71–80 of 141 posts
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If you are an American citizen, you always have to file taxes on wages, no matter where you earn them or who you work for (even if you steal things, you pay taxes on them).
This is distinctive for the US from what I understand. People in most western countries don't have to report to them once they've left other than to renew passports.
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It sounds like a lot of fun, but how do you save for your retirement? If you spent 10 years doing this, wouldn't you be too far behind to catch up and end up living a poor lifestyle when you should be traveling and enjoying your later years?
I always hear people talk about all the things they'll do after they retire, but somehow I never see them actually do it. Sometimes you just need to do things instead of putting them off to some uncertain future.
We missed the date by a year-- exactly the year it took us to get ready for this.
Takes a lot of time to get rid of a couple decades of accumulated junk. That's one of the bigger inhibitions. We didn't put anything but a couple small boxes in storage with friends, we got rid of everything.
Sort of our "burning the ships" moment, but also, the thing is, it was mostly unnecessary.
Like in fight club - we thought we had the sofa thing covered. Forget that. There will be more sofas in the future.
Note that doing what the OP did is far more difficult if you have children, although it is possible to work stable jobs in a single country for longer stints with kids.
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Could you give more detail on your health insurance--what you have now, and some other ones you're considering?
We kept the insurance we had in the states before. Due to obamacare our previous plan was shut down (as it became illegal to sell lower cost plans like it) and we were put onto a more expensive plan. We're researching our options. But we may end up buying insurance in the USA and then supplementing it with World Nomads coverage. They charge around $50 a month and provide $500k emergency transport back to the US (wher…
Living abroad in your 20s is an unforgettable experience. I lived in Europe and Asia for most of the 1990s, and still look back wistfully at that time of my life. I gave up some early career "juice" but got so much more out of it. Note that doing what the OP did is far more difficult if you have children, although it is possible to work stable jobs in a single country for longer stints with kids.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is distinctive for the US from what I understand. People in most western countries don't have to report to them once they've left other than to renew passports.
That's correct, the US does taxes by citizenship, whereas most countries do it by residence.
I've been doing the same for 9 months now. I've travelled round the whole world, had a fantastic time, and wrote a book for O'Reilly as I went. It's been the best year of my life. In fact, it turns out that writing books is one of the best ways to do this - as it's very flexible and a successful book will just about cover traveling costs. What most people don't realize, is how cheap it is to do this. As always though…
Currently doing it in Bangalore, India! Anymore people/couples doing the same right now?
I did freelance for a while, and I came to the conclusion that I don't really enjoy doing client work, so now I'm working on a startup instead.
Does anybody have experience doing a startup on the road, as opposed to the more common freelancing/blogging/consulting?
My aim is to get my SaaS product(s) to the point of requiring almost zero work. (Everything automated, effective 'help' section to keep the amount support emails as low as possible, etc.)
This seems impossible with freelancing/blogging/consulting, as you'll only be able to lessen the workload so much (i.e. it can't be self-sustaining), whereas depending on the startup you can theoretically get by on just a few hours work per week, while your revenues are still increasing.
What are the best technologies to focus on in order to be mobile/remote? I've notice that nobody is interested in remote C++ development, and the few people I meet who are doing something like this are in some branch of web development.
For example, I am a researcher at a university (an employee, not a grad student). I don't want to go into details, but basically I do a lot of numerical modelling-type work and model development. I use lots of different technologies to do it (including C++ at times). I work on the opposite side of the planet to where my university is located and it works well.
Meetings are the only slightly problematic area. Skype is ok, but really not ideal for more than one on one meetings.