Hey Dan here and if you are a longtime subscriber, you've probably heard bits
and pieces of my story in terms of leaving Canada and traveling the world
before settling down here in Prague, but I've never really told that full story
in terms of where I went and my digital nomad life and so in this video I wanted
to go through a bit of my story but then get into why I quit being a digital
nomad, why I decided to settle down in one place and then what I see my future
the next five years looking like you know and I built a business that allows
me to be location independent to live where I want and so what does that
future look like for me so I first left Canada in 2012 in January and I started
off living in Costa Rica for four months why Costa Rica couldn't tell you seemed
safe tropical there were monkeys monkeys are very appealing to me and it was just
one of those things like I find when I talk to a lot of people who want to live
abroad move somewhere new there's always a country and they don't quite know why
sometimes it's just like I've just always wanted to go there that was Costa
Rica for me and then from Costa Rica I moved to New York this was still 2012
and well in New York my best friend mentioned he was going to be moving to
Europe to Hamburg first and then Italy for this master's degree program and I
thought hey I am planning and trying to live in five different countries before
I turn 30 that was my goal and so why not follow my friend to Europe and check
out Germany and that's exactly what I did so I lived in Hamburg Germany for
three months and then in Bologna Italy for three months and then from there
parted ways of my friend and made the move to Barcelona from there ended up
moving back to Hamburg there was a girl involved and then to Berlin and
eventually here to Prague generally I stayed in places for three to six months
a few were a little longer I think New York was more like two and a half months
but that was roughly the the timeline own places and it was an awesome
experience if I had to do it again I completely would but
I decided to stay in Prague and for good reason and I'm very happy with that
decision and there's a couple reasons why I decided to quit being this nomad
and actually settle down somewhere first is relationships relationships are one
of the most important things in my life I'm and by that I mean dating and I mean
friendships and probably more friendships in this case to be honest as
you might imagine being a writer traveling the world dating wasn't the
most difficult thing even if you were only in a place for a couple months at a
time I actually had a lot of wonderful relationships through my travel too to
say it politely but friendships was more of a struggle because when you're only
somewhere for a few months at least as a guy but I think this is for everyone
it's hard to really get to know someone like build a trusting friendship not
only because sometimes that takes a lot of time but also because you start to
think you know what's the point I'm only gonna be here a couple months why you
know become friends put in all that effort to meet people and that sort of
thing and I don't think I'm alone I've talked to a lot of friends about this
who have settled down or in one area I know in Prague for some of the former
nomads who now just live in Prague when there's people who are only visiting the
city for a couple weeks passing through most of us lean away
from you know spending a lot of time with them and building friendships
because we think hey you're gonna be here and then leave kind of what's the
point right and so after three years of traveling around to new places all the
time I was definitely feeling a need for some community and consistent
friendships and relationship when I lived back in Vancouver I had some
really good friends both in terms of you know humour having fun together
loyalty morality and also most of them were entrepreneurs as well so we had
similar ambitions and and pass in life in that so that was really cool as well
and that isn't something you're able to make usually when you're traveling
somewhere for a month or two you're not going to find those people just out of
the blue right you usually takes some time to to get to know really good
people and then the other part of settling down and one
thought was I thought about what's really important to me in terms of my
life and what I was looking for and really aside from the relationship side
it's my purpose doing what I'm doing here and it's my business these are
things that are really important to me and yes you can definitely grow a
business while you travel in fact my first year as a digital nomad my revenue
and profit in my business went way up so you can definitely do that but you get
to a certain level we're having some stability having one spot at least for
me was beneficial I do know people who've been permanent nomads and make
but loads of money and and are really well-organized and do that but for me I
thought I would have more focus and be able to accomplish more if I did stick
to one place so those are the core reasons why I quit being a digital nomad
but there was one other and it's something that I'm going to talk about
in another video on my number one travel secret but I discovered that having some
structure can actually give you more freedom now I've talked about this in
other videos in terms of being organized and getting things done and all that but
in this case what I found is whenever I wanted to move places I had two three
suitcases I was traveling with I was not one of those digital nomads who has like
a tiny backpack they live out of it just doesn't work for me I'm sorry and so
moving it created a bunch of hassle like I'd have to find a short-term apartment
to rent some cities at the at that point didn't have Airbnb and even if it they
did it tended to be quite expensive and you really really overpay for a long
term in Airbnb versus you know finding a local to rent from and there's a lot of
hassle like every time I move somewhere it would take a week or two to get
settled and find places and I'd have to pack and unpack and now that I have one
place I actually have a lot more freedom to take quick trips I just can pack like
you know 20 minutes throw what I need in a bag and go and so in many ways I've
had a lot more adventurous trips a lot more vacations and they
like that since settling down in one spot and then having that freedom to go
away for a week or two and actually have a proper vacation where I'm not you know
thinking about work or whatever it is so what does my future look like this is
actually something that I've thought about even before I was doing the
digital Nomad thing and moving around a bunch is what I would really like and
it's something I've been working towards is have like three home bases home base
is the term often people who are a location independent use this maybe we
have a place like my home base is Prague but I still do travel three months of
the year this year I've already been away for three months or so two months
maybe of the last five or six but having multiple home bases is what my end goal
is so I would love to and my plan has always been to have a home base in a
really diverse interesting City that I have a great community it turns out that
is Prague so I see Prague being a home base for me and then I like somewhere in
the winter I've been looking at buying a place like in Barcelona or maybe the
Canary Islands as a winter getaway somewhere I can go for a couple months
every year but by having it be in the same place have the ability to build a
community there and have friendships and things like that so it's not just
showing up as a stranger every time that's the appeal of the same place so
home base in Prague somewhere probably Spain but I'm open to other suggestions
that I could go every year for 2-3 months for this son and then doing a
month or two every year of more like adventure travel where I'm generally not
working maybe I'm filming videos and still doing some coaching but really
minimizing my work and being on a proper adventure or vacation maybe actually not
maybe definitely I also want to spend about a month every year in a really
large let's say ambitious City so places like New York Paris London maybe
somewhere like Sydney Tokyo something like that but I I like to get my ass
kicked a bit and be reminded that I am a small fish and I find when I go to a
city like New York or Paris it really up smile
and just reminds me of like the really big dreamers and that kind of thing and
I don't think I want to spend my whole life in that environment like living in
New York 12 months a year I don't think I could do or would want to do but I do
like going back every year or two and just getting that refresher I don't know
why but for me it's always been important so that's my ultimate plan I
share it with you because personally I've been moving closer and closer to my
ultimate plan but this is what I've been thinking about for like five years and
so I would definitely encourage you as well to think about what your plan is
and don't get you know distracted by the fact that maybe you're far off from it
now maybe you don't even have the freedom to travel for two weeks a year
don't let that stop you from actually coming up with what your your ultimate
plan would be the same way I have my ultimate plan and then gradually you
know taking steps working towards it thank you for watching if you haven't
already subscribed to the channel do subscribe I publish at least one often
more new videos every week and look forward to seeing you in some of the
next ones ciao
you