The last couple of years I have been running everything from the internet and all communication with the companies and people I was dealing with was by email.  Recently, I have had some meetings where I had to actually travel and meet the person who wanted to work together.

The advantage is that you can create a real working relationship with the person and the companies involved.  The problem is that unless you take minutes of what everything was said in the meeting, people’s memories of what was said in the meeting sometimes changes over time and in my recent experience, for the worse.

It’s frustrating to say the least.  You also have to deal with people who have no knowledge of the internet, especially from a marketing perspective.  Many people will happily pay a large amount of money for advertisements in printed magazines, but don’t value things like getting good rankings in Google for keywords, or placing targeted ads on websites.

I have been having fun though trying to use Web 2.0 properties like YouTube and Facebook to promote the business.  I think having even the most basic knowledge of these sites, puts you in powerful position, especially when the competition has no knowledge about these sites, or how they can be used from a business perspective.

You can read more about my adventures on my Bali Blog.

Working this way has given me a real boost and I feel much more motivated to make this work than when I just create stuff on my own. The overspill is that I am motivated to get other sites updated too!

So this is an open invitation to anyone with any ideas for websites or making money online. The Internet is still new and there are lots of areas to exploit. It is a bit like digging for gold but if you find a nugget then it can turn out to be a very nice passive income.

You can contact me via this site, twitter, facebook or whatever. I am always willing to hear out ideas and work on them and I can bring a lot to the table.

You do not have to be someone I know or that lives nearby. I am willing to work with anyone anywhere providing they can demonstrate commitment to the idea.

I am always interested in buying domain names too so if anyone fancies investing with me in the new hot real estate of domain names then let me know!

Both methods can work, and one way is not necessarily better than the other. The two methods do not necessarily have to be mutually exclusive. Say for example you are interesting in making a site about “surfing in bali”. Your keyword research shows lots of people interested in this topic and you find the niche has lots of competition. You go through the long tail search phrases and you find “bali surfing tours” has a significant number of searches, but has very few websites that compete for this phrase.

If you can find a suitable affiliate program that sells surfing tours in Bali, you could have found a great niche to make a website on. Of course there are other ways you could monetize your site.

My point is, just because you are making a site about something you interested in, it doesn’t mean you should ignore doing keyword research.

You can read more about my adventures in Bali on my Bali expat blog.

There are many ways of spending your mini-retirement, some of which may even uncover an economic alternative to returning to life as a stressed out rodent.

Mini-retirements may only last a few months but are more likely to span a couple of years. Shorter periods tend to be career breaks.

So how do you fill in your days when you are retired?

One area is to learn new skills. in fact thats pretty much what I did back in 2005. My online marketing skills were pretty raw back in the day but by embarking on a mini retirement meant that I could teach myself the skills to ensure I would not have to go back to working for other people.

A classic is to learn a language. Why not take off to a French speaking part of Africa or Latin America and live like a local and end up talking like a local. Having a second language is huge asset in this globalised world now.

Language learning can be combined with teaching English which again can equip you with new skills that will be useful back home.

Mini retirements can also be cheap. You don’t have to live in a hotel if you plan on spending three months in Buenos Airies learning Spanish. There are plenty of apartments which can be very affordable in cheaper countries and it’s even possible to have a more expensive lifestyle than you would expect at home.

Volunteering is another way to take a mini retirement providing you avoid the many companies offering short term volunteering holidays. Some volunteer posts will even pay for your food and lodging too. A good place to look at volunteering is idealist.

Finance is obviously an issue and mini retirements do need to be financed. I financed mine by working online in affiliate marketing making a modest amount and choosing to live in places with low cost of living.

Mini retirements do not need to eat too much into your savings though. Consider the money you would save by temporarily cutting your ties with your home country. No rent to pay, no council taxes, no car to run…If you own a house then why not rent it out for one year?

Doesn’t it make more sense to enjoy some of your retirement time when you are young and healthy?

The concept of the mini retirement might be new now but I predict the next generation will be taking them regularly.

Check out the book below for more on mini-retirements…

If you are interested then check out San Jose Costa Rica Hotels website.

1. Freedom, or loss of it

The office of the 21st century is no different to the factories of the 19th century. We are beckoned in with promises and are then systematically broken by the organisation by a number of methods including dress codes, behaviour training and the dreaded company manual full of ridiculous rules and regulations.

The employee is further stripped of their freedom by being told where to be and when, what to say and when and what to do and when.

After the individual’s spirit has been totally crushed the company can then rule by fear which keeps the workers in line and allows for unfair expectations such as working long hours unpaid, taking on other people’s workloads when downsizing departments and having salaries frozen because the business only made £400 million that year.

2. A social life that’s inbred at best

It would be unfair of me to say that I have not made good friends from work colleagues, but when I line up everyone that I ever worked with and then pick out the ones that were good friend, I am basically looking at a handful. Is that because of me or the places I worked at?

The problem with this is that many peoples’s social life revolves around their work mates and this seemed particularly the case when I worked in London. Would I really choose to spend an evening in the pub with a moron who’s weekend involved building network servers at home (that was our day job!) and who kicked his girlfriend out only so he could spend more time fiddling with his computers!

No I wouldn’t!

Have a got a better social life than the average person who works in an office?

Perhaps because working on your own forces you out there.

3. Commuting

I think it is no conicidence that I rarely suffer from colds these days compared to when I use to be crammed into the creaking public transport of London.

The aroma of some sweaty stressed out executive next to me smelling of stale beer, curry and berrocca is something I do not miss. Neither the lack of seating, personal space or being held hostage by striking tube drivers or above inflation fare rises.

4. Working for someone else is way too risky

So you are working for one company like many people do. That equates to one income stream that you are wholly dependent on. That income stream can be turned off in the time it takes your HR dept to say, ‘you’re sacked’.

By working for yourself you have far more ways of diversifying your income streams which will offer you more security than a regular job.

Committing yourself to one income stream is a taking huge risk, however good you are at your job or however healthy your company is.

5. Time

Your time is the most precious thing on this planet. You might not realise that when you are starting out as a fresh faced graduate on a corporate career path but as you become older and wiser you learn to put a greater value on time.

It has been said that working for someone else in a regular job is pretty dumb as you only get paid for the time you work, worse still, sometimes you don’t get paid for your time! Why do you think so many successful people work few hours and get paid more?

Its because they put systems in place to ensure they receive income when they are not actually working. Running websites, investing, property management, there are lots of ways to move to a more passive income.

So as long as your system continues delivering value to others, you will still be paid whether you’re working or not.

I will blog more about these systems soon.

So there we have it, five reasons to quit your job. I can already hear people saying thats easy for you to say, you don’t have a mortgage, family to support etc etc excuses etc more excuses etc.

Well that might be true but I decided to take that first step away from what society expects and I believe many people could do the same if they really wanted to. I still have bills and taxes to pay, car to run, pension to save for, food to put on the table like everyone else so I am no different.

If I have inspired just one person that there is another way then the time writing this will be time well spent.

A web based business is typically less risky than an offline business, but there are still some real risks, which could potentially dry up your income overnight - Google could stop sending you traffic, your Adsense account could be banned or your best earning affiliate could close its doors to affiliate sales.

It is these reasons that I have always wanted to have some kind of non-internet related business that could help support my income. After I moved to Bali, I started thinking about buying a hotel or restaurant. I looked at a number of places, but it seemed like such a huge expense for not a lot of return and then you have the problems of dealing with staff and customers.

While looking for potential hotels or restaurants, I kept meeting more people who had properties they wanted to sell. I saw an opening for a potential business to sell property, so I registered a domain and installed the open source property software, Open Realty. My girlfriend has been taking the pictures and uploading the properties for sale.

Last week we got a customer who was interested in buying one of our properties and this weekend they put a deposit on a place. It’s pretty amazing because I had hardly started promoting our website - Lovina Property.

We worked with an existing agent and split the commission on the sale. We are now thinking it will be worth it to form a company and even rent an office.

The last couple of years I have only been concentrating on making money from Adsense and affiliate programs. I am just starting to see the huge potential if you can combine your SEO and internet marketing skills with a regular business.

I think I first came across the Working Nomad website from the Lonely Planet travel forum and I joined on the 19th of April, 2006.  I only know this because it is listed in your profile on the forum.  It is amazing how time flies!  At the time I was working in a regular IT job in Japan.  I had already started blogging and building my own websites around 2005.

I was getting stressed from my job and I hated having to show up to work every day.  Seeing Webby’s blog gave me inspiration to pack it all in and quit my job and travel full-time.  I had always had dreams of making a big overland trip through Asia, where I would travel everywhere by buses and boats without catching any planes.  After checking the blog and forum daily from my job, I quit my job in December 2006.

I think my family didn’t realize I would be away traveling for so long.  They still don’t really get how I can make money online, even after many explanations!

I spent about six months in Beijing last year for the Olympics and this year I have lived mostly in Indonesia.  I am now living in Bali where I am working on a website for Bali expats.

Well I think I should say thank you to Webby for starting this website.  I like the great community in the forum and the mix of travel and making money online information.

Tulum Ruins, Mexico

Well it’s now been four long years to the week since I last worked in a proper office, surrounded by proper people and doing proper work. Well that’s not entirely fair, I do work with people these days and I do consider my work to be kind of proper. What has changed is the way I look at weekends.

I can remember the time when Monday morning was something that filled me with dread, along with the thought that I still had five more days before the weekend. The one job I did when I occasionally had to work weekends is something I now consider as equally bad as having worked in Victorian Mills during the 19th century.

I have to admit that I valued my weekends a little more than I do now and as a result I don’t think I always make the most of my Saturday and Sunday. In fact it’s not uncommon for me to end up with a weekend where work and play just seems to merge into one. That could also be true of the weekdays themselves!

So what I am trying to do now is recapture my weekends and make them special again, and that means avoiding keyboards and world wide webs. This way I can focus more during the week on work.

I recently had a short trip to Mexico which was very enjoyable despite the fact my Spanish, or lack of it, made it a little frustrating at times, however it has made me further determined to learn more Spanish and a winter break destination will most likely be to a Spanish speaking region.

I have invited people from the forum to write blog so you may see unfamiliar posts now and again but they should help revitalize the site and I thank the new contributors.

For all those setting out on their first nomadic venture with the tight budget that normally accompanies one’s first attempt at making a living from the web whilst traveling, South Florida may not be the best of choices, on the other hand if you’re a seasoned nomad. And you have a better sense of your likely monthly earnings staying consistent and been more than just enough to just scrape by, Florida has a lot to offer to the working nomad.

Contrary to your first probable reaction the United States is not an expensive destination add to that you could throw in Safe, Cheap Flights, Fast Internet, Easy to find accommodation, I nearly forgot the electric hardly ever goes down and we have a wonderful climate year-round.

I was first introduced to this website back in 2006. I had already made a start and had a small website that was just sitting there and doing nothing I had all the ideas but was doing nothing with them, traveling has always been something high on my list and the idea that I could travel and support myself from the web was already on my mind. Not knowing where to start I did the next best thing and typed something like “travel and work” in to Google and found this website intrigued, I dug a little deeper. Here was a guy doing exactly what I had been thinking about. I quickly found his first post and started to read, a few hours later I was up to date with all the old posts. I was hooked instantly.

I need to say here and now webby.  Thank you!

Three years on, I’m still stuck in Florida, but have a decent residual income each month from the web. I could also say stuck in Florida by choice, I could leave tomorrow and hop on over to Asia or any other Country I choose. At present though I have a multitude of reasons to stay here, the most important is that after careful consideration, I realized South Florida is an excellent destination / home base for a working nomad.

This is my first post on here, and as you can see I will be focusing on why you may want to consider South Florida as a destination where you can hunker down for a few months and do some serious work on your websites. I will cover topics like Visa’s, Accommodation and the different local areas and what they have to offer. I will also touch on some of my own experiences as they relate to building a truly residual income from the web.

Apart from a stint in Auckland this is the longest I have stayed anywhere for a few years and I’d be a liar if I said I wasn’t happy being where I am. I have forged some great friendships in a relatively short space of time and this alone makes the thought of leaving difficult.

Having said all that I do believe I will always have itchy feet and I am still fascinated by people that travel for long periods or live nomadic lives. It must be in my blood.

It was only driving home from the Gower on Sunday that I heard about cheap flights from my local airport to Cancun, Mexico and I pretty much decided to book there and then. I am avoiding Cancun itself and will be moving around the Yucatan and maybe Belize for just two weeks before heading home. It will only be a short trip but it should quench my desire to roam.

I am not great at making long term plans, preferring to do things on impulse, so it is impossible to say where I will be next year. I am already planning on being away for some of the UK winter but it will be in shorter bursts as I want to keep my flat on in Bristol. I hope to visit Bali and also looking at Latin America where I hope to develop my Spanish.

Work is still ticking along and I have a couple of people who work for me now on a casual basis. I will continue to be involved in websites while it provides me with an income.

I am slowly learning that living in the moment is the way forward.