Writer Jenn Miller and family hang out with some camels

I first met fellow writer and travel aficionado Jenn Miller when we worked together at the Location Independent group of sites. Now, she’s written a book (with co-author Keri Wellman) about traveling with kids, titled Bottles to Backpacks:  The Gypsy Mama’s Guide to Real Travel with Kids. I asked Jenn about the book and her writing.

Jenn, tell us a bit about yourself.

I was born into a nomadic family and have been traveling my whole life, but it wasn’t until four years ago that we sold our house and most of our stuff and hit the road full time. We’re on an open ended world tour with our kids for the purpose of combining education and adventure. I’m a freelance writer for the homeschool and travel markets and I enjoy inspiring and equipping others to live their dreams, with their kids.

What’s the book all about and why did you write it?

Bottles to Backpacks: The Gypsy Mama’s Guide to REAL Travel With Kids is a collaborative project with my friend, Keri Wellman. We’ve attempted to go beyond the usual “travel with kids” books that assume a short vacation, to a certain type of place, with a certain age group and answer the many “how” related questions about long term travel with kids. There’s a big difference between taking a two week resort vacation over spring break with two kids and setting off for a three month summer break adventure riding chicken buses in Central America, or seeing the great museums of Europe. Our book certainly applies to the first, but what we really aim to do is equip the families who dream of something bigger with their kids.

Whether you’re setting out with your first newborn on a two week trip to Grandma’s, or planning to take a year off to backpack with your school aged kids, or are preparing your teen for her first solo trip, this book will give you the “boots-on-the-ground” information you need to make that dream a reality.

Did you have any challenges when researching and writing this book? How did you overcome them?

There are always challenges with any collaborative project. Working between two continents across three time zones wasn’t always easy! Keri and I have the great benefit of having four children each as our “guinea pigs” and we’ve both traveled for a living for quite some time now. At the end of our book we’ve got a section in which lots of different parents weigh in on their travel secrets and experiences with their kids. One of the challenges was finding a diverse group of families and compiling their experiences in a way that we hope will be encouraging and helpful to other families of various sizes and travel backgrounds. The only real secret to overcoming the difficulties we encountered was taking our time. This book has been almost a year in the making. It was not a rush job. We didn’t want to just “get it out the door” to have done it. We have really worked at getting it right, making it thorough and providing the depth that is missing in so many of the travel guides on the market for families.

What’s your writing process?

That depends a lot on what I’m writing. In this case, we spent several months mapping the project and carefully working and reworking the contents of the book and the direction we wanted to take it. Keri and I write well together, so that part of the project was a lot of fun. We enjoyed waking up in the morning and seeing what the other person had uploaded during the night, since we were working on different continents! The editing, as always, was the hard part. We went through a very long editing process at the end, about three months worth, with several families acting as “the review board” for various drafts. The result is a very polished, thorough, easy to access compendium of information on all aspects of travel with babies through teenagers.

Who or what is your best source of inspiration or advice when writing?

There’s no one answer to that. I read widely and am continually studying the style and mechanics of the authors I admire (or those I don’t, particularly) to improve my own work. Most of the inspiration I find is in the world around me. I’m dedicated to living in each moment and absorbing the sensory experience of living, which I then attempt to translate into words. When I get stuck, I have several “editors” who will move me forward. They aren’t famous writers, they’re just folks who know me and who aren’t afraid to tell me the truth and get out the red pen when necessary. At least half of what I write is for no one but me. Writing is my therapy and a barometer of my mental health. When it ceases to be that, when I’m pushing to “produce” for someone or something else it ceases to be a living thing. The best advice I’ve been given about my writing is simply to keep writing. Sometimes pages and pages of “junk” has to be gotten through before the good stuff emerges.

Tell us one thing about yourself that you haven’t yet revealed in an interview.

Ha! Okay: I once jumped out of a cake at a bachelor party! It was a joke and our poor friend nearly died of relief when it was “just me”. That’s not something I’ve written about or something that has come up in an interview yet! I don’t know any other home schooling mothers of four who’ve done that. One of the things I like best about myself is that I’m often not what people expect I will be.

Have you started another book?

Not yet. I’ve got several ideas up my sleeve. We’d like to continue the Gypsy Mama concept and create a series of resources for families who want to travel together. I’ve got another idea that is completely outside the family and travel realms that is about how life is never what you expect and coming to grips with the reality that the fairytale doesn’t exist. I don’t know if I have the courage to write that one just yet. In the meantime, I’m writing for the blogs and magazines that I contribute to and working to balance the screen time which that requires with plenty of time in the real world with my four kids as we head to Asia this spring.

Anything to add?

Thanks so much for the opportunity to talk about my writing and the new book! I really appreciate you contributing to the compendium of travel advice from “real travelers” at the end of our book and sharing it with your readers.

To find out more about Bottles to Backpacks:  The Gypsy Mama’s Guide to Real Travel with Kids, check out these product information pages.

Do you want to have a location independent business, but have no idea where to start? Would you like a sustainable business that lets you help others and see the world too? If you’ve been waiting for something to help you make the leap, then you’re in luck. Brooke Ferguson of Business Backpacker has launched the Business Backpacker Video Course  to help you do just that. Here’s what Brooke has to say about the course:

This program is different than anything you’ve ever seen.  The program you’ll learn here is 100% Sustainable, Repeatable, and continually builds upon itself.  The knowledge you will gain in this program will help you attain everything you want right now, and show you how to continually redesign your life to get better and better results.

Sounds exciting, doesn’t it?  But it gets better! One lucky reader can win the whole course for FREE! (Thanks, Brooke.)

Since I like to keep things simple, all you have to do to enter is leave a comment below saying why you’d like to win the course and how you think it can help you to achieve your lifestyle and business goals.

In seven days’ time – on October 8 – I’ll randomly pick one person to get the course. So don’t wait. Check out the Business Backpacker Video Course and leave your comment below to win!

Update:  We have a winner – Allena Tapia – congrats!

As much as I wish this guy was me, it unfortunately isn't. This epitomises location independent writing though!

Last week, Claire van den Heever guest posted here on Get Paid To Write Online about being a location independent writer (if you haven’t checked this post out yet, I strongly recommend that you do – it’s a great read).

Up until reading Claire’s post, I didn’t really consider myself a location independent writer.  However, I hadn’t really spent much time looking at what people would consider to be a location independent lifestyle, so I was basing my views on what little knowledge I had.

Going on the understanding I had – which was working from the middle of a field if I wanted to – I did want to be location independent and write from, for instance, any hotel room any where in the world.

Reading Claire’s post made me think a little about the whole subject and after a little further reading, I realised that I was – in one sense at least – a location independent writer.

And the thing is, I believe most freelance writers are, too.

The problem is, I don’t think the majority of writers take advantage of it.

Over the past few months, I’ve been spending a lot of time working between home and in and around London, which is about 250 miles away.  I generally carry out the same work I do in London, at home, except the difference being rather sitting at my dining room table (since our spare bedroom officially became a bedroom, I effectively hot desk it around the house now whenever I’m working), I’m sat in an office of some type, in a hotel bar or in a family’s house working.

I also end up doing work while I’m on the road if I’m driving, checking and responding to e-mails when I stop at services or work as normal on my laptop if I’m on the train.

In fact, the one place I don’t work – and I’ve only just realised this this morning – is when I’m in the bathroom, specifically the shower (I admitted to friends and colleagues a while ago that I occasionally check my e-mails if I’m using the bathroom for, well, something other than a shower and I expected to receive a mixture of laughs and strange looks in return – the truth is most people were in agreement!).

It doesn’t matter where I am, as as long as I’ve got my mobile phone with me and / or my laptop, I’ll generally be working – or have been working – at some point throughout the day.

The more I think about it, the more location independent I am – and the more I love the fact I can work from anywhere.

There’s no doubt that this career can get a little lonely at time – this is something I’ll be talking about in the coming weeks – but for the most part, I absolutely love this way of life.

(as a bit of a side note here, understanding that I am location independent has made me realise that if I’ve just come across this fact, what else have I got to come across?  Just another point to prove that freelance writing is a fantastic, exciting career!)

Image:  Judy70 (Flickr)

How easy is it to be a location independent writer? Not as easy as you might think, as Claire van den Heever discovers.

From the minute I walked through the arrivals hall, I was hit by that hot, tropical smell infused with spices – unique to India. The smoke from joss sticks floating through the air, the frying and boiling of cumin and cardamom: they all made my senses soar. It was India in her full glory and, finally, I was there again. Only, I couldn’t be just yet; my mind had to remain in China for a few weeks longer.

A Writer’s Dilemma

I had, for the first time, undertaken to work as a location independent writer. Arriving in India gave me my first taste of what would become a perpetual dilemma. I had imagined gloating about earning a living against such magnificent backdrops as the Himalayas, or while soaking up the contagious energy of a city like Bangkok. In reality, I was to discover, my writing would rarely benefit from an appreciation of my location. Until my writing projects were focused on the particular place I was in – which would not be the case for several months more – it was far more likely to distract than inspire. While watching the sun rise and set from a series of frighteningly generic coffee shops, I began to resent the work I was doing, blaming it for keeping me away from wherever I’d chosen to go.

I was finishing a book. It was a mammoth project – a commission about Chinese contemporary art – that I’d taken on a year and half earlier while living in Shanghai, but still not succeeded in completing. I had come to India to finish the book. There, I imagined, in the peace and quiet of inspiring surroundings, I’d find the energy. It was my only goal, having left behind the other work I was doing in Shanghai, and I thought that my undivided attention was all it needed.

But all this time India was around me: as a mental construct or, sometimes, as a vibrant place that I was passing through. My body was in India – and my spirit longed to be too – but my mind was forced to stay in China. China, which I had left for a life on the road, was the setting of my book, and the place from which my words and ideas came from. But every day, India appealed to me from behind the glass as I worked, as I tried to shut it out. I came to see the country as little more than a distraction. My focus simply had to be the book – if I was ever going to finish it.

Unfinished Business

After three months, I left India with mixed feelings. I felt a deep sense of regret about neglecting my host country – failing to explore and embrace it as I had done on trips before. I also felt frustration. Surrounded by India, I hadn’t been able to keep my head in China, and still, the book was unfinished.

I flew to Thailand. In Bangkok, cutting myself off from a city that I’d never visited before just did not seem like an option, and a sudden sense of urgency spun me into a writer possessed. If I didn’t get out and explore very soon, I would never forgive myself.

For the next few days, I woke at 5am, making use of the guesthouse’s coffee machine before padding barefoot upstairs to the desk in our room. I wrote feverishly, fuelled by caffeine and my urgent desire to reach the end of a story I’d been writing for 16 months. I traipsed between the desk and the restaurant, where I ate all my meals. In the evenings, once the afternoon’s caffeine had lost effect, I drank beer and wrote in the guesthouse garden.

Location Independent Writing – At Last!

On the fifth day, the first draft was finished. And only now could I experience what is, surely, the most rewarding part of the travelling writer’s existence: closing your laptop to find yourself in one of the most appealing places you could imagine. After a marathon slog, rather than celebrating by heading to the local pub or a party, as you’d do at home, you can instantly be on holiday in your very own choice of quiet Thai island.

For me, my own intense sense of accomplishment came before I made it as far as a Thai island. I was in Bangkok, where the traveller in me was reawakened. There – in, perhaps, the most dynamic city I’ve visited – the sacrifice of occasionally shutting out my surroundings made the joy of embracing others that much more vivid.

Claire is an overland travel addict who is currently on the road between Shanghai – where she lived for three years – and Cape Town, which she last called home eight years ago. She can usually be spotted beside a tall, gangly South African who doesn’t carry her backpack, but is her partner-in-crime in all things – not least, Old World Wandering, their travelogue.

by Andy Hayes

You may have heard all about the latest trend of becoming a Location Independent writer. It seems great – and in fact, it is – being able to work wherever you want. But even if you aren’t cutting ties and taking your writing business on the road, there may be times when you will want to work while on the road. Here are a few tips for ensuring that you can keep enjoying freelancing and keep up your productivity habits while on unfamiliar ground.

Work on your Time Management Process

Do you have a diary where you record all major deadlines? This should be your number one priority while on the road – at the end of the day, if you’ve been delayed in travel or ill or otherwise, drop the marketing and other nice to haves and ensure that your paying clients receive what they asked for. On-time with an apology about further revisions needed is better than late with no follow-up.

Beyond your major deadlines, establish your to-do list. I use a white board at home to keep me right, so when on the road I have a Microsoft Word-based version that does the same thing. For extra security, put everything onto Google Docs, so in the event you have laptop issues and need to access from elsewhere.

Speaking of which…Backup, Backup, Backup

This is a case of do as I say, not as I do. Backup all your stuff. You’ll want to be prepared in the event of disaster: your laptop gets crushed under the wheels of a bus (hey, you never know), it is stolen from your hotel room, or you have an otherwise catastrophic technology failure. Again, Google Docs can help you here as a nice safety blanket.

Test Your Technology before you Go

Make sure that everything works the way you want before you go. Easy way to test? Spend the day in a local cafe. Maybe you’ll be going somewhere without Wifi or easy internet access – so go to a cafe without it. Otherwise, if you’re sure you can get online, then go somewhere with the Wifi and make sure that detached from your home creature comforts.

Take Advantage of Your Surroundings

It’s not just us travel writers that can take advantage of our surroundings. Are you a laser-sharp copywriter? See if a new locale inspires a new way to incorporate the call to action in your client’s copy. Fiction writer? People-watch and see if you can find a new charcter for that hard-to-position antagonist.

Decide Your Work-Enjoy Balance

I’m not a fan of work-life balance because I think you should enjoy what you do. So instead, decide your work-enjoy balance for your trip – in other words, how many hours do you need to work? If you’re location independent or on the road, part of the reason is to enjoy yourself. Don’t forget. If you’re only showing your laptop a new cafe or hotel room, then stay home – what’s the point?

What are your tips for having fun while working on the road?

Photo courtesy of novecentino

Welcome to the second edition of the Location Independent Blog Carnival. Each month the carnival is hosted by a different blog in the location independent community.  The editor reviews the submissions and publishes the best of them in a roundup post. Submit your articles here for a chance to be featured in the next edition. Drumroll, please … here are the best of this month’s entries.

Doing Business Abroad And Online

Nora Dunn shares Live and Work Overseas Freelancing on the Web: Jobs to Finance Your Travels posted at Transitions Abroad, saying: “Find your online freelancing career and take it online and on the road! This article discusses how to make that happen.”

Thursday Bram shares The Lower Eastern Shore of Maryland Hires a Blogger posted at Hyper Modern Writing.

The Smarter Wallet shares Why Work At Home? Top Reasons For Staying Home To Work posted at The Smarter Wallet.

Lifestyle Designing

Liz shares Four Challenges of Extreme Telecommuting posted at Extreme Telecommute.

Cath Duncan shares How to Find & Connect with Your Tribe When You’re Location Independent posted at Mine Your Resources.

Cherie Ve Ard shares It’s Not an Extended Vacation posted at Tales from Technomadia, saying: “Defining how full time nomadic travel and work are not exactly the same as being on vacation all the time.”

Thursday Bram shares  Won’t Somebody Please Think of The Children? posted at Working Your Way Around The World.

Cody McKibben shares What is this Location Independence Stuff? posted at Viralogy Experts, saying: “Location independence is a form of lifestyle design, consciously building a business that one can operate from anywhere in the world to support you in your ideal lifestyle—whatever that means for you. Here’s a video about my personal experience living nomadically for the last 8 months in Thailand.”

Vagabonding/Travel Stories

Katie Sorene shares 12 Secrets of a Modern Day Nomad posted at Travel Blog – Tripbase, saying: “Interview with Gary Arndt from Everything Everywhere travel blog – eternal traveler and modern day nomad!”

Andy Hayes shares Travelling a Little Adrift with Shannon posted at Sharing Experiences, saying: “In this interview, I talk with Shannon with the blog A Little Adrift, where she gives us some insights on her “quarter life crisis” and her several month trip. It shows the pitfalls of roaming the world – she’s now planning a semi-LIP career once she gets back home so that she can head back out on the road! ”

Baker shares Backpacking With A Baby: Couchsurfing Townsville posted at Man Vs. Debt.

Henry shares Road Trip South of Playa Samara – Saturday 4-11-2009 posted at Finding Freedom, saying: “This is a posting from my five week trip to Costa Rica. While abroad, I met many wonderful people with whom I connected more deeply in days than folks I have known for years at home. This article covers a day long road trip I took down the Nicoya Penninsula of Costa Rica with a few new friends.”

LIP Destinations

Andy Hayes shares Location Independent in Phuket posted at Sharing Experiences.

Technology And Gadgets For Digital Nomads

Lea Woodward shares Google Gears: And How It Can Help The Location Independent Professional posted at Location Independent Blog.

Sue Jeffels shares Location Independent Writing and Research posted at writing and research.

Anil shares An Amateur’s Guide to Location Independence [Part 1 of 3] posted at foXnoMad.

Tips For Location Independent Living

Jeanne Dee shares How To Do Extended Travel & Mini-retirements posted at soultravelers3, saying: “This is a classic piece filled with lots of great advice for doing extended travel and tons of helpful links. It is particularly helpful for families and those that do not realize that one can live large on little in Europe. We have traveled as a family & lived as digital nomads since 2006, been to 4 continents, 29 countries, over 87,000 miles & over 3 million views of our soultravelers3 youtube videos so far!”

Silicon Valley Blogger shares Your Home Office: Ideas To Set Up Your Place of Work posted at The Digerati Life.

The results of the survey on lifestyle design by Free Pursuits and Location Independent are in – and I’ve found them fascinating. Here are ten reasons that writers and others were inspired to make the move.

1. Spending time with family and travelling

2. Boredom and the need for diversity

3. Unhappinhess with employment

4. Reading about someone who live the lifestyle

5. Annoyance with commuting

6. Dissatisfaction with the lifestyle in their home country

7. A desire to live like a movie star

8. The Location Independent blog

9. Lack of vacation time

10. A desire to be free

If you’re thinking about cutting those ties, or if you’ve already done it, what’s your motivation?

Get Paid To Write Online will be hosting the next Location Independent blog carnival in July. See the first one here.

Location Independent and Free Pursuits are trying to find out more about the growing community of digital nomads and location independent professionals. As Corbett Barr says:

Our community is full of people who ask “why wait until you’re rich or retired to live the life you really want to live?”

To do this they are doing a survey hosted on the Free Pursuits blog. I don’t know about you, but I’m curious about the rest of the community, so I’ll be taking part in the survey and waiting with interest to see the results. You can participate here.

The Location Independent Group Writing Project was great fun, generating several posts that sparked good discussion on the topic of location independence. While there are a few common elements about people’s views of the location independent lifestyle, there are also many different ways to enjoy this independence, expressed beautifully – and sometimes poetically – by writing project participants. Here’s a round up of what was published by the closing date.  And for those who still want to take part – some of you have emailed me – just add your links to the original post when you’re ready.

Lifestyle of the Digital Tinker, Mitchell Allen

Wild Workshifters, Deb Brown

Location Independent Group Writing Project, Susan Jeffels

Writing on Vacation – Thoughts on my Location Independent Career, Katherine Huether

Patria Ubi Bene – Alina Popescu

The Challenges and Rewards of Living Adventurously - Cody McKibben

How To Run A Location Independent Business – Brooke Ferguson

Developing A Writing Habit – ManekiNeko

The Portable Writer – Sharon Hurley Hall

What's in your location independent writing toolbox?

As a writer I’ve lived through an era when my boss thought computers would never catch on to an era where the tools I need are increasingly available online. I no longer need to carry much with me to have an ultra portable writing business. Here are some of the items in my writing toolbox.

A Mini Computer

So new that it hasn’t even been delivered yet, my mini computer will give me access to everything I need to get online. I will use it mostly for research when traveling, for writing, for checking email and for keeping up with my social networks. The reason I like it is because it’s light (none of the shoulder ache that comes from carrying a regular laptop during a day’s travel) and, like most laptops, I can charge it virtually anywhere. It’s not much good for playing games, but as a work machine it works (or at least I hope it will). This will replace my dated and much heavier Dell Latitude Laptop. Built in Wi-Fi is a given, of course, but if you plan to stay in one place for a while you can also investigate solutions such as mobile broadband or fixed line cable or ADSL connections.

Google Docs

File this under ‘things I plan to use more’. I must admit that one of the few pieces of software I’ve stuck with through my writing career has been Microsoft Word. For me, it’s better than the Open Office version. However, when traveling I have used Google Docs to give me access to quick editing functionality. It works well for word processing, handling spreadsheets and preparing presentations and I can access it from anywhere. Of course, I don’t have time to upload all the documents I might ever need into it, but my next tool takes care of that.

Syncplicity

This is my favorite online backup tool. As a former beta tester, I get a bit of extra storage (I think it’s up to 5GB in all). I make sure that all my essential files are on automatic backup, which means I can access them from anywhere. I then have the choice of editing them through Zoho Docs or downloading and importing into Google Docs. Both seem to work well.

Portable Storage

The size of this can vary. While I have a large portable hard drive (about half the size of a paperback), I don’t usually take this with me. My 16GB USB pen drive is big enough for most of my needs. I keep the things I will need urgent access to – and not much else.  There’s just one critical application ….

Portable Browser

I use Google Chrome, but before that it was Firefox. If you make a habit of using portable apps even on your fixed PC, then you can copy them onto a USB stick at any time and have access to favorites, passwords, cookies and so on. It’s a quick way to get up and running when you’re on the move.

Portable Electronics

Under this heading I place my digital recorder, MP3 player, headset and webcam (if you can get it built into your laptop that’s a bonus). With these I have pretty much everything I need, except for …

Phone

I don’t know how I ran my writing business before Skype. That’s currently my VOIP provider of choice, while I wait for Google Voice to approve my account. My contact list is growing and I like the fact that I can talk, text, conference and video message (depending on the robustness of the local internet connection). Together with my mobile phone, this keeps me connected to the rest of the world.

Contact Management

This is one area where I’m still undecided. Outlook is pretty good as a contact manager, but it’s hardly portable. Google Contacts has limited functionality. I no longer use a Palm, so that’s out. At the moment, I am trying Gist, which includes my Google Apps, Gmail, LinkedIn and Facebook contacts, but I’m not sure that’s a final solution. Suggestions are welcome.

Old Tech, Low Tech

Finally, two things that all this technology can’t replace – a notepad and pencil.

What tools do you use that help keep your career location independent?

This is my entry for the Location Independent Group Writing Project.