IT ALL STARTED WITH A DUSTY BOOK...

 

Hi guys and welcome to my blog! I'm David, a thirtysomething photographer, content writer, and almost full-time Indiana Jones (more like Dora the Explorer really...)

 

A few years ago, I gave up my career, such as it was, and decided instead to consecrate my life to the pursuit of travel and happiness. I'm what you might call and Average Joe; the whole point of this blog is to prove that this dream life is not just the province of exceptional people (if those even exist!). Up until recently, I was like you: longing for a better life, but afraid to take a real shot at it. Then tragedy struck my family. That day I realised that the only thing scarier than trying something and failing was not trying at all and being miserable. If you lose everything, you can get it back. You only get the one shot at life though. Don't waste it being afraid.

What happened?

In short, my Dad almost died. He's a construction site manager and one day while conducting a routine inspection, a crane hit a scaffolding and collapsed on top of him. He survived the accident, but not without a scratch: both legs & arms were broken in several places, his ribcage had been smashed in, but worst of all, his spine had been severely damaged and the doctor told us that if he survived he would be paralized from the neck down.

This event shook my family to its core. In the months that followed his accident, back when hope was non-existent and he was staring at a lifetime in a bed, my Dad told me: "Don't waste your life. I lived mine like I had all the time in the world so I wasted most of it doing a job I didn't like. And look at me now". Watching my Dad cry was the worst experience in my life, but it also was the kharmic kick in ass I'd needed.

Luckily, this story has a happy ending. As it turn out, my father's recovery was nothing short of miraculous. His spine had been damaged but not severed, so feelings gradually came back in his hands, then his torso, then his feet and after a lot of physiotherapy and perseverance, he now walks almost normally. There are no words that can express how happy I am for his recovery, but his warning stayed engraved in my mind nonetheless. I had seen what real regret looked like and I wasn't about to let it happen to me. What I wanted to do was clear: travel the world, see everything, be everything and live everyday to the fullest. 

Transitioning to a remote life...

Figuring out my end goal was the easy part (for me at least!). Now I had to work out the HOW. How was I going to make it happen? After a bit of research, I quickly came up to 2 conclusions. The first one was that travelling full time does not requires $1000s in the bank. I could do it on my current salary. Which led me to the 2nd conclusion: I needed to match my current income, but I had to find a way to make that money while on the road instead of chained to a desk.

I knew my current skill set (digital marketing and copywriting) would help but it wouldn't be enough. I had to find out what other services people would be ready to pay me for that could also be done remotely. For the next few months, all my free time was spent reading blogs and forums, devouring books on a variety of topics from remote working to accounting, all the while teaching myself the new skills I'd need to make my dream a reality. While doing all this, I also started travelling a lot more. 5 countries the first year, 6 the next one, and 9 the year after that. If this was going to happen, it had to start right away.

Things start to fall into places...

By now, I'd seen enough of the world to be able to say that this new life wasn't just a dream. It was a happening. However, to make my victory complete, I also had to be able to work on the road and make money while on the move. I had kept my 9-5 job going for as long as I could but now it was time to move on to the next stage. I started by taking on small projects on the side: mostly friends or friends of friends. I made a pittance from these gigs, but I needed a portfolio and a good one if I ever hoped to start charging decent cash for my services.

Once I had a few jobs under my belt and I'd ran out of acquaintances to flog websites to, it was time to pass the ultimate test: sell something to someone who didn't know me. A perfect stranger who wouldn't mince their words if my work sucked. I scoured all the freelance marketplaces until I found someone willing to give me a chance. I built their website for next to nothing, but they loved the result and I received my first payment ever from someone who did not know me.

From that point on, it was just a case of repeating the process. I completed projects after projects, raising my rates every so often, until around 30% of my income came from the internet, which allowed me to go part-time and travel more. I'll always remember the first time I worked remotely: it was in a little cafe in Cozumel (Mexico). I'd finished responding to a few emails on my laptop and took a moment to take it all in - my dream was taking shape. I knew that this was only was the beginning of a long journey, but at this particular point in time, I'd never felt truer to myself.

Meanwhile, back home...

My side job had started to become a full-time job. I'd racked up a few more clients and it was now time to take the leap and leave my office job. I offered to keep them as client. To my amazement, they said yes. My fledging side hustle was fast becoming a one-man digital marketing agency. While it was only meant to provide me with the financial means to travel the world, my new work became a journey of its own.

Working with small business owners, I discovered myself a passion for helping others bring their vision to life. I relished every opportunity to put what I had learnt to the service of someone else's dream. That's when I decided to specialize exclusively in solutions for small and medium-sized businesses. I would make less money in the long run, but I liked the idea of having a job with a purpose.

Why a travel blog?

Because starting your own remote biz' and traipsing around the world is the sweetest life, but it's also a lonely business. Setting out on your own is scary. Creating something new out of nothing, is scarier. Even more so when you have no instructions manual or a clear path to follow.

When I first started, I had nothing; no experience, no plan and no one to relate to. Back then, blogs were a lifeline, not only for the wealth of information they contained, but also because sometimes you just need to know that someone else is going through the same journey, is having the same issues, is sharing the same doubts and is overcoming them.

And that, in a nutshell, is why I started The Rookie Road. 

I hope this blog fill in some of the blanks and acts as the bridge between you and this existence that you long for but don't quite know how to reach. It's also a reminder that being a rookie can be a lot of fun if you let it! The real journey starts when you make the decision that you will not waste another day living a life that's never felt like it's really yours.

I hope you take as much pleasure reading this blog has I take writing it.

See you on the road!

David x