In this blog, I am going to make an attempt to summarize the last 2 years for you. Namely, that is the period when I ran my company Working Remotely and completely switched to a remote life. Therefore, on our Instagram page, you will constantly see me in another place in the world, and my laptop is always with me. This freedom makes me extremely happy. I grant that to everyone.
My indomitable travel jitters
My love of travel goes back about 20 years. I have always been a huge sun worshipper, and let’s face it: then you are living in the wrong country. Since about 10 years, that’s why I always escape in winter to a place where the sun shines. Usually that is far away. The first time it was 3 weeks in South Africa, the last time it was 6 weeks in Cape Verde.
Remote working in salaried employment
With a salaried job you might not immediately expect the freedom to be able to work remotely a lot, but nowadays you see this more and more. Which I think is a very positive development. I myself started working remotely when I still worked for a boss, you can read the whole story in this blog: how I scored my remote job. This employer was very flexible and it was fine if you worked remotely. As long as you did your job and took your responsibilities. Needless to say.
Combining travel and making money
Fortunately, one no longer has to exclude the other. You can combine these two things just fine these days by working remotely. You can travel the world while making money. In fact, there are more and more ways to do this. You can do so in paid employment, as a zpp’er or entrepreneur, or you can build a passive income. Certainly the latter is rising in popularity, sidehustles are springing up like mushrooms.
Curious about ways to combine traveling and making money? Then check out our 10 tips in this blog.
From employment to entrepreneur
In the beginning, when I started workingremotely.com, I did this next to my salaried job. You have to, because you don’t earn a good income from day one. I started organizing workations for companies and a blog to share my experiences. I invested a lot of time in building my network from the beginning of my career, which came in handy now. From my own network, I received requests from companies to organize a workation. The Working Remotely blog and our Instagram channel gained momentum after my story appeared in various newspapers and magazines, such as the AD, Lonely Planet, NRC. Not entirely coincidentally, because I also had my contacts at various media outlets for a while. So they also knew how to find me quickly when this trend became booming after covid. So I quickly built up the status of workation expert.
Running a profitable business
A few clients and a nice blog still don’t produce a full-time profitable business in the beginning, but you get to a point where you have to make a choice. Do I keep doing this on the side or do I quit my regular job and go for it? That leap of faith was terrifying. But I saw the potential on all sides and wanted to go for it. Sometimes it is still exciting to run a business, I can tell you. As an entrepreneur, I can give you 3 wise lessons from this:
- Start before you’re ready. Cliché but true! I am fairly perfectionist, which is not really helpful for an entrepreneur. You shouldn’t wait until you have something worked out or prepared to perfection. Learning by doing is my new motto. Just start and you’ll see. You can always make adjustments.
- ‘What if…’ is deadly. You only find out one way and that is by doing it. Doubting for too long or not doing things because they are scary is of no use. I’d rather fall flat on my face and learn from that than have to wonder what might have happened.
- Fear is your worst counselor. My father said the other day that the “Ingermen” (my last name) know little fear. After 2 years in business and the 20 years of traveling the world, I can be-agree with that. My grandfather and father have also traveled the world all their lives, largely for work. Funny to realize now that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Dare to go for it!
The results are impressive. Meanwhile, our team continues to grow and we can offer more and more services related to remote working. We still provide memorable company workstations for our clients and nowadays we also offer more and more courses to get people started with remote working. We create daily content for the blog and social media, and we also do content campaigns for super cool clients, worldwide. Sometimes I have to pinch myself that this all happens.
On to a remote (work) life
I too once went traveling alone for the first time. Yes, I found it terrifying. I too once had my first workation. Yes, that took some getting used to. I too once went to the other side of the world. Yes, that was exciting. But pardon my french: I fucking did it! Every experience you learn from, good or bad. As I said above, fear is your worst advisor. Getting out of your comfort zone is what makes you grow as a person. Exploring the world gives you a wealth of valuable life lessons. No more restrictions on vacation days, no more exploded inbox after your vacation. I think that’s another big advantage to remote working. You just take your work with you. It doesn’t lie idle. You’re just reachable. Only you work from an inspiring place for a while and after your working day you jump into the pool or discover a cool destination. That’s what you want!
Also become remote ready
I hope my story inspires you to also create a remote (work) life for yourself. Whether that’s as an employee, freelancer or entrepreneur. Find the perfect remote job, develop the right skills and go for it. Need some help taking the first steps to remote work? I got you. Especially to get you started, we have developed an online course: Remote Ready. In this course I take you step by step towards your remote working adventure.
