Would you go the blog route or contract work?

Hey everyone,

Looking for blogs by individuals who document their progress/business in South East Asia - ideally Vietnam, Cambodia or Laos - but also Thailand/Myanmar too.

Thank you,

Haiducci

I’m planning a stint in Ireland and I’m wondering about the 90-day tourist visa. Official information just mentions the 90-day limit without elaboration. Is it akin to Schengen where it’s counted against the most recent 180-day period? I’m asking because I might like to take trips to the continent flying out of Dublin, but I don’t know how I should account for the days I’m gone if I do that. Do I stop the 90-day clock for Ireland while I’m away, or should I make sure I’m gone from Ireland <= 90 days after my initial arrival date, regardless of where else I go during that interval, just to be safe? What have others done?

Hello nomads,

Due to a recent US work visa rejection (H1B), I’m considering turning to freelancing and being a digital nomad. My former employer (US based start-up) wants me to continue rendering my services as a contractor/freelancer (so I have a confirmed major client and I’ll probably take on other minor clients on the side). From the get go I want to get my taxes right and I was hoping you seasoned nomads can assist me. Some of the key aspects of my case are:

1. I hold an Indian passport and as long as I don’t stay in India for 182 days I’m considered non-resident (No taxes on foreign income as long as services are not rendered in India, otherwise 30% tax).

2. I may have to visit the US occasionally, so having a tax-residency in a country with a US tax-treaty may be beneficial (I maybe incorrect here).

3. I’m willing not to be a perpetual traveller and put down roots in a low tax country that offers easy tax residency with low-taxes.

4. Will incorporating in a tax-friendly help my case? Or will just perpetual travel be enough to completely avoid taxes?

P.s. If any of you offer sound tax advice for a fee and are aware of international taxation laws (especially US tax laws), do let me know.

Hi experienced nomads!

I’ve been nomading around SE Asia, HK and China for the last 4 to 5 months. I’ve been moving a lot and now I need to settle down for 3 months to finish some work. So the idea is to be in a stimulating city where I can find nomads, start-ups, self growth, self improvement, spirituality environments.
I already been for one month in Chiang mai, and liked it a lot in this respect, but wanted to try somewhere new, so was thinking to go to Ho Chi Minh or Bali. As I will be working mainly most of the time, the idea is not to spend much this three months, so my idea is to spend around 1200usd per month.

Would appreciate any opinions on this.

Best place to sit down and work for three months on a 1200usd budget a month?

Thnx

I’m going to Australia for the first time in a week or so. I’d like to visit places like Byron (from Sydney). But I’d prefer not to rent a car.

I know Google Maps supports public transit directions in Aus, but based on my experience in London, they’re often not as useable / accurate as the native planning tools (e.g. National Rail app in the UK).

Can anyone recommend any local apps / sites for planning routes on trains, buses, etc. in Aus?

I have been sent a short term contract to do a remote trial for a Canadian company. I am pretty new to the contracting game and in the past I’ve only contracted locally in New Zealand and the most I ever signed was an NDA.

I’m pretty wary of the North American legal system, where people make a living off suing or encouraging people to sue. I hope this will never be the case for me, but I want to be smart and cover myself.

Who are the top local or international insurance companies offering affordable packages for NZ contractors working for NZ and international companies?

Thanks,
Dan

I’m a New Zealander just starting to do some remote contracting.

The nature of the work will be a more specialised version of my previous full time job. Initially, my goal is to rapidly up-skill and learn best practice by working for an industry leader. I also intend to build a business locally with a slightly different angle. I’ve just come back from 9 months travelling, so I’m not in a massive rush to hit the road again, but long term I want to have the option to consult abroad.

I am in discussion with a Canadian company who is hiring. Their job advertisement states that they offer freelancer/contractor work at 20-40 hours a week, and full-time employees 40 hours a week.

If I have the option between these two, which should I choose?

Some things going around in my head:

• employees have more protection if the client sues (and this North America)
• i want to work on my own business in my spare time
• i want to work for other clients and do different types of work
• if I contract for 40 hours a week, then I have as little time for my own work as if I was a full-time employee

Note that I don’t have the offer yet, but given my experience to date I think have good potential.

Thanks,
Dan

Pretty much what the title says, I’ve been trying to find a few good blogs to follow by nomads in the mid-budget range. There seems to be a ton in the budget/backpacker range, trying to do everything as cheaply as possible or, in the mid-budget range but are short-term travellers.

There does seem to be a lack of blogs in the mid-budget, long term travel area that aren’t run by professional bloggers & full of sponsored posts. Am I looking in the wrong places or is it just that people in this niche are too busy making a living doing other work don’t bother blogging?

I follow Making It Anywhere, which is good but not updated much. Any other recommendations?

Hello,

My wife and I are bicycle touring from the USA to Patagonia and for the second time on this trip my lousy teeth have come around to bite me in the ass (pun intended, obv). It’s not as bad as the previous time, just a chipped crown, so it can wait a bit, so I’d like to know if anyone has any recommendations for Latin American countries that are good places to get dental work done from a price vs. quality/cleanliness standpoint. If you know any specific outstanding dentist somewhere, that would be great too!

Mexico is a great place for dental work and I got a tooth rebuilt there for a good price, but now I’m in El Salvador and heading south, so Mexico is off the table.

Thanks for your input.

I didn’t become a nomad, but I joined Nomad Forum to understand more about it. I have been freelancing remotely thru Elance for the last two years so I would like to know if there are other who have been impacted by their merge with Odesk and migration to Upwork.com. Just curious to hear more about it.

I’m an American who has been a sole proprietor (freelancer) for a long time. I’ve occasionally hired American subcontractors, who I send 1099s in January. What do I need to consider tax-wise or in any other way financially if I want to hire a subcontractor from abroad?

I’m also interested in knowing more about any roadblocks potential clients from other countries would have in contracting to me. I haven’t done business across borders yet. Thanks.

What is the best blog or podcast you know of for digital nomads and freedom seekers?

So I had a client go silent on me recently as soon as I brought up the topic of delinquent invoice payment. We typically speak daily, and otherwise have an excellent relationship. They love the work I do (at least, their praise seems authentic and on target). I love the work I do for them. We had a verbal agreement that I would be paid within 2 weeks of invoice. My contract allowed for 30 days / 4 weeks. At the second invoice, they went into 6 weeks without paying me.

I asked about it, and got no information in return. I kept sending emails twice a week to politely ask for information about what the issue was, and when I could expect payment. I received an extremely brief non-answer once, and more silence. I began to explore what other measures I could take, I honestly believed I had been scammed. They owed me a 5-figure sum (USD).

I work on about 8 different websites/codebases for this client. Each has a git repository, with a full history of all the other contractors, and naturally, their emails. I have paired up with a few of them on some projects (front end / back end dev relationships), so I know some of them on as personal a level a remote dev coworker can have.

I considered extracting all the emails from each project from the last year’s worth of commits, and then emailing each one individually to ask if they’ve ever had payment problems with this client. This would also obviously share information that I had not been paid for a time that violated the terms of our contract. We have a policy of being able to freely contact each other, via slack, or email, so its not like emailing them alone is violating some kind of privacy term on their end (or mine).

Would it be illegal for me to discuss this information with the other contractors? This concerns businesses incorporated in the USA. They are an LLC, if that matters. Could my client have grounds to seek some kind of legal retribution if they found out I did that? I think its only fair that they all know if I had been ripped off, and also may want to band together to fight the client if they too had also been ripped off. There is nothing explicitly stated in my contract that says I cant share information about my experience with them with other contractors (or anyone, really, outside of technology-NDA sort of things).

Note: I was certainly going to report them to Glassdoor, Freelancer’s Union, BBB, and any other institution that I could, if this went on much longer. They finally caved after the 5th email or so, and paid me (again, without speaking to me about it, which is what bothers me the most). I also was going to start resorting to phone calls AND email bombardments (always polite :-P) first, before taking these next steps. This happened with the 2nd invoice in our relationship, which concerned me greatly, since I was told when hired that they had funds to pay me for even more hours than I was putting in. I am aware of the frequency with which freelancers get ripped off by clients (FU reports ~40%). I refuse to tolerate it, especially if we have been told otherwise, and am a strong advocate (re: activist) for workers’ rights in general. Just an aside, Id have been far more tolerant, had they chosen to discuss things with me, and let me know what was happening - the silence drove me towards this aim.

Hey all, so I’m about to become my small companies first remote employee. As such we will be redoing my employment contract. Does anyone have any examples of remote working contracts or suggestions as to things that should go into it that don’t usually go in a normal contract?

It seems like every method I’ve tried so far has been a struggle.

My bank - Wells Fargo - has some options, but they’re very cumbersome and, though I have a business account, “SurePay” has a $2000 limit and “Direct Pay” takes forever.

I’ve used SquareCash if people have a US debit card, but that doesn’t work for foreign contractors.
I’ve mailed people checks, but that is silly and not scalable.
I don’t think that I can sensibly require all of my contractors to accept bitcoin.
I just went through a long and tedious back-and-forth with Xoom that involved them taking it upon themselves to cancel my transaction… not worth getting into.

SO for those who pay international contractors/get paid by companies in countries that you aren’t from - what is the preferred money transfer?

Right now I’m on a Google Apps for Business account for my organization. It’s the free one from several years ago that’s grandfathered into free, but has some account restrictions. I’m about at the point of outgrowing it and am considering either full Google for Work or Office365. I’ve been over pros and cons and both seem very good at a similar price. So I’m wondering what experience others have had. Specifically around:

• Storage and backup, with versioning.
• Granular file access control and logging.
• Migration pathway. (Anyone who does IT with experience migrating from G to MS contact me offlist for a potential project.)
• Considerations for storing client-sensitive information there at some point.
• Other differentiators or considerations commonly missed.
• Other services to consider that are similar (email, storage, document collaboration, security, reliability, near-zero IT support requirement)

Hi Guys

I am thinking of developing a startup that acts as a platform for Travel Bloggers who are on the road to act as travel agents and book flights for people and give bespoke advice on where they have travelled.

This could be a good way for people in the nomadic lifestyle to monetise their travel experiences.

However I am not a travel blogger so was wondering what nomadic bloggers thought of dedicating sometime each day to be online and take peoples queries about travel and book in flights and hotels.

Hey everyone,

I’m Pete Rojwongsuriya, a UI/UX specialized entrepreneur, currently running 2 startups, Travelistly and BucketListly, and working on client’s work at The Pete Design all from the road.

I’ve been traveling solo for a year and a half now and I often express my opinion about travel over at BucketListly Blog. I am also an amateur photographer (Photo Blog) and love creating travel videos. I recently came back from New Zealand and you can watch what I have experienced there on Vimeo.

AMA.