Location Independent Family, Solopreneur, Digital Nomads, Freedom!

Things gradually changed here at World Travel Family, our blogs started to follow a new course and we’re starting to truly be that thing, a location independent family. I thought I’d share with you what happened, how we made them earn for us and support our lifestyle.

Maybe you’ll take inspiration from our experiences, maybe you can pick up a few tips, maybe you can help us plot our future course, who knows?

We are now fully-fledged digital nomads, we are a digital nomad family, we are location independent travellers earning online with kids. I never thought, 20 years ago when I worked in hospitals, that this could ever be my life.

It’s cool, it’s fun and we’ve come a long way, but we’re not perfect.

Ours isn’t the best way or the only way, it’s just the way we figured out over the last, almost, 5 years of nomadic travel.

I wrote this post just over three years ago, I told the world that I was going to fully fund a family of 4 on the road. I meant what I said and now I do.

This is what I wrote back then with a few current updates on how we made a digital nomad lifestyle possible for our family.

Apologies, I’m currently re-wording this post to bring it up to date and explain how we achieved our goals.

How We Became a Location Independent Family, Diginomads, or a Digital Nomad Family

The Problem With Sponsored Posts.

We were making decent money from the sponsored post industry in our early days of blogging. That stopped for us a few years ago. The industry has changed, the offers stopped coming and my site is just too big to risk.

The problem with sponsored posts is, they do take a fair amount of time. The time that I now know would have been better spent on growing a sustainable income through having a quality website.

You, the blogger, have no control over what you earn from this source.

You’re always waiting on the next email coming in and you can waste hours sending out unanswered emails to “contact lists” of known advertisers. Out of 100, you may get 1 reply. ( If anyone wants my contact list they’re welcome to it, free, good luck!)

I gave up on that a long time ago and resigned myself to just making a small income through the blogs, justifying the time I put into blogging in terms of the people we help and all the free perks we get.

I’ve now realised that I don’t enjoy those sponsored travel jobs, we very rarely do them and in all honesty, I’d rather pay.

We still do publish the odd, legitimate sponsored post or review, picked up through agencies like Cooperatize but few and far between.

I learned to focus my efforts on blogging tasks that would actually make us a sustainable, effort-free, location-independent family income. After months of work, it paid off.

Developing New Blog- Related Income Streams

I added stream after stream and worked hard on getting them up and running.

We have at least 50, probably more ways in which our websites make money while we sleep. Sponsored posts are not the answer for us.

The way to make money blogging is through hard work and knowing how it’s done. A blog that provides an income is not a series of nice little travel stories, not for us anyway. Our site is a collection of information, fact-packed, useful travel resources, the sort of posts and pages that people search the internet for. It’s a bit of a mess, I started knowing nothing, but every day I fix it a little more.

And that’s the secret, giving the people the information they need.

Most of this comes about through Key Word Research, SEO and making your site as strong, fast and authoritative as possible.

There is a lot to learn but everything you need is available for free on the internet. Never pay for courses, they’re often cons and almost always overpriced.

I Never Wanted to Work Full Time

I don’t want a full-time job. I have kids and they need me. They are totally my 100% priority. When we’re not travelling, I do have some time on my hands to work and work hard.

I’m Learning To Work Smart

Procrastination, playing around with social media, fruitless fiddling with websites and hoping that earnings will improve is pointless. I learned to work smart and value my time.

Why? Because I had a virtual kick up the backside. This one.

Outsourcing and Automation and Better Tools Were Key

My time is better spent producing quality content, improving content, marketing or taking steps that help us grow our income.

I can pay somebody else to worry about my Twitter following, hosting or ad placement. I focus on the jobs I enjoy and the ones that bring in cash.  I had to spend a little to make a little.

Most of my social media is now automated through premium tools. That gives me time and buys me more freedom. When we’re on the road I don’t need to worry so much about checking in to Pinterest or Twitter every day. I have premium managed hosting, endless cool tools to make my life easier and somebody else organises my advertising placements.

I’m not going to put affiliate links here for all these things, that’s a cheap trick. If you’re a blogger you’ll need our blogging section. I’m also never going to sell you a rip-off course.

What I Wrote Back Then

“The Plan For Next Year. TOTAL FREEDOM”

The Romania house project will start this year and continue into next. It’s all well and good being free to travel the world, but we need a little more for the kids. It’s not fair on them to spend their whole childhood living out of backpacks without bikes, toys and “stuff”. We’ve done it for 2 years, now we need a base that is as affordable as nomadic travel.

I’m going to get serious about making money online. Once Chef is free of the London kitchens and can do more with the kids, I can really get stuck in.

I’m going to do more VA work, set up websites, manage social media and be an all round helpful, experienced, team member. I’ve had a lot of interest already.

The websites will bring in cash without me having to spend much time on them.

E-books, advertising, affiliate sales, I’ll be working on them all.

I’m going to bring in enough money for us to live and travel with.

I’m not asking the universe, I’m telling it! Thanks in advance.

You know, if you ask for things and set an intention for them to happen, they usually do.

It’s not mystical woo-woo nonsense, it’s within YOU. And me.

I’ve made my mind up. I’m doing this thing. Everything is possible.

When we first started this journey we stated that we would be leaving home to travel indefinitely with the kids. People thought we were crazy but WE DID IT. We can do this too. “

And you know what? So can you.

How it All Worked Out

It worked and all the pieces came together to make us a location independent family income. I’m blogging on the fly today and this post is under construction, but there is much, much more to add.

Want To Read More Of Our Blogging Related Posts?

Try here, How to Easily Set up a Blog and Start Making Money. and How to Grow Your Traffic With Pinterest. Making Your First $1000 on Amazon Update: The intention I set out above is working nicely! Did Travel Blogging Fund our Long Term Travel from the end of year 1, with progress reports added recently.

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