Each week we will be featuring an interview with a member of the Superstar Blogging community. These interviews will highlight the ups and downs faced on the road to success, illuminating helpful tips and tricks along the way. If you want to get inspired and succeed in the world of travel blogging, video, writing, or photography then consider these interviews must-read material! This week we are interviewing Nora, a member of the Business of Blogging course.
Tell us about yourself!
Hi, I’m Nora! In 2006, I sold everything I owned in Canada (including a busy financial planning practice) to embrace my dreams of long-term/full-time travel. I’ve been on the road ever since, traveling through and living in over 50 countries.
How did you get started traveling? What inspired your wanderlust?
The most significant inspiration for my wanderlust happened was when I was just 9 years old; in school they showed us a documentary about Europe. I was fascinated by this place with different architecture, fashion, languages, food – nothing was recognizable to me. All I wanted to know in that moment (and for years to come) was how the children played, and what people talked about around dinner tables. As I grew up that curiosity remained; I wanted to understand what it was like to live in different places around the world, what was important to people, how they approached their lives and work, what they cooked and ate, and of course, how the children played. Taking traditional 1-2 week vacations never satisfied that curiosity of mine; my last traditional vacation was a month in South Africa, which I figured was surely long enough to “crack the code” of the country. Instead, I left with more questions than answers. That was when I realized that if I wanted to experience the world from the inside out, I needed to make travel a lifestyle, not just a vacation.
For more about how I made the leap into full-time travel, check out How I Became The Professional Hobo.
What are some of your favourite places you’ve been to? Any particularly memorable experiences or highlights?
I’ve been traveling full-time for 10 years. Asking me for my favourite place is like asking me to choose among my children! For me, travel is very contextual; in my opinion, our favourite places have more to do with what we’re doing, who we’re with, and how we’re feeling that it has to do with the actual place itself. But, if I must pick a top three, I would say I’ve had some amazing experiences in New Zealand, Switzerland, and Peru.
Highlights (again! Like choosing among my children!) include filming two tv shows in three countries (New Zealand, France, Nepal), spending three months on boats in the Caribbean (five boats spanning three countries) with not a night on land, and apprenticing with a shaman in Peru for almost two years. For a condensed “highlight reel”, check out my Introductory Video on YouTube.
Tell us about your blog!
When I started traveling full-time, I had no idea how I’d make ends meet, where I’d go, what I’d do, or even how long I’d last on the road. I started a travel blog (before I could even properly define what a blog was!) as a glorified online journal.
Shortly after I hit the road, it dawned on me that with my lifelong penchant for the written word I could earn a living as a writer with little more than an internet connection and my laptop. At the time, monetizing blogs wasn’t really “a thing” so I built a portfolio as a freelance writer. I parlayed my former expertise as a financial planner into writing for travel publications about finance, and I wrote for finance publications about travel.
As the years went by and I carved out my own travel style (and my own website started getting more attention), I married the two modalities (finance and travel) on my website to teach people how to travel full-time in a financially sustainable way.
What struggles have you had during your blogging career? How have you overcome them?
My biggest struggle has been one of work-life balance. Travel in and of itself takes a lot of time and energy; add in the requirement to work on my computer, and I’ve often wrestled with guilt – either for not spending enough time discovering my destination, or for not getting enough work done.
Whenever I’ve had a partner or travel companion (or even visited people) who don’t have location independent careers it has been exponentially more challenging, since other people don’t seem to understand that when I’m sitting at my computer I’m not “playing”, and interruptions are the antichrist of creative flow.
I overcome these challenges in a few ways: firstly, I travel slowly. This gives me ample time to work as well as explore my destination at hand in a relaxed fashion. And if I’m staying with somebody or traveling with a companion or partner, I ensure they know I need time to work, and I find a quiet private space where I won’t be interrupted.
It’s a work in progress; a few years ago I wrote some slightly tongue-in-cheek articles about 17 Reasons NOT to Blog About Your Trip, and how Solo Travelers Make Better Bloggers in a particular period of frustration with my lack of work-life balance!
What do you enjoy the most about blogging?
As a location independent career, blogging is amazingly freeing. I can work when and where and how much I want. I also enjoy the creative freedom of running my own blog, since I can write what I want (within reason), and shape the direction of my website and writing as I choose.
In addition to this course, what other resources do you rely on for help/information?
I’m working on the outline for my next book, which will be a travel memoir. I’m currently debating whether to go the traditional publishing route or to self-publish. I’ve found The Creative Penn to be a wealth of resources and information to help me in this journey!
What camera gear do you travel with?
A few years ago I got tired of lugging around my professional camera, realizing that the best “kodak” moments usually happened when I only had my smartphone. At the time I had an iPhone 4s, which didn’t have a stellar camera. After some research, I got the Nokia Lumia 1020 which had an excellent onboard camera. But being a Windows phone it doesn’t do much else for me, so I’m about to go back to the iPhone (6s) now that their camera is much better.
I’ve recently started a vlog, which I also shoot with just my smartphone, although I’m about to get an external microphone to improve the sound quality of my videos.
What are some of your favourite blogs to read? (both travel and non-travel)
To be perfectly honest, I don’t follow any specific blogs religiously. However, I belong to various groups that give me a “feed” of blogs and posts from dozens of other bloggers, and whenever a headline catches my eye, I click on it.
Why do you keep blogging?
Woah. That’s a really good (and timely) question. A few years ago (around 2014), I’d lost some of my inspiration to keep on blogging. There’s a lot more to blogging than just writing, and I felt like I was dancing to stay atop a snowball I wasn’t particularly interested in any more. But….The Professional Hobo is also my baby, and I couldn’t just let it go.
Around that time, I started apprenticing with a shaman in Peru working with plant medicines, and my work assisting him gave me a different direction that I was really excited about. I scaled back my online operations to only what I had to do to keep the site (and whatever forms of income I had coming in) alive. Although it was a bit of a balancing act between my online work and my work with the shaman, it was totally manageable and I thought I’d found my new lot in life; in fact, I had declared Peru as “home” and was getting my residency and had made a long-term commitment to the shaman I was working with, with no end in sight.
Unfortunately my arrangement in Peru came to a sudden and heartbreaking end, and I was once again on the road. Boy, am I ever glad I didn’t get rid of my blog!
But it still took many months of introspection to rediscover my spark of inspiration to keep blogging. Although I’ve made a few adjustments to what I’m doing (such as starting a vlog), much of the shift is an internal one as I’ve been in the process of reframing my lifestyle.
What is one thing you can’t travel without?
Okay the easy answer here is my laptop – I use it not only for work, but also for keeping in touch with family and friends, doing travel research and making travel reservations, etc.
And truly – other than my laptop (and smartphone – which I use but not obsessively), everything else is just “stuff”. I have certain things I love to have with me (eg: my headlamp, crystals, collapsible water bottle, etc), but I would of course survive if I didn’t have these things.
Do you have any blogging regrets?
When I started blogging in 2006, there weren’t courses like Matt’s on how to do it. We were all figuring things out the hard way, hitting every bump along the learning curve! So I made my share of mistakes, for sure. In fact, if I were starting a travel blog today, I would have to take a much more scientific approach than what I have done (and honestly, continue to do).
What one piece of advice you’d give to a fellow blogger?
I wouldn’t try to get my blog up and going concurrent to traveling the world; it’s overwhelming to learn the ropes of travel and carve out your own style as well as to start a blog. I always advise aspiring location independent travelers to get the foundations of their business/career in place before taking off to travel. (I didn’t do this, so just trust me)!
Tell us about your blog and where we can find you on social media.
The Professional Hobo teaches people how to travel full-time in a financially sustainable way, as well as profiles the adventures I’ve had in my last 10 years of traveling and living around the world! You can find me on Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube. You can also check out my Dear Nora column on Credit Walk and my monthly column at Ingle.