Katie McKnoulty has been on the road for the better of her career. She's the textbook definition of a digital nomad, picking up clients through connections she met in London, Bali or Paris. She's been building her client arsenal and her travel blog, The Travelling Light, all while traveling the world. What McKnoulty proves—other than proving hunching over a laptop is better with a view—is that you don't need to sit around waiting for your big freelance break to become a digital nomad. You can start traveling while you're freelance life is still very much in the growth phase. After a few years, McKnoulty is an established freelancer, with a client base and a successful, money-making blog. Here's what McKnoulty had to say about taking the freelance and nomadic plunge simultaneously.
Maya Kachroo-Levine: When did you get the idea to become a digital nomad?
Katie McKnoulty: Initially, I wasn’t working a full-time job only because the contract for my marketing job and my visa had ended in London, where I was living at the time. So I took on some freelance branding, marketing and social media work for a friend while I was traveling and it all just grew slowly from that.
Kachroo-Levine: How have you made your lifestyle financially feausible?
McKnoulty: While I was building up my blog to make money, building this branding agency and a more full workload and income, I was living very cheaply, not spending much so I could spend my time building the blog and business without having to worry so much about money. I was spending a few months every year living rent-free with my parents back home in Australia, as well as spending a few months each year in cheap cities in Asia—in Vietnam, Indonesia and Cambodia. I used these cheaper periods to save up for plane tickets and my rent in the more expensive cities.
I also had some very kind friends in the US and Europe who let me sleep in their spare rooms and on their couches, and I’ve done quite a few cat-sitting jobs in Europe for friends too. Weird opportunities kept popping up allowing me to travel even though I wasn’t making much money back then!
Kachroo-Levine: Do you think you'd make more money if you picked a place and stayed in an office? Why or why not?
McKnoulty: A lot of my client work tends to come through friends—either friends from home or friends I’ve met traveling—so I don’t know that I’d necessarily find more clients based in one place. I think this kind of branding and social media work I do comes from who I know, and I’m always building new relationships all around the world, so what does it matter if they’re all based in one place or not? I could make a network based in one place or I can build a network that’s global and online; I think it all comes out even in the end. Plus, I think I meet a lot more people traveling, blogging and working in coworking spaces than I would sitting in one office all year around.
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