Prior to launching my Nomad Life, I’d lay in bed each night wide awake. Sleep ran away on a marathon, leaving me with a brain sprinting hurdles. Everything I did, I wondered how it’d change during Nomad Life.
Would I still be able to eat plant-based foods? Would my back hurt if I carried around a 40 liter bag all day? How would I get frequent flier mileage on tiny Asian airlines called Dragonfly and Spice?
Somehow I straddled the line between excitement and anxiety.
Finally, when our day arrived for us to leave the house and arrive at the airport, I’d answered a million questions, but each day another million arrived. Back then, there was no Brian and Carrie, Practical Globetrotters, Bev and John, or gulp, Chris and Steve!
We had to figure out this Nomad Life stuff all on our own (with a little help fromBonnie Truax.)
Now, almost 5 years later since we launched our Nomad Life and almost 7 since we first hatched our plan, I look back on these FAQs and kinda giggle. The answers seem so simple now, but laaawwwddy, they weren’t back then.
So what are the three kernals of advice, above all else, we give people planning to launch or just about to launch?
Our Three (Plus a Bonus) Kernals of Advice for Successful Nomad Life Launches
After almost five years of Nomad Life, we have a few kernals of advice.
Kernal of advice #1:
Start your launch with the end in mind. When you know where you’ll end up, you know how to manage what is happening now. Let’s take two scenarios.
The first scenario: You know you’ll come back to your home/your town at some point in the future. If this is the case, select a few items to put into a storage unit. Pack your bag. Everything else goes away.
The second scenario: You know you won’t come back to your home/your town at some point in the future. Thus, you don’t know where you’ll be, and therefore, you don’t keep anything. Figure out what type of luggage you want to move around the world, determine what you’ll put into it, and get rid of everything else.
It’s really that simple.
Kernal of advice #2:
Circle a date on the calendar. Launching your Nomad Life is not Some Day or One Day. It’s a particular day. If you don’t circle a date, you won’t go. Even if you don’t know a date, circle one anyway. Make it your anniversary, your favorite holiday, or some random date you flip to on the wall calendar.
Your Nomad Life won’t launch unless you have a date to launch it.
It’s really that simple.
Kernal of advice #3:
Pack for what you need, not what you think you might need “just in case.” It’s the just-in-case stuff that weighs you down. And trust me, everyone else in the world uses the same things you do. There are stores on every corner.
No need to carry extra cords, backup head phones, another pair of socks, or extra shampoo. You can get what you need everywhere in the world. If you can’t find it, Amazon still delivers to over 100 countries. And honestly, if you can’t find it, ask yourself, do you really need it?
And we’ll throw in another kernal.
Kernal of advice #4:
Although presciptions, medical care and insurance can take a bit of work and require some thought, once you develop these Nomad Muscles of how to tackle Nomad Life, you won’t worry about these items. Watch our many videos about Nomad Health or read our several blog posts about these topics.
Have more questions about Nomad Life and its launch? We’ve got 100 FAQs right here, a workbook you can work through for your Nomad Life, a primer on how to get rid of particular items (I’m looking at your yearbooks!) and of course, our Youtube channel where we share about our life deeply.
See ya next week,
Chris