The Road to Traveling

The idea of Airbnb-ing around the world came to me pre-COVID. I spent a couple of weeks in Europe with a friend and very much enjoyed to experience. Which, to be fair, isn’t enough of an impetus to change one’s life. Nor should it be.

It did, however, get me thinking. I spent the vast majority of my career as a consultant. Which means moving from client to client, helping them solve problems, build products, or any of the other myriad of things that they ask to be done. Most times, there was no reason for me to be physically at the client. They always did that way, so people took it for granted that it was the best way.

Then COVID.

COVID changed so much of how the world worked. I don’t need to go into a list. You lived through it. You know how much it changed your life. For businesses, it thrust the concept of remote work to the forefront. In many instances, the only way to continue working was to allow employees to work remotely.

My clients faced this. In the last two years, I have only been to a client site once. And that’s because they were really trying hard to get their employees back into the office. Other than that, it has been me working from my home office. There came a critical realization. If you’re working from home, your home can be any place.

BINGO!

Any place includes Europe. South America. Even Australia and Asia, if you can make the time zones work.

That was the spark I needed to plan the details. My life was at the point where the kids were out of my home. I could continue to take on the work that I had been doing. Why not do it from more exciting places than a suburb of Toronto?

As I looked into the details, I realized this could happen. That it wouldn’t take that much to make it happen. Sell my car. Move out of the house that I rent. Put my things into storage. Then, off I go. It’s not quite that simple, but it is close.

The last couple of months has been doing just that. I sold my car. I gave my two-month notice on my rental. Boxes are getting filled and they’ll go into storage starting in January. My last day in Canada for a little while will be January 30.

So far, the logistics have been easier than I expected. It will be interesting to see how my family reacts to the reality of my situation. Yes, they all know. But there’s a difference between knowing and ‘knowing’. That’s something to deal with in February.