Vagabond Insider

This is the reason for road trips.

Road trips are fun. When I was in high school I would go on random road trips with friends and in college I would go on road trips for more fun. I’ve driven all over around where I live and across the country for many different reasons.

Sometimes I may spend a lot of time preparing for the road trip or I would just pack everything the day before and stop by Wal-mart for food and items.

I’ve had a lot of fun with road trips, they are especially fun with other people.

Recently I drove across the country back and forth for business. I drove a good 1867 miles each way, about a total driving time of 29 hours each way.

While it wasn’t a normal road trip, I did everything I would during a road trip. It was not a conventional drive as I would stop at rests stops to nap instead of stopping at other locations to sleep.

The first part of the road trip series is about deciding why and where to go. I had a destination for this trip, which was across the country to get my residency in another state. Also to register my business as a foreign Limited Liability Company.

Why a Road Trip

There are many reasons why for a road trip. Do you need to [...]

Posted on February 6th 2010.

Keep it a secret, your eyes only!

OK, I didn’t plan to write about this program at all, though I think The Shoemoney System can help a lot of newbies to making money online become true Vagabonds. I’m not selling my soul promoting this program no, I signed up for this program myself.

If you are one of the lucky ones who reads Vagabond Insider, keep this a secret, too many people doing this system will create a lot of competition.

I signed up for the system the day it launched. I’ve been bombarded with advertisements from many different places. From John Chow’s blog and email subscription, to Jonathan Volk’s blog, to even Shoemoney’s blog and email subscription(s) (yea I received multiple same emails from shoemoney about the program).

Receiving emails nearly everyday got the message into my head to check out the program, I watched some of the intro videos Shoemoney provides and it hooked me into it.

I’m currently going through the videos, the podcasts, and signing up for affiliate networks in the program. The system doesn’t give everything at once, something I both like and dislike. It means I’m only limited to the videos released every week, though I won’t overwhelm myself with watching dozens and dozens of videos.

If you have ever watched dozens of How To videos [...]

Posted on February 4th 2010.

Be happy! Sometimes great events just happen.

I resigned from my job one month ago during this recession.

My income has not been as stable and some expenses have popped up. I recently went on a 2,000 mile drive to do the following things in the new state, Texas:

$187.00 Register my car
$34.00 Get a new license
~$445.00 Set residency in a new state for tax purposes (I’ll write about why this is great for a traveler in another post)
Apply for a Sales Permit
$879.00 Apply my Limited Liability Company as a Foreign Entity

Luckily the business related items (even the drive) is an expense for my business. I’m able to write off my mileage and not pay taxes on business expenses. This is one reason why a majority of millionaires in the book Millionaire Next Door, are business owners. This is one reason why I recommend starting a business as well. Many of these business owners mix business travel with personal so it is a business expense.

Being an employee doesn’t allow this freedom or tax advantage.

Many of my friends work as independent contractors as Search Engine Evaluators (google this if you want to apply to these jobs). There are thousands of people around the world earning a good wage telling search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc if certain search content is good. In the United States, they making [...]

Posted on Feburary 2nd 2010.

Don’t kick yourself into bad habits.

Do you want to be a superstar? Would you enjoy accomplishing so much in your life?

If not, don’t read on, it won’t help. If so lets continue to good habits.

First lets talk about habits. From thefreedictionary.com,

“A recurrent, often unconscious pattern of behavior that is acquired through frequent repetition.”

What does this mean? We acquire habits sometimes without knowing it. There are both good and bad habits, lets learn how to establish good ones.

Step One

First step is to define what you think is good or bad. I won’t decide for you, it is something ultimately you will decide.

What is good to you? Working out 3-4 times a week? Being on time to work? Thinking positively? Do you think any of these items are impossible or difficult to get into a habit of doing? Good, lets use it to our advantage.

One of the great lessons I learned about good habits, they are usually done by people I find successful. Who do you know or who do you see as successful? What do they do which you find good? Can you do it, yes you can.

What is bad to you? Smoking a pack of cigarettes everyday? Thinking you’re not good enough? Being late to everything you attend? Do you think any of these items are impossible or difficult to get out of a habit of doing? Good, lets use it to our advantage.

One of the great lessons I learned about bad habits, they are usually done by people I find [...]

Posted on January 30th 2010.

Working the 9 to 5 makes vagabonds go crazy.

If you read my very first post about quitting my job, you may have noticed I hinted toward an interview with a fellow college student resigning his job as well. Sean and I were in the same college club, an outdoors club.

And here he is, Sean Coleman, joining the ranks of my definition of a vagabond.

Here is a little bit about Sean:

Sean graduated with a B.S.E in Computer Systems Engineering in December 2009. With an extensive background in technology entrepreneurship, Sean has successfully run a profitable web development firm for five years while developing extensive business relationships.

Additionally, Sean has completed his thesis on open-source software success through the mentorship of ASU’s University Technology Officer, Dr. Sannier. Sean successfully completed ASU Technopolis’ Launch Prep Entrepreneurship Course offering in-depth training of business development, marketing, and sales, led by seasoned entrepreneur Mr. Dan O’Neil.

His combined entrepreneurial passion [...]

Posted on January 28th 2010.

Anti-social is the new social.

Have you seen a group of people typing away on their phones instead of talking?

I have. I use to be one of these people in fact. I had my blackberry (aka crackberry). Now seeing these people waste precious time they have with their friends to type away on their phones, allows me to value my time spent with others.

It isn’t just about being anti-social either. It is a big time waster to type away on these phones most of the time. I know a lot of people who use unproductive behavior as an excuse to not be productive. Do you find yourself tweaking with your new iPhone App instead of finishing that paper or making that sales call? Do you press on the iFart application and laugh in the corner?

I would find myself wasting time on my phone doing useless things like tweaking settings here and there instead of working. When hanging out with other people I would pull out my phone every few minutes to check email or other items. Now, with a few tweaks, I can focus on the important things in my life. Dinner and special time will be interrupted no more. To me as a Vagabond, these few steps allow me to focus on relationships more.

I’m actually planning to experiment life with no phone and only use Skype. Though I would actually want to keep a phone just to keep in touch [...]

Posted on January 26th 2010.

License and Registration please.

These dreaded four words. Before these four words, those flashing lights from some car behind you. You start to pull over and say “Ah crap.” This car from behind you pulls up, they step out of their car. You roll down your window, and the person says, “License and Registration please.”

Most every driver has had this situation, I’ve had my fair share. Luckily in almost every instance the police officer has let me go. The one time I did get a ticket was when I was on a bike in a college town, officers think bike riders in a college towns are worthless.

I think it is important as a vagabond to avoid tickets and trouble with officers whenever possible. Vagabonds may go on many road trips, so there are many chances for being pulled over. It is especially important internationally.

Here’s what happened during my road trip from California to Texas, I was pulled over in Texas.

It was daytime, around 12:00pm, I was a few hours from my destination. More and more traffic started showing up on the highway, and I found myself passing a truck and a semi, they were going 5-7 miles above the speed limit.

The whole way I was driving 10 miles per hour above the speed limit during this road trip. I saw the cop as I drove by, he was sitting in the median with his radar gun. I thought to myself, ah crap, and said to myself [...]

Posted January 23rd 2010.

Life is relationships.

One of the main reasons I’ve chosen to vagabond around the world is to increase the quality of relationships in my life.

I was the opposite before, I use to not value relationships with people. Getting my job functions or business done came first. Now relationships is priority #1 in any situation. Business, personal, love, relationships with the person comes first.

I felt trapped where I was in my previous job, I would mostly only see the people I worked with. Of course only mostly being around those people was my fault. I always have the choice to go out and meet other people and I did go out and meet people.

From the beginning my choice to meet these new people outside work was always destructive. I went into these relationships subconsciously with the wrong mindset. Over time these relationships would deteriorate based upon [...]

Posted on January 21st 2010.

Enjoy this view.

What do you worry about when you travel? Your car? Your house? Your possessions? Where you will stay? Your safety?

I was looking to purchase a house a couple of months ago. I looked at it as a good opportunity to build equity and have roommates pay for my mortgage.

What I didn’t want was the head ache of having a bunch of stuff, the remodeling, the collecting of rent from roommates who don’t pay. It would also tie me down to the house until I could sell it, at a loss if sold early. It would also mean joining an earning treadmill I see a lot of people on.

Keeping up with the Joneses

As a college graduate, I saw how my purchasing habits changed when my income tripled in one year. My desire for certain cars changed. I was getting ready to buy a [...]

Posted on January 19th 2010.

Our friends determine who we are.

When growing up, my mom would be concerned who my friends were. I thought my mom was just being nosy. I’m sure many people reading this had the same situation before.

If you have kids now, you are most likely concerned who their friends are.

The reason for the concern of friends? Sometimes we are not able to explain it without thinking about it, though to put it in words, we are who our friends are.

I’m not saying we’ll only be as good or as bad as our friends, though we’ll be very near their level. Rich people can have poor friends and poor people can have rich friends, though it usually doesn’t mix. If we want to make success inevitable, shouldn’t we associate with the people we want to be like?

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again.

“We are who we are going to be for the rest of our lives after college or high school, except for two things, the people we meet and the books we read.”

I’m definitely going to repeat the important concepts a lot, to reinforce it into my head, and into yours.

I can tell you from my experiences, the friends I’ve had, and the friends my friends had, how similar they were to their friends. The friends who did drugs, their friends usually did drugs. The violent friends [...]

Posted on January 14th 2010.