Thank you! I have my fingers crossed… Though it’s still a rude shock returning to the world of the working, can’t think of a better place to be than here…

I’m not averse to digital nomad — I think it’s quite an encapsulating term. What I do object to, as I guess you do, is the number of people selling it as a product… When do you guys set out? Excited for both of you!

You said it! I have a complete love/hate relationship with Paypal.On one hand you can move money around easily, and it’s less expensive than the alternatives. But it’s still HORRENDOUSLY expensive. Our “workaround” is to clients send checks to a (very, very good) friend and she deposits them to the bank account we opened with the best deal for international withdrawals. Lots of trial-and-error to figure that out though – it seems to be quite different depending on your home country and your host country.

You will figure out what works for you. It may be painful – just like traveling can be – but the payoff of having the lifestyle AND making an income is a pretty sweet. I’d wish you luck but it’s pretty clear you’re the kind of gal who makes her own luck, so I look forward to hearing how it goes.

It’s interesting that you’re managing to combine work and travel in that way. I’m hoping I can combine money earning with travelling, just work less while we’re on the road — but I’m still only in the early days of it.

I’m just starting to grapple with the realities of Paypal and foreign exchange economics. In that: it costs you to receive the money on Paypal. They change it to your home currency at some unflattering rate. Then you transfer it into your account, and you have to pay again to take it out in the currency of the country you’re in.

Still, mustn’t grumble. I’m a bit scared still but I do like the way we’re living and have been living…

One of the huge pluses of freelancing in Asia is the low cost of living. But, yeah, the back-to-reality gut punch of having to earn a living, albeit a relatively weeny one, is very, very annoying. Will see how I feel about it all next week. But swinging towards positivity at the moment…

In corporate US there is a standard piece of advice that every working mother gets “You can have it all, just not all at the same time”. The first time I was first told that it annoyed the hell out of me, but it turned out it was pretty much true. The travel/work thing has been similar. When we travel, business suffers. So our approach is like yours – pick a home base for a school year, travel from there, and be ok that we make significantly less money that we could if we’d just stay put. When we travel we do that and do it well, and when we don’t we make sure we’re doing the best we can for our clients to keep the money we need for travel coming in.

(Oh, and that payment thing – SO TRUE!!! How can it be so hard to move money around the world in this day and age!!!)

Yep, it was a bit of a nasty shock realising how far I’d depleted the bank account — and also the return to the real world stuff. But, yes, Bali feels quite serendipitous as a place to be. I could, to be honest, live here quite happily, but Z’s not keen on living in Asia — wants to do Europe and Spain — plus it’s actually quite expensive to get resident visas &c…