Start every day with a walk

Start every day with a walk.

Crazy ideas can spark from going on a walk.

I put my trainers on, popped on one of my favourite podcasts, Confident and Killing It podcast by Tiwa Ogunlesi, and off I went on the same walk that I did pretty much every day.

The weather was gorgeous; it was a hot and sunny day, the kind where even all the bugs are having an afternoon siesta, and a short walk makes you embarrassingly sweaty. Those, by the way, are my favourite kind of days. 

Listening to Tiwa talk about other people's expectations of you, made me realise that I’ve been doing things a certain way lately that perhaps doesn’t align with the way that I want to do things because I’ve been too bothered about what other people, mortgage lenders, and my clients might think of me. I haven’t been living fully as my true self. 

On top of this, I’ve been working really hard running my design business over the last five years to get some money saved for a house deposit, and with the rising cost of house prices, energy bills, food shop, petrol, basically anything that you need to live or have fun, quite frankly I’m fed up, and I’m bored of saving for something that feels like I might not even want anymore...

Originally, my partner Will and I were going to buy a house, get a dog, and then go travelling, but the more we thought about it, the less it made sense, especially with the current financial climate we’re living in. Plus, it wouldn’t be fair to the pup to leave them for long periods of time in kennels or with family.

To be honest, by this point in my life, I really thought I would have a house. I remember being young and thinking that by 25 I’d have everything sorted, oh the dreams of an innocent child who is blissfully unaware of global pandemics and “once in a lifetime” economic crises, of which I’ve now lived through three (:

Regardless, I used the above negative situations to rationalise the reignited dream that Tiwa had reminded me of, to go travelling. 

To be honest, I’m not sure where that dream got sidelined. I have tried to book travel in the past and every time it fell through for one reason or another, not the right time, friends couldn’t come, COVID, you name it. But now feels like it’s time to revive that dream, baby!

Perhaps I thought I was too old for travelling. Do people who are getting scarily close to 30 still travel? Or is that just for the teens in their gap years and early twenty-somethings who like to party? Because those days have passed now, though I did used to be able to hold my drink well in my early twenties, not sure if that’s a thing to be proud of or ashamed of, anyway…

But upon investigation, the digital nomad lifestyle seems to be increasingly popular, and for good reason. It’s much more affordable to live and work in Thailand, for example, than in the UK. The average cost of living out there is around $6-800 per month, and you get a pretty sweet deal with that! A pool, close to beaches, great food, good weather, what’s not to love? 

The trend for co-living (sharing a co-working space and amenities but having your own private room) was starting to rise before the pandemic, and now that’s passed, people are more itchy than ever to get back into or start the digital nomad revolution, myself included.

There’s literally no excuse not to go. All that was left to do, was to convince my partner, Will (in business, life and crime (jk)), that it was a good idea. I had my points clearly laid out, ready to discuss this huge decision to sell everything we own and go travelling for six months. 

I had the speech planned out and ready to go, with the thought that a little bit of gentle persuasion would be required to get Will to see my point of view, but within seconds of the words coming out of my mouth, a huge smile spread across his face and I knew he was in love with the idea as well. 

So there’s my roundabout way of telling the world that we’re going travelling. And this blog is going to document the unfiltered stories, good and bad, of running a business with your partner whilst travelling.

Always start the day with a walk; you never know where it may take you.

Every time I’ve decided to do something out there and bold, I’ve never regretted it. I think I’m starting to understand the saying ‘Fortune favours the brave.” Plus, it’s good for the plotline either way, right? 

In conclusion, always start the day with a walk; you never know where it may take you.