I've been traveling around the world for 3 years non-stop while running my online business, which is my sole source of income. Ask me anything!

Say you found a special someone and wanted to have kids. Out of all the countries you have been to which one would you raise your kids in?

I don't know if I'm being biased because it's my home or I'm really that lucky to have been raised in a truly multi-cultural and diverse country, but I really love Canada.

I would want my kids to live in a place where the people are kind and are from a full range of backgrounds with wilderness/nature/mountains/lakes just a few hours away.

Would you have any advice on how to build an online business like you have with full-time travel? I have been trying to figure out desperately how not to end up in a cubicle and be able to travel more, since life is short and there's so much to see.

I too would like to know how to full time travel. I'd love to see the dinosaurs in person one day.

They're great in person. I would highly recommend seeing them.

Start with reading 4-Hour Workweek! There are lots of clever tips in that book that's helped me.

Canadian here. Can confirm the awesome. But we're too close to the world's biggest psycho country. It's dangerous to live here considering what is coming up. Norway or Finland would be a safer choie, long term, if you ask me.

I'll just hide up in Whistler and build an igloo. All I need is internet and snowboarding anyways :)

If you could give your past Day 1 Company starting self one piece of advice what would it be?

Picking a country to incorporate your business in is far more important than you think! Singapore is a great country to start a business in with their tax incentives and structures, but I find it to be a poor choice in hindsight given that my business is online-based and that most of my customers are in the US.

I wish I had incorporated it in the US. It's worth paying more taxes just to get the newest and best technologies, tools and services to help out with work. For example, I really really want to use Stripe's payment services, as well as the full feature set from Shopify.

In other words: don't take lightly the country you're going to incorporate in!

You're Canadian

Shopify is a Canadian company

Canada is one of the few countries that can use Stripe

Why not just incorporate in Canada?

I thought the tax savings would have been worth it for Singaporean incorporation. Also, I was thinking of possibly settling down in Singapore so I wanted to establish a business there (so I can more easily get residency).

My goodness, I registered just to ask you questions.

You've spent around a month per country, where do you stay? In hotels, hostels, apartments?

What's your most common form of crossing borders? By air, land or sea?

Do you have employees running your business back home? Or is this a one man operation?

How long did it take to get your business automated to the point where you could just take off?

Did you sort out visas before you leave or did you sort them out while on the road?

Have you ever been without internet, if so, what did you do about it?

I say I average to about 2 months per country. I try to be as thorough as possible when traveling to a country since I usually have to cross border-to-border (overland) anyways.

My spending on accommodations has increased with time. Sleep is extremely important as it's what keeps you agile for both on the road and business. In the beginning, I would stay in dormitories, which was great fun as you get to meet so many new people, but it turned out to be not so great for doing work at night. Dorms turned into shared rooms at hostels, then to single rooms in the recent quarters. I got a real idea of how sustainable this nomadic way of living is when I lived in a private apartment in Bali via AirBnB. That was a much appreciated comfort!

One thing I noticed in Tim Ferriss' book is that his sports nutrition supplements company must have either been an extremely automated, heavily bootstrapped business that was in a very high profit margin, or that he's over-inflating his income. It's impossible to run a fully functioning and growing online store with a single hire that is the assistant. I know I've tried that model and it was impossible in my experience. I have a couple of employees who are located from all over. We communicate via emails and Skype.

The business was running for nearly a year before I left my country. It's easy to automate a business, but it's much harder to grow it passively. You always need to put in the time to grow a business!

I sort out the visas on the road. I had no idea where I was going to go next when I first landed in my first country, Singapore.

Technology is an amazing thing, especially 3G! Even the poorest countries have some form of mobile data connection these days, so it's always possible to work in a country. There are, of course, some more rural places where there's no signal at all. In those situations, I try to predict the regions beforehand and schedule my offline work for that period of time.

Singaporean here, I'm interested in how you find our country!

Singapore was the first country I visited! It's an amazingly modern country with a lot of growth ahead. Very polite people and very impolite taxi drivers ;) My company is actually incorporated in Singapore!

Glad that you liked it here! Sad to hear about the taxi drivers though, they can get rather grumpy at times. Wonderful website by the way, I think it's quite the novel idea. It'll make a great gift for Christmas!

Thanks for the kind word! Hold up on making that purchase. Wait for the Black Friday promotions :) Check our Facebook page for the coupon code tomorrow.

I can say from personal experience, b/c I was working for a company that worked for Tim well before his book came out that his numbers are not inflated ($xx,xxx per month). However, it was a significantly automated business. We handled the optimization of his order process and produced significant results and a large percentage increase in his business. I don't know how many other people he had working for him, but it wasn't many, but the outsourcing and drop-shipping made it so that he didn't need to handle much day-to-day business. My opinion is that he was pretty early to a market, and that was his biggest asset. Though, his story inspired me to do something very similar.

Thanks for the input! What's your line of work?

[deleted]

Thanks! I'm not quite sure who this is. PM me if you'd like to reconnect sometime!

Is it lonely? do you keep in touch with friends? do you make new friends? In your perspective, what is dating like or what would it be like if that were to become something you wanted to take up?

My friends can attest to this. I'm absolutely terrible at keeping in touch with friends. It's gotten much better now that I've installed LINE (IMO a much better alternative to Whatsapp) on my phone and computer. And I know there are a lot of Facebook haters out there, but for someone like me, Facebook is a god-send. It helps so much in keeping up with old and new friends who you've crossed paths with.

Yes, it does get quite lonely sometimes. But all that's needed is to join a local tour, head to hostels or just talk to people on the street!

Dating on the road is very interesting and confusing (and fun)! Sometimes it feels like a very long extended date when you spend days or weeks traveling together, seeing and experiencing some unforgettable things with just the two of you. It gets confusing when you don't know if it's just the lust of traveling that you're feeling or if they're genuine feelings for the other person.

Man, can I relate to this post. Facebook is definitely a god-send. I have a network of hundreds of personal friends from all over the world, that - like me - move from place to place very often. Phone numbers change almost as often as physical addresses. Facebook contact stays the same.

Dating is definitely "interesting and confusing (and fun!)" - there's almost no better way to get to know how someone handles life than traveling with them.

Dating is definitely "interesting and confusing (and fun!)" - there's almost no better way to get to know how someone handles life than traveling with them.

Agreed! But I think it's important to realize that the way a person carries him/herself in a settled life is very different when they're traveling. Traveling brings out different sides in people, but those sides are in no way defining.

How do you handle clothes? You can't possibly bring all of your clothes with you, that'd be annoying.

I wear mostly tech clothes. They're comfortable enough to wear and they can handle the nastiest of environments and the harshest activities. I prepare clothing for all seasons. It's not too heavy at all. The bulk of the weight comes from my work gear: electronics and such.

What are "tech clothes"? Genuine question - I have no idea but I'm curious.

Lightweight, durable, fast drying clothes :) The kinds you buy at outdoor gear shops.

What kind of nasty stuff do you get into?

Can't tell you. Too nasty :o

I'm not OP, but I can offer some insight here. I'm a LIFEPACKR, I spend my whole life on the road. Some years or months I live out of a backpack, sometimes it's a backpack and a rolling suitcase (in addition to my camera and laptop), but right now I have a vehicle for travel as well as for storage.

So the answer to your question is "YES! we do bring all of our clothes with us." By adapting to where you are in life and the world, and being minimal in my requirements. Be frugal with what you spend your money on - reuse, buy used (thrift shops are great, as are trades with other travelers!), and use items that are multi-functional.

In warm places, it's simple because just don't need as much clothing. In cold places, buying items per- season makes more sense.

Being a minimalist when regarding clothing also allows for interesting expressions of individuality. I'm sure you've noticed that most "hippies, beatniks, vagabonds, gypsies, and backpackers" are very obviously unique in their expressions of themselves.

Glad to see another nomad here! I've stopped buying winter clothes altogether except for my trust jacket and fleece. Thermals do such a great job of keeping in heat!

My question is regarding what you've learned and how you've matured in the 3 years. I look at the last 3 years of my life, and a lot has changed (finished uni, lived in big cities, different relationships, etc). Do you find that you have a bunch of 'aha' life defining moments or a collection of great memories that merge together?

All my best

Hey Nick! I've written this response so many times now. You've asked such a great question and I don't even know how to begin to express how I've grown over the recent years. This won't be all encapsulating but I'll give a couple.

Meeting a range of personalities from different backgrounds and cultures who perceive the world around them and their accounts of history so differently, I realize everything is a matter of perspective, and that it's most important for a balanced individual to see things in as many perspectives as possible, despite how it makes you feel. Beauty is in all things, just as well as ugliness. It's great to be uplifted by beautiful moments (and there are an abundance when you travel) but you only polarize your view of the world if your tendency is to see it with a smile on your face. I would rather see the world as it is then to be constantly happy. To travel is to experience the world, and traveling for however long I've traveled my experience has taught me to see the world in full color.

I've been traveling wandering around for 12isd years now. Maturing is a funny thing. When you're in your own country, you have people to compare yourself to. You know Cindy just got married and had a baby. Jane blah blah blah. When you leave that stops. It's something people who don't have a "home" have to deal with. You are always in a different culture, so you don't actually have norms to adhere to.

This gives people the ability to (usually) either become an alcoholic or a rather independent, interesting individual. This is mainly due to every person you meet being transient. Imagine not knowing anyone longer than 9 months. It's an odd thing.

As for life defining moments, you have some of those to begin with, but then you just have a life made up of crazy shit. Which, for the right type of person, is pretty fucking great. I've had a lady friend with me for 6ish years of my travels and i'd say 80% has been spectacular.

Sorry to answer this question when it's not my thing. It's just that this is my life and has been for a long time.

I feel like you have tons of stories to tell. You should consider doing an IAMA too!

The comparing yourself part hits a chord with me. I'm at the age where friends are starting to get married, and some are even posting baby pictures on their FB's. All of these people seem to be making milestone progresses in their lives whereas funnily enough I've remained "stationary."

Want to do the same thing , just need to know , did you have money at the start ? how you launch this ? I have no money , but truly want do this.

I started my business with about $150 dollars. The business had been online for about a year before I started my travels.

If you're interested in doing the same, I highly recommend reading 4-Hour Workweek, as well as frequenting sites like Hacker News.

I was fortunate enough to have some entrepreneurial experience before launching Postertext, and I would recommend doing the same before starting a business that will be funding your travels!

Have you read "The 100$ Startup" ? I wonder if it is equally usefull as the book you recommend.

Nope, haven't. Sorry, can't make the comparison for ya

How do you get past the language barriers?

Luckily, most people understand hand gestures except for South Koreans. I would make hand gestures for sleeping and eating (flatly clasps hands beside head; one hand carrying bowl and the other scooping action), and I would say 1/20 people got the hand gestures compared to say 1/5 in other countries. I didn't have to use too many of those gestures though except for outside of the cities since most people speak decent English.

Were there any countries you visited that did not speak English even in the major cities?

Most locals would be able to utter at least a few words in English in the countries I've visited. Even if it's just a word, the context of the situation and their body language is usually enough for communicating. As for fluency, I find South Koreans to be the most timid with their English. I have no doubts that they understand English but they didn't speak it to me.

You can get a book that is very small and is just pictures in various categories so you can point to what you want rather than having to use sign language. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Point-Travellers-Language-Dieter-Graf/dp/3980880273/ref=pd_sim_b_1

That's a nifty idea! My hand gestures has helped me well enough for my travels so far. If that fails, I might just consider getting that book!

Do you stick to cheaper areas in order to afford your lifestyle? Have you ever thought you weren't going to have enough to make it home?

I started in South East Asia because it was the cheapest to live in. The business was still in its teens so it would make more sense that way.

Never had a problem with the finances luckily.

Speaking of finances, what do you do for a bank? Fellow Canadian here and I am thinking of going to live and teach in se Asia, I am with bmo now as my bank. Can I keep this, or do I need a new bank account when moving to a new country?

Select Service from TD Canada was the best option 3 years ago. Check out redflagdeals and peak around there. There might be better alternatives now.

Interesting... I think its great that you've taken such a proactive approach to traveling while also maintaining a stable business. Has it been taxing for you? I mean, you must get very little sleep...

It can get very taxing, but the good thing about being self-employed is that you have some control over when and how much you work. During my most productive days, I may be traveling across several cities and doing work in my room at the end of the day for many hours. But during my rest days, I'm staying at a comfortable city for the entire day at a cafe doing work on my laptop.

Hey! We met you on the bus to Jiuzhaigou in China (along with Sunny and that other kid)! Thanks for all those great photos!

A year and a half later, we're back in Boston, working through med school. Hope you're still having a great time! If you're ever coming through, drop us a line - you've got a place to stay. Funny to see you on Reddit... it's a small, small world.

Hey! What a coincidence! I hope your both doing well. Do you mind sending me an email at peterkao@postertext.com? I'd love to reconnect!

If you had to pick one place you would travel to again, where would it be? And do you always travel alone, and if thats the case, whats it like?

I would love the opportunity to travel to each and every single country again after a decade or two. It would be immensely interesting to see how each country has progressed and how the travel experience has changed. If I were to pick one single country though, it would perhaps be Myanmar. It's perhaps my favorite country that I've visited and it was relatively recent that Myanmar opened its borders to the world so I'm sure the country will be (and already has) been going through some monumental changes.

Can I have a job? Im not very clever but I have the looks of a young Steve jobs/tony hawk

Edit: missed words out because im drunk

HIRED

Intersting story here... I've always been motivated to try this way of working, unfortunately, i'm currently doing an engineering school so I prefer to be graduated first.

Through the comment, I saw that u recommended some books, but have you some advices for beginners who want to do like you ?

Yes! Start a business right now! The internet has allowed anyone to learn as much as they like on any subject. There's a plethora of resources online on entrepreneurship. I hear the community at 4-Hour Workweek is quite active and helpful too. I don't visit their boards (too busy with reddit :)) but they would have a lot more specific resources for you as most people there are trying to establish this work & play lifestyle.

Did you hire someone else to handle transactions or write the code for your website? I can imagine that being an issue for a college student

There are a lot of pre-packaged ecommerce solutions out there. If I was starting out today, I would definitely go with the hosted SaaS solutions such as Shopify or Big Commerce. No coding involved!

have you ever been in Romania?Would love to buy you a beer!I'm also working hard to start my own business so it's inspiring to see people who made it!
I want to make a quality documentary channel for Youtube(amonghst other things)and I'm trying hard to improve my English and get money for camera and a microphone.I hope one day I would walk on your steps,it's been a joy reading all your responses!
My offer stands!If you are ever passing trough N-W Romania It would be my privilege to invite you to a beer or some traditional food(or even an interview if i'm lucky)!
Sorry for so much ass kissing...reading trough your responses made me realize that maybe one day I to will make it!

I'll take you up on that offer once I reach there! And I'm happy to have motivated you!

Do you already have your documentary channel set up? I think we all would love to see it.

Im more interested in the financial freedom you have. How did you get the idea for your business and how have you been growing it? What is the biggest challenge you've faced as a business owner?

I got the idea from a posting here on reddit several years ago. There was a lot of interest in this kind of illustration but very few were taking the idea as a serious venture at the time. I decided to make a poster for a friend of mine who's an avid reader and she suggested that I should consider selling these prints. After making a few illustrations, I made a post on reddit to get feedback and suggestions and it blossomed from there! This is very much a lifestyle gifted to me by reddit!

The biggest challenge would be to find passionate and talented people who can work in their home environment without a boss around. I'm very happy to have found the staff that I work with!

How much do you make per quarter? How much are you spending to travel and live per quarter?

The thing with being a small business owner is that your income is directly tied with the company's. That said, it's somewhere in the low 5 figure range.

I don't have a real budget when it comes to traveling since some countries have very different living standards and costs of living. I always just try to live like a common local when I'm traveling: taking public transport, eating at local restaurants where there are most people, etc

So 10k? Per quarter or yearly?

Quarterly. And more than that :)

How much on average would you say it costs to travel and live from country to country?

I've been working my way around the world for about 12 years now. The cost varies a bit, but it's still a fraction of what you would pay in a developed country.

Everything else is generally cheaper. For instance, today is my birthday (woo hoo) My lady friend and i went out for lunch, got massages, haircuts, movie, kumquat tea, dinner and booze for just under 70usd. I live in Malaysia. Last time I was in Thailand, I got a 2hr massage for 10usd. As for the majority of not so developed countries, Belize is about the only place outside of Japan that I've found to be crazy expensive and that's due to a super fucked up gov.

Sleeping wise, If you are doing hotels instead of longer term stuff, you can find decent places for maybe 20 - 40usd a night depending on the country. Except for Japan. It's fucking expensive. A hotel will run you around 70 a night. I currently have a place with the bay on one side and monkeys and jungle on the other for about 300usd a month. Bills amount to about 90usd (5mb dsl, power, water, gas).

For food, If you can cook you are better off some places, but if you are in asia, it's almost always cheaper to eat out. There are carts, stalls and holes in the wall with some of the most fantastic things ever. My fav buffet runs 2usd a person for a big fat plate of amazingness. At my fave indian place, you can get 5 main dishes drinks and naan for around 7usd. In Thailand, you can hit a rocking buffet for about .80usd. In Taiwan it's closer to 3usd. Taiwan also has all you can drink clubs for around 15usd.

All in all, If you are doing a reasonably priced accommodation, 800usd a month can easily get you by.

Excellent advice! What do you do for a living?

Sorry, I really don't keep count. It's already a bit crazy keeping up with the everyday happenings of a company.

EDIT: See OliverTheWanderer's reply above. He does a great job answering it!

How did you get started on your business? How did you tesch yourself what you needed to run it?

I've always been entrepreneurial during my university years, participating in campus events and conferences relating to startups and business even before starting my first business (several years ago).

Read books, and participate in entrepreneurial communities both locally and online. The most important advice I can give to any aspiring entrepreneur is to start a business project right now, today. You have no excuse to not start one. It's extremely simple these days. All the tools and resources are at your fingertips!

I am nowhere near this kind of environment but i've always felt a pull from this world. My only solution is through the web. Where should I start? Is there a forum you can recommend

https://news.ycombinator.com/ is a great place to start!

What a neat idea for a business. At first I was confused on how you would automate this, but then I realized I was stupid lol. All you would need to do is come up with the designs and then arrange the print around them.

How long does it take for you or whoever comes up with the designs to create one for a person that requests a book instead of picking from already made prints?

It's not quite as simple as just illustrating something and then selling it. I like quality in all things so my approach is more quality than quantity when it comes to our art prints. My staff and I spend hours brainstorming and discussing each novel in question. We have a real passion for not just representing a book aesthetically but to capture and embody the soul of the story in a way the author would have done him/herself if they were an artist.

There's been competitors who's sprung up in the recent years who I envy for the quantity of works they push out, but again, our focus is on the quality. After all, these art prints are for the diehard fans out there.

How do you deal with the copyrights? Can you just freely make these AWESOME posters off the books or do you have to call someone first?

We're working on getting rights from publishers but they respond very slowly. It's a long process to get rights for contemporary books.

The titles we've covered are from the public domain so no copyrighting issues there.

Wow, I'm a little jealous. I'm being forced to move out of where I'm currently living, after just moving here four months ago. I've been really contemplating just going Kerouac style and leave all my stuff somewhere, but I don't have an online business for income. I'll look into that book you mentioned.

So, being an AMA, I guess I'll ask... How long do you plan on doing this? Three years so far, are you just going to keep going until you don't feel like it?

What's causing you to move out of where you're living?

I'm not quite sure how long I'll keep doing this. I can see myself traveling for at least another 3 years, but my pace of travel might need an adjustment. Being on the road on a daily basis then having to work a full day's work at night takes a toll on your health. I guess I'll keep going until I feel the need to start a family.

Very cool sir. I waited until my 30's then hit the road. I traveled for about 6 years, but only through 18 countries, and ended up staying in some for more than a year at a time. I'm back to work now charging up the account again, but those are the fondest memories I have. Best wishes and safe travels.

Thank you my nomadic friend! Any advice for someone who may be traveling for up to 6 years?

How many hours per day do you work on average?

But, most importantly: do you absolutely have to be an entrepreneur to do this kind of thing? I am making preparations to lead a mobile lifestyle starting on the first months of 2014, and I have a friend that insists I should start any kind of business, but I find it so much simpler to be an employee. I am a translator, and that's a job that I can do anywhere with Internet. The only problem is that it does not pay that well... But I think it will be enough if I put 6 to 8 hours a day.

So, what do you think? Would you still do this if you were an employee and not an entrepreneur?

(Also, if you could respond: what's the absolutely minimum amount of money you can be expected to have monthly to travel, have some fun and eat moderately healthy?)

Thanks!

It is still a full-time job so I work a full-time job's worth of hours. Though on more productive days, I'm able to get what I need to get done and spend more time traveling.

I think you do need a bit of an entrepreneurial spirit for these kinds of things, if not a bit of business sense. Having either of these will at least help increase the chances of the business being financially stable enough to fund your travels. Not having either, you'll be taking a considerable risk not just for your finances but for your traveling lifestyle.

As a translator, you'll do great. I've met translators who does the same thing as I do. Their best advice was to indicate your sense of multi-culturism and the mobile lifestyle as indefinite proof and motivation on letters and resumes.

How can I join you?

Pick up Tim Ferriss' book! I had a rough idea of how I was going to travel and work at the same time, but reading his book really laid out the foundations for me. There are a few clever tips that has helped me immensely during my first year.

Can you highlight the main tips that you found the most useful?

On traveling or on business+traveling?

For solely traveling, I would suggest picking only a handful of must-see destinations and fill in the gaps as you go. You get less of a feel and understanding of a country if you only visit the must-see locations as they tend to be mostly touristic places. The fun parts of travel comes from the inbetweens!

Hi thegrassygnome! You want to be a traveling gnome?

My name's Jordan L Wheeler. I've spent the last few years traveling, backpacking, and working, and I'm turning it into a lifestyle, like Tim Ferris and others inspired me to do.

Anyone interested in lifestyle design for the mobile, global 21st century should check out my group, LIFEPACKR. We're several hundred travelers who live our lives on the road.

We share tips, tricks, and lifehacks to make the LIFEPACKR lifestyle easier. We also live and love to inspire others, so we showcase featured travelers and their inspirational stories.

I'm working on building a community that people can not only use as a resource to learn how to travel, where to travel, and how to not only survive, but THRIVE on the road - but can also use as a platform to share their experiences, promote themselves, and connect with others around the world.

Anyone interested, please send me a PM and I'll add you to our invite-only discussion group, which we're using until the website is fully operational.

Sounds like a terrific idea for a community! Best of luck with it :)

Ever been to Byron Bay in NSW, Australia?

Yes, the Gold Coast is beautiful. Rented an RV for it. So worth it.

Country with the prettiest women?

Myanmar 'dem eyes

Do you ever touch base back in Canada every once in a while, or have you been overseas exclusively for the last 3 years?

How do you get at your money while travelling, do you have a home bank in Canada and just pay crazy service charges to get at it?

Do you still have to pay income tax?

I've been exclusively overseas.

I keep my bank accounts in Canada. I'm with the Select Service plan with TD Canada Trust, which waives a lot of international fees. I highly recommend it. No ATM fees!

Yes to income tax! There are ways to get around it given my nomadic lifestyle, but it's not worth the risk of tax trouble on the road and the lost of my Canadian passport!

What countries have you visited?, out of all the countries which one is your favourite? When travelling do you have a certain budget, What type of hotels do you stay in.

Most of Asia, with Central Asia finished next year. My favorite country would be Myanmar. See my other comment for more details.

Hey, great site! I was wondering how you built your site, did you hire out a designer or design it yourself?

Thanks for the kind words! For the first iteration, in order to bootstrap and test the idea, I used a free template. After since, I've hired professional designers and developers.

Do you do the design your own posters? How long did that process take (to design 57 classics)?

I did the first dozen. Now I have a small team of artists.

Hi /u/tiredrod! I'm very Thankful that you are sharing your experiences with us today!

I am currently working on building a platform for travelers and not-yet-travelers to learn how to become location-independent online entrepreneurs like yourself. I take a lot of inspiration from Tim Ferris' ideas, particularly regarding 'lifestyle design.'

I've traveled about a dozen countries in the last couple years, and my passport is as full as yours! (I need to get a new one!). I want to inspire people, and change the minds of those oh-so-many who say :

Oh wow, that's awesome, I'd love to do that - but I don't think I ever could!

I didn't know if I could, I bet you didn't know if you could either - until we tried. And the truth is, we can do anything we set our minds to, if we believe it. It's only when we limit ourselves that we lose our power to live the lives we imagine.

So my questions are these :

• What are some of the challenges of being a business owner without a 'home-base'?
  
• What are your favorite aspects of being an online business owner? What are the worst?
  
• May I interview you for the LIFEPACKR group?

Nice website you got there! When can we expect the full version to come out?

One of the constant challenges is to remain as productive as possible in a variety of locations and situations. I remember having to have a quick impromptu meeting while waiting for a bus in the middle of nowhere. It wouldn't be possible to do what I do if there were no smartphones.

The best aspect of being an online business owner is to be able to work anywhere you'd like! Just as long as you have a computer and an internet connection, you can get just about everything done. The worst would be having to work in different time zones with the team.

Sure thing! Could you send me an email at peterkao@postertext.com? My inbox here is a bit flooded.

I thought about doing this last year and looked into it a bit. I have read Tim Ferris book that you mentioned.

But at the moment Im studying Economics at uni and it would be stupid to drop out so Im not going to. But after that what would you suggest? Like: Get a job and try start a business on the side. Go straight for a business start up. Work for a while to raise some money. Try get experience in new small business to learn from them. You got any thoughts on this? I know its not clear cut, but most people see it at education, job, retire. So it would be nice to get advice from someone who doesnt live like that. Thanks.

I think it's important to first get a sense of what being a business owner is like compared to being an employee. I know entrepreneurship is a "cool" thing to do these days, and it's caused a lot of people to get into it for the wrong reasons. In my case, I was lucky to have worked in several different companies in different capacities in the form of 4-month internships. It's really helped shaped what I think I would enjoy doing as a career. I would highly recommend finding an internship to begin with if you're just beginning your studies. Not only will you get paid, you'll have the work experience and some guidance in your career.

Make use of your school's resources! Talk to some of your business or economics professors. They would most likely have had some kind of entrepreneurial experience.

Exactly what I want to do and I have roughly 2 years before I finish college (high school) and if I can help it, don't want to go to university.

Currently attempting to have a go at my own site with no success, how do you keep your motivation to keep going and eventually hit the point where you can live off a website or two?

Keep at it man! I've created a handful of websites in the past. All fails, but you learn something new each time.

What drives me to keep going at it is the creation part. I love creating things. Try to find passion in your projects. If you can't, then perhaps entrepreneurship isn't a suitable route.

You said you have mainly traveled across Asia. Have the cultural differences between asian countries and your home country been difficult at times? Do people look at you funny, etc.? I'm assuming you're caucasian, of course. =p

Haha I'm of Asian descent actually, which has helped surprisingly well! Most locals either see me as part of them or as someone not too far away.

After being in a country for a month or two, how exactly do you decide where you'll go next? Do you have a list of places you want to go and just randomly choose one? Or do you try to move to an adjacent country to limit the traveling?

Adjacent country since I try to travel overland.

Do you design the posters yourself? This sounds like an amazing thing to do. Congrats on your success!

I did before but now I have artists helping me.

Which is your favorite country and your worst?

It's always hard to pick a favorite of something unless you break your preference down into categories, but I say roughly overall I liked Myanmar the most. Traveling in that country is like being transported back into time; developing cities and villages, unpolluted and magnificent sceneries, and most of all very kind people!

fancy a bum?

If it means this, then no thanks haha