flow of my work, or my work-life balance?
The life of a semi-transient worker. The somewhat location independent businesswoman. The occasional telecommuter. The periodic nomad.
Do you think this concept already exists, and if so, what do you think of it? Or if not, do you have any ideas how you imagine this might work? I’d love to hear your thoughts, so please feel free to Leave a Comment!
The Writes of Passage 