How I accidentally became a digital nomad

I never set out to become a digital nomad - I sort of fell into it. My plan had always been early retirement and travelling. In 2018, that dream evolved into seeing the world by boat after my husband and I fell in love with sailing!

We came up with a 5 year plan, but 2 years in, during the pandemic I lost my job (while on holiday getting our qualification). A whole host of events conspired - amplified by cider in the Greek sunshine we brought our first boat

We went home and put our house up for sale and planned to move into rented accomodation for as long as it took. But more events conspired and after a generous wedding gift from my MIL we suddenly, unexpectedly realised we'd reached our savings goal - so we moved our plans forward!

We gave up the rented accomodation idea and handed in our notices at our respective jobs (yes I'd landed a new job within a week of returning from Greece and I loved it, so I was genuinely sad to be going. We drove from the UK out to Greece with the remains of our old life packed into a small van.

There we're still restrictions in place, in Greece that included no boats being launched so the first month or so we lived in the boatyard having to climb a ladder to access our home, it made for a challenging time with our dog as he needed to go out several times a day! June rolled round and finally we had the green light to launch out boat!

Our first six months of retirement were absolutely incredible, blissful, exciting, relaxing - daily swims in warm waters, travelling as much or as little as we wanted, getting to grips with our new boat, and fully embracing boat life. It was everything we’d hoped for. Pure freedom!

But then summer gave way to autumn. October arrived, and we settled into our six-month winter berth in Montenegro (stunning country, by the way - a hidden gem! As the colder months set in, I realised something unexpected…I really missed work!

The Unexpected Challenge

I missed using my brain for more than just passage planning and provisioning. The winter stretch seemed too long. This was during the global pandemic, and suddenly, travel restrictions were in place again. My engineer husband was due to go back to his old place of work for the annual maintenance shutdown to earn us some money. Suddenly, that wasn’t possible, and we had a gaping hole in our finances. If he couldn’t do it that year, there was every chance he wouldn’t be able to return in subsequent years due to skills fade.

I started looking for online jobs but quickly realised how difficult it was to find someone willing to employ me while I was living overseas. So, I took matters into my own hands - I started my own business and registered with a Virtual Assistant Ggency. The owner had been working nomadically for years, had a geographically dispersed team, and understood that variations in location and time zone were no barrier to good business.

The agency owner was an incredible mentor who spotted my natural aptitude for tech. I soon specialised as a Tech VA, and after a year of gaining experience, I felt brave enough to branch out and start landing my own private clients too. I've now been working as a Tech VA for close to 5 years.

Living the Dream

These days, I work exclusively with private clients and now I also offer 1:1 mentoringand training to help others learn to tame their tech. I've never had job satisfaction like it, I absolutely love what I do! Helping my clients learn and grow never really feels like ‘work’. Plus, I only work part-time, because that’s all I need to earn enough to support myself (and my husband) while travelling full-time. He was able to go back for work after alll and he continues to do that for a few weeks each year.

I truly am living the dream - and I know how fortunate I am! I hope to write a book about our adventures at some point, people are always asking and seem fascinated by our lifestyle.

If you are looking for help with your tech, need a VA, have any questions about becoming a digital nomad or just a burning question about how we deal with refuse feel free to drop me a message! Let’s chat!