So we are selling all our stuff and will hit the road... again

Don't know if my Steemit.com nick @the-traveller did it, but we made up our mind!

My wife and I decided to give up our apartment, sell most of our stuff and hit the road for a good long while.
The plan is to explore Western Europe mostly with some side trips to Latin America.

"Why?" you ask?

Short answer : "Because we can!"
and

Long answer:

I already did the same thing myself in 2010.

I was working in Switzerland at the time, had a good job which paid well and a nice apartment at the foot of in the French Jura mountains and I was miserable!

I had my job already 5 years and it was getting boring. Aside from that, some major changes in the company were happening which made me doubt its long term prospects.
(Turned out I was right later. But at the time it seemed lunacy to my colleagues.)

SO I QUIT!

At the same time it felt exhilarating and daunting.
Of course I had to sort out the logistics, how to move my stuff?
Since I was 500 miles from my parents house, it would get expensive.
So I made another drastic decision I sold my all my stuff!
That sounds crazy on the surface but when I looked at it rationally, I would have spent more on the move than all the stuff was actually worth. And then I had to store it somewhere which would have cost more money.

So I gave away a bunch of clothes to charity (Clothes I had since my teens! Why did I bother to move them in the first place??)
My neighbour offered to it all from me in one go, so I piled all my furniture (most of it pretty cheap IKEA type stuff anyway) into a garage box she had. And sold her the lot for about 700 EUR.
Her niece was starting out and could use the stuff. Good for her!

Then I stuffed my car with was left and valuable, drove to my parents' house. Stored the stuff, sold the car, and got on a plane to South America with a 10kg 30 liter backpack proceeding to have the time of my life.

Digital nomadism was starting then and frankly I didn't bother to build an online business then since I lived off my savings. (still kicking myself)
Cost of a whole year (13 months actually) living in South America and not denying myself much: less than 13.000 EUR. Muuuccch less than I would have spent sticking around (my rent alone was 1000 EUR a month then)

But other than that, getting rid of all my stuff was the most liberating I ever did.
You feel so much lighter not having to worry about it!
...having only 10kg in your backpack helps too of course.

7 years later

After getting married and happily living 4 years in Valencia, my wife and I currently are again in a situation of asking the question:
"Why?" and the answer is the same "Because we can!"

She is finishing up a PhD which is dragging on due to administrative issues, but her part is done so she doesn't have to be here physically anymore.
I can work from anywhere or have to travel anyway to where my clients are. (lately Brazil, Vietnam, Greenland and Cambodia, ...)

We live in a furnished apartment, which is very nice but getting pricey over time.
With the money we spend currently on rent and utilities we can go to very nice places and rent very cool Airbnb's!
Of course we are not always going to rent places, having flexibility means we can control our costs as well!
We are interested to in doing a bit of WOOFING and housesitting...

FREEDOM MEANS HAVING OPTIONS!

You will find in your life you have rare moments where you have time and money together.
In fact unless you wait until you retire (which might be NEVER) you will rarely have these two together.
You have to design your life consciously to get to such a situation.

If you are a student you have lots of time, but no money.
Later you get a job, getting you money but usually robbing you of your time in exchange.
Once you retire (if you planned ahead) you might have time and money but not enjoy a good health anymore.
Because you neglected it while getting the money probably...

To get money most people have to submit to certain responsibilities
which limit their options in life to 2 weeks of holidays.

Since 2010 I have been very much aware I wanted to be location independent.
Meaning I separated the location where I work, and earn income, from the one I live, and spend money on cheaper stuff .

This is a great multiplier in life.

It's not about how much you make, it is about how much you have to SPEND to have a decent quality of life!

Since 2013 I have realised that dream and I have been living in Spain, working in the UK and globally as a freelancer .
This also allowed me to do some limited geoarbitrage in the sense that my cost of living is much less than my earning.

So why leave Valencia if it is so great?

Spain is getting hotter every year it seems, that's nice for a holiday but spending the summer here for us is an energy drain. Regardless of having an apartment we'd be away anyway for the hottest months.
We still very much appreciate Valencia as a base but want to see what it is like to live in other areas of Spain.
Now having the luxury of both of us without location dependent responsibilities (no mortgage, no kids, no pets,...) we want to take advantage!

The plan

Step 1: Sell all our stuff

( just figured out IKEA gives you a YEAR to return your furniture and get a voucher for it! Better than storage!!! Liquidate the furniture and then come back and buy new stuff all over again!)
This time I am going to sell all the gadgets too. Electronics depreciation is awful, so everything not essential is going on Ebay.
(If you have cameras tablets you don't use that often etc. try liquidating them, their value plummets over time!
Even better, rent them out! There is an awesome site here in Spain called Relendo.com, I have used it to rent out camera lenses. A 400 EUR lens earned me 40 EUR for a week rental. Instead of sitting around collecting dust)

Step 2. Buy a cheap second hand car

Ok ok, that's not exactly ultralight backpacking anymore... I know.
I aiming for an old cruiser-type saloon that is dirt cheap and will be fun to drive on long roadtrips.
Why an old car? Aside from not costing too much money (all though repair bills might come up I am ok with that) IDON't WANT TO CARE about it. If I have to leave it somewhere a few months, leave it in the street all the time, get's damaged, that's all fine.
My criteria are, cheap, reliable enough for some long trips, and comfortable. (suggestions? Looking at old Citroen C5's currently)

If you are planning to travel around Europe, you don't have to have a car, public transport and flights are excellent and cheap.
For us and the geography of this trip, a car makes more sense because it will allow us more flexibility to go to out of the way places you can't get to otherwise.
Pro tip! You can really suppress costs this way if you need to, by using e.g. Blablacar.com a popular ride sharing app here.
It works well to split expenses on long trips.

Step 3 Go north

In summer we really appreciate some cooler air and some rain. This summer is going to be a scorcher! Spend some time in Belgium with family, enjoy the rain (summer in Belgium never disappoints, there is always rain!)

While we are at it, stuff the car with the stuff we want to hang on to and store that either at friends places here in Valencia and take the rest to Belgium to store at my parents place.

Step 4 Have a serious whack at this Digital Nomad thing

Despite reading Tim Ferriss's 4 hour work week I never really applied the principles to start a location independent passive lifestyle business.
I make my money currently from international consulting which is fun, but still mostly trading my time for money, although more lucratively.
Looking back, the 4HWW concept,s were really influential in my life, but I am still kicking myself not having started a proper business in 2010.
I have met MANY 4 hour workweek style entrepreneurs who are living that book. It is not hype.
You have to make some tough decisions in your life and, like any business, invest the necessary time money and effort to get it working.
But compared to 10 years ago there are literally thousands more possibilities to achieve location independence with a super low threshold to start them up.
Steemit.com is just one example of what is coming.

That will mean competition is also going to increase and the runaway success is less likely maybe but I am convinced it is totally doable to achieve a liveable income without a traditional location dependent job.
What is does require is focus, commitment and experimentation. As I [explained in this post]((https://steemit.com/introduceyourself/@the-traveller/the-reason-why-i-want-to-build-a-platform-on-steemit-and-why-you-should-too-the-idea-economy), we are all going to have to learn to compete in the idea economy.
I aim this year to make that happen and document the journey on Steemit.com.

Step 5 come back south with the birds

So after some travelling in summer in cooler climates we will come back here to explore Galicia, Asturias and Andalucia as well as Portugal.
They are awesome regions in Spain and very very cheap. The plan is to find cheap places to rent a month at a time.
You get pretty good value for money outside of the tourist season!

Step 6 Steemfest

https://steemfest.com/

And guess what? We'll be close to Lisbon so might swing by Steemfest too!!! I'd really like to see what that is like!

Step 7 Spend some time in Brazil + Columbia

We want to visit my wife's family and again this will be a month or two away.
Not having an apartment during that time will pay for the tickets and pretty much most of the cost of life!

Step 8 Dunno!!! Skiing?

One ambition I have since living in Switzerland is to live in a mountain village during ski season.
Buy a season pass and go skiing every day. Maybe we can make that happen this year !