well hello friends
welcome back to my channel we are
getting down to business today
if you couldn't tell from my spinning
chair and
business digital nomad business attire
i am super excited to be sharing some of
my top tips with you guys
when it comes to doing this full-time
kind of sharing my own backstory
of how i got into this but we will of
course be focusing on being a digital
nomad
in many different respects you don't
obviously have to be
just a travel youtuber to be able to
work from anywhere
but before we get into all the different
tips that i have for generating an
income
online and what to do when you're
actually abroad
i thought that i would actually start
with the three different categories
of being a digital nomad so the first
way is to be a full-time
employee at only one company one thing
that kovit has taught us
is that a lot of jobs can actually be
done remotely
i think for a lot of people that's
actually the best of both worlds because
you're not relying on just
yourself to bring in income every single
month you do have a sort of
you know security of working for a
company that's paying you
a monthly salary or an hourly wage while
being able to have your own schedule
and being able to work from a tropical
paradise
if you so wish and the second way to be
a digital nomad
is the freelancer this category really
is in the middle of the road between
being employed by
somebody else and working for yourself
where you might have multiple clients
some might be repeating
some might be one-offs or maybe you have
a more part-time
sort of basis for a few different
companies and
lastly the third way to be a digital
nomad and
i guess this is my category because this
is what
i'm doing right now and that is to be
self-employed
if you have been here since the
beginning and thank you by the way
you'll know that i have had a channel
for about four or five
years now i think it's been and up until
a year and a half or maybe maybe two
years
is when i actually started making any
kind of income from it
when i finally took the step to do this
full time and i did
the russia trip i had actually saved up
as much money as i possibly could
before i left and i was actually doing a
few part-time sort of gigs
uh while i was on the road to kind of
make ends meet
because my channel was definitely not
generating enough income
at the beginning of that trip thankfully
things have improved a lot
since then and i am able to make a
full-time income
that i can travel on with just doing
youtube
but keep in mind that this really is all
relative to
where you live and how much money you
spend because while my channel
is doing quite well i am making quite a
bit of money
i wouldn't say that i'm making enough to
comfortably live
in canada if i was you know doing what
i'm doing now
and that really is one of the big
reasons of why i travel like i do
because obviously places like ukraine
albania
the philippines let's say don't cost
nearly as much
for your monthly expenses as you would
pay in canada
at the end of the day what being a
digital nomad really comes down to
is having skills that you can monetize
that you can do from your computer
with an internet connection and that if
you have a boss
that they're okay with it so to give you
some ideas of industries that easily
translate
to the digital sphere i actually made a
list so i'm going to read them off for
you
is things like marketing graphic design
copywriting administrative work there's
actually so many people i know who are
doing that
uh doing web development business
analytics
online retail online courses or digital
products
and of course all the creative mediums
managing social media like youtube
instagram tick tock and of course if you
work for yourself in those mediums
usually you would have to have a larger
sort of audience
for it to be profitable and lastly the
most important tip i think i can give
anybody who's just
starting out on this journey is to
really focus on your foundation
while of course having a great
personality and having a great network
can be very helpful
as far as securing a great position or
getting clients at the end of the day it
is going to come down to how well can
you actually do
what you do how much knowledge you have
on the topic
how good is your skill set and are you
able to produce
the kind of content that your employer
or your clients or
your audience wants to see it is very
important to always be updating your
skill set
and not get so complacent in you know
just taking a course five years ago and
just relying
on that information because industries
are constantly changing
and if you want to stay successful
usually you have to stay with the times
so in saying that i would really like to
thank skillshare
for sponsoring today's video skillshare
is an online learning community where
thousands of people come together
to take the next step of their creative
journey whether you're just starting out
or a business professional
skillshare offers thousands of inspiring
classes in topics like marketing
graphic design photography and web
development
this is the perfect platform for
creative hobbyists and digital nomads
alike
to take their skills to the next level i
have talked about skillshare numerous
times and how i wish
that i had come across it when i was
earlier in my career because it would
have saved me so much time
a class that i actually really enjoyed
taking recently was by gary vaynerchuk
it's called context is key social media
strategy in a noisy world
i'm sure most of you know who gary
vaynerchuk is and that just shows the
caliber of teachers that skillshare has
on their platform
i really enjoyed taking his class on
social media presence
because it really highlighted how
important it is to be concise with your
message
and what works on different platforms
another reason of why skillshare is the
perfect sort of platform for digital
nomads
is that it's curated specifically for
learning meaning that there's no ads on
their platform
they're always launching new premium
classes and what's even crazier is that
their annual membership
is less than ten dollars a month
so in partnering with skillshare i do
have a very special offer for you guys
where the first thousand people to click
the link
in my description will get a free trial
of skillshare premium
it really is amazing just how much you
can learn from this platform so i would
really encourage you guys to take this
opportunity
to give their free trial a go and to
empower yourself
with new skills and knowledge so now
that i've gone over the different kinds
of digital nomads i thought that i would
answer some of your questions
that you guys sent in on the community
board so let's get to it
the first question comes from noah
bollander he
asks do you save all your money and then
make a budget before each of your trips
to answer that i would say not as much
as i used to
back when i was living in toronto and my
main source of income was waitressing i
did definitely have to save
so much money uh before i went on my
trips
and would really have to budget out how
much everything is going to cost to make
sure that
you know i wasn't going to be in debt
when i came home nowadays i don't
specifically save
for a specific trip i just try and save
as much money as possible every single
month
i'm trying to do at least 20 to 30
percent uh outside of
what i also have to put away for taxes
and as far as having a budget when i am
abroad i wouldn't say that i have a
specific number for every single thing
i just try and stay within the bracket
of approximately
50 us dollars a day you know some places
are going to be a little bit more some
are going to be
you know a little bit less if i'm
staying with somebody martin b
asks how do you cope with living out of
a suitcase for so long
and what are the choices and compromises
you have to make about what you take
so it's very difficult for me to uh not
completely over pack i do not travel
light i am not there yet i am not
trying to be there yet i find that for
the work that i do
just my little suitcase as a carry-on
is all of my equipment like that's 20
pounds of a computer
multiple cameras a tripod a drone
like i i just i just don't travel light
my equipment really is where i don't
like to compromise
so it is with my clothes my beauty
products and just any kind of personal
things that i really try and limit
to what i will actually be using right
away because
if it's not going to be cold for three
four months
i usually will just end up buying brand
new
winter clothes when the time comes
another good question that we have here
is from rahul rasam
based on your travels so far what are
some of the best cities to live in as a
digital nomad
in terms of cost of living internet
connectivity etc
so i'm going to answer this question
based on the current
covid restrictions of what's even open
right now because of course a very
popular digital nomad hub
is all of southeast asia like thailand
vietnam all those kinds of countries but
right now a lot of those are either
really difficult to get into
like thailand or they're not even open
but just going off of my own
personal experience of traveling last
year
and knowing what all is open um right
now
i would say that probably one of the
best places of the world to be in would
be
in one of the balkan countries as far as
internet connectivity i would
say that bulgaria was definitely um the
best i didn't have any issues there
it's such a beautiful country the nicest
people so definitely
i think an up-and-coming digital nomad
hub
but albania i would also say would be a
very close
second i didn't have too many issues
with the internet there
but north macedonia even though i loved
my time there
was unfortunately so difficult to work
in
at least for me because the upload
speeds
almost everywhere in the country were so
slow but if fast upload speeds aren't
that important to you i would say that
all three of those countries are
fantastic
options to you know be spending a lot of
time in
most countries can get in um you know
without a visa and can be there for
quite a few months
the cost of living is very low and the
people
in all three countries are just
fantastic next question comes from
laura dawn asking in which country do
you pay taxes
and how when you are not there for five
to six months so as i said before i
haven't been out of the country for
longer than six months so obviously this
next trip of mine
will be a bit different but for the time
being i do just file taxes as
a regular self-employed canadian citizen
and for the past few years even when i
had a regular employer i was just filing
online with like
turbo tax and still do just their
self-employed version so our next
question is from
love christina rose something i've been
curious about lately is how you get
health insurance coverage
i assume she means a travel insurance
coverage and for that i have
two companies that i would recommend to
you guys not sponsored
um the first one is called safety wing
and that is much more for
budget friendly sort of travelers
younger travelers
because the coverage that i'm getting is
only 40 us
dollars a month and it's for 200 000
worth of emergency medical services now
if you did want a bit more coverage
over a million dollars there's actually
two companies that i would recommend you
guys check out
there is hey mondo and there is world
nomads
all right and the last question that i'm
going to answer
in this video i will make follow-up
videos in the future
uh comes from john sharplin he asks
how different were the attitudes towards
covet precautions
masks social distancing etc in the
countries that you visited
this past year compared to canada so i
will say it was a very
interesting experience to be abroad
about half of last year
when the pandemic was announced i did
decide to
cancel my other plans and i stayed in
canada for about five
months i left the end of july last year
so i would say that the balkan region as
a whole
is obviously far less restrictive
than canada has been of course you still
had to follow certain kinds of
precautions
like wearing a mask in all indoor places
uh the only thing that was slightly
restrictive was that there were curfews
by the time that i got to albania where
in toronto by 10 p.m
everything closed in the capital canada
has obviously been much more
restrictive in the way that it has dealt
um
with kovid and i guess everybody will
have their own
opinion about uh what is best going
forward since we have been
in this for such a long time now it's
not some
short-term sort of thing unfortunately
but i really do believe that this point
in time
is going to greatly change the face of
what
is a workplace what is a work-life
balance
and i definitely do see a lot more
people uh
becoming digital nomads in the next few
years especially
with countries like georgia for example
who are making specifically
digital nomad visas where i believe you
can stay in the country
up to a year and you just have to prove
that you're making at least two thousand
dollars
a month and that you're planning to stay
there i think a minimum of
three months do a 10-day quarantine or
something like that
and it really is a win-win situation
because they are still
uh bringing you know foreign money to
their country but it's
in a safe way with the quarantine with
tests
and with people who are going to be able
to
bring more money into the country so
it's an interesting time it's an
interesting time to be a digital nomad
and
i'm really curious to see how things
unfold
in this year and i'm excited for my own
trip which is coming up here
in a couple of weeks once again a very
big thank you to skillshare for
sponsoring today's video
i'm gonna have that link in the
description so you guys can get a free
trial of skillshare premium if you're in
the first thousand people
who signs up so i hope you guys will
check it out because it is an
amazing resource for creatives and
digital nomads alike
thank you guys so much for tuning in as
always i hope you are having a fantastic
day
keeping your own kind of beautiful and i
will see you soon
bye guys
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