Follow these 4 Steps to pursue your passion while traveling full-time

Options abound when you are ready to get off the grid.

Loca­tion inde­pen­dence is now an option for many pro­fes­sions, if you can be cre­ative. If you are ready to get off the grid, research is going to be key. Find out what oth­ers are doing. Don’t recre­ate the wheel. Copy it! Or steal the com­po­nents that apply to you.

Just remem­ber, when you are reori­ent­ing your­self, you have a spe­cial oppor­tu­ni­ty to fol­low what­ev­er you are pas­sion­ate about. It might involve think­ing out­side of the box to dis­cov­er how you can mon­e­tize your new career, and a lit­tle time to gath­er what resources you need, but you can do it. A search on the inter­net will help you fig­ure out where to begin. Then start prepar­ing for your new career. Brush up on skills, learn new ones, make con­nec­tions with peo­ple who are doing what you want to do- before you leave!

I will walk you through the steps I am tak­ing to get off the grid as we pre­pare to set sail in six months.

1. Find your passion.

What is your pas­sion? My first con­sid­er­a­tion when we decid­ed to get off the grid was what do I want to do, what is my pas­sion. For as long as I can remem­ber, I have been a cre­ative soul. I am hap­pi­est when I am draw­ing, paint­ing, doing pho­tog­ra­phy, and cooking.

Ini­tial­ly, I decid­ed to pick just one of those things to con­cen­trate on, but isn’t that what we are told all of lives? Pick a career and stick to it. Stay in the same job for thir­ty years, retire, and then in your gold­en years, you are final­ly free to pur­sue your passion.

What is some­thing you would love to do, if only you had the time? What can you do that makes hours feels like only min­utes have passed? If like me, you have more than one answer for those ques­tions, make a list. Spend time doing those things this week­end. How does it feel? Could you see your­self doing more of at least one of them? Watch a few YouTube videos of peo­ple doing the things on your list. Does watch­ing the videos inspire the same pas­sion in you?

If you are still strug­gling to come up with some­thing, look at your Pin­ter­est boards. What activ­i­ties have the most pins, or the most boards? Keep in mind, your answer might be some­thing you have always want­ed to try. Do not lim­it yourself.

Start fol­low­ing peo­ple on YouTube and Twit­ter, join groups on Face­book, and get involved. Ask ques­tions. Make connections.

Most impor­tant­ly, prac­tice the skills you need to get bet­ter in that career. Don’t get frus­trat­ed when you make mis­takes. You may be at the bot­tom of the learn­ing curve, but the more you prac­tice, the bet­ter you become, and the more like­ly you are to get paid doing what you love.

The next ques­tion I need­ed to answer was how can I mon­e­tize my passions.

2. Figure out how to monetize what you’re passionate about.

Here’s what I’ve come up with. I cre­at­ed a blog. What an extreme learn­ing curve that was for me! Although it is far from per­fect, it is an out­let for me to dis­play my art­work and pho­tog­ra­phy, inter­view artists, report on the lat­est prod­ucts, and offer tutorials.

I also plan on using the web­site to gath­er recipes I adapt, or cre­ate, for gal­ley cook­ing. I will doc­u­ment unusu­al foods and recipes from the cul­tures we vis­it as we sail. One of my favorite things to do is merge fla­vors to make a unique gas­tro­nom­ic expe­ri­ence. Does that mean I always tell my fam­i­ly what’s in their favorite meals? Not really!

Even­tu­al­ly, I will com­bine my recipes into a book. I have already start­ed doc­u­ment­ing recipes on Insta­gram. I can look back at my feed as a resource to lat­er recre­ate my favorite meals. I will add to my trav­el blog and write for oth­er blogs or mag­a­zines. Part of my research revolves around how to query mag­a­zines in order to sell arti­cles to them.

Many pho­tog­ra­phers join sites that allow them to use their images on shirts, mugs, pil­lows, etc. When peo­ple order from these sites, the pho­tog­ra­ph­er receives a per­cent­age; the item is cre­at­ed and shipped to the cus­tomer with­out inter­fer­ing with your trav­el itin­er­ary. I think hav­ing mul­ti­ple income sources will be the way to go for me. Our goal is not to become rich, but to be able to con­tin­ue trav­el­ing for as long as we want.

I will be leav­ing my job as a teacher to start trav­el­ing. I have an edu­ca­tion degree and a grad­u­ate degree in TESOL that allows me to teach in oth­er coun­tries, so I can lever­age that to keep the dream alive by teach­ing to refill our sail­ing kit­ty, a tem­po­rary solution

What are you doing now? Can you lever­age that as you work to devel­op your busi­ness, while you trav­el? The goal is to work on your pas­sion, find a way to mon­e­tize it, but with­out sac­ri­fic­ing your dream or push­ing out your leav­ing date.

The next ques­tion is what resources you’ll need to be able to do your dream job and travel.

3. Decide what resources you need.

Once you decide on your new career, find out, and try out, the resources you will need to work on the road (or at sea, in my case). Make sure your mate­ri­als can hold up to the ter­rain. For exam­ple, for the con­di­tions I expect, and based on the rec­om­men­da­tions of oth­er artist sailors,  water­col­or pens are a bet­ter choice than a water­col­or set and brush­es. I have acquired an under­wa­ter cam­era for pho­tog­ra­phy and plan on get­ting a tough cam­era that can with­stand the con­di­tions at sea.

Many com­put­ers with­out a sol­id state dri­ve fail at sea. Again, I learned this from the Face­book sail­ing groups I am a part of. That’s why it is so impor­tant to inter­act with peo­ple who are cur­rent­ly doing what you want to do. Could you imag­ine mak­ing blog­ging or app cre­ation as your new career and then your com­put­er fails…And you could have pre­vent­ed it by doing some research?

When I went to Chi­na to teach, I bought my com­put­er last minute. The one I want­ed had a dvd dri­ve but was out of stock, so I set­tled for the dvd-less ver­sion, assum­ing I could pick up a dvd play­er when I got set­tled. I did­n’t real­ize how expen­sive all of the elec­tron­ics would be on the oth­er side of the world. I was­n’t pre­pared. I had done lit­tle research oth­er than lan­guage study pri­or to leaving.

Imag­ine how much more impor­tant care­ful­ly research­ing reli­able tools for your new career will be to you when you’re trav­el­ing full-time.

4. Evaluate: Do you have the time?

It’s easy to shut your com­put­er and fin­ish an arti­cle for your blog at your next des­ti­na­tion. Not as easy if you have clients that are on a dead­line and you have to post­pone your itin­er­ary to meet their deadlines.

Look back at your list and decide if you have the time built into your trav­el­ing sched­ule to be suc­cess­ful in your new career while trav­el­ing the way you want to. The good thing is you can usu­al­ly make your own sched­ule. If you are a sailor, your sched­ule will be deter­mined by sea­sons and the weath­er and you may not have the lux­u­ry to extend your stay. On the oth­er hand, you may be forced to extend your stay for the same rea­sons. Cross off any items on your list that won’t fit into your trav­el­ing plans. Or change your trav­el­ing plans. It’s that sim­ple! The more flex­i­ble you are, the more career options you can consider.

Where should you begin?

If you are con­sid­er­ing loca­tion inde­pen­dence, you should take the time to answer this ques­tion: what is your pas­sion? Then, you can then find ways to pur­sue your pas­sion while trav­el­ing. At the very least, you will have to work, pos­si­bly in your cur­rent field, while incor­po­rat­ing your pas­sion into your free time. But, if you are cre­ative and well-pre­pared, you can turn your pas­sion into your career and trav­el while you are “work­ing.” Start research­ing today, cre­ate a Pin­ter­est board of ideas, make con­nec­tions with peo­ple who are doing what you want do, and begin prepar­ing for your new career.

Where are you on your jour­ney? I would love to hear how you made the jump to loca­tion inde­pen­dence. How long have you been work­ing at what you love? What issues came up that you weren’t expect­ing and how did you over­come them?

Join the con­ver­sa­tion. And don’t for­get to sub­scribe and fol­low us on social media.

Fair winds and fol­low­ing seas!

-Elyza