As you know, I’ve just made the transition from Central Florida to Las Tablas, Panama. I’m getting settled into my new rental home here, and trying to amp up my work schedule to something more resembling normal for me.

This morning I came across a situation I hadn’t considered ahead of time. It may sound small and petty, but it’s indicative of the kinds of changes you need to be prepared for when you move your portable career overseas.

What’s the problem?

Podcasts

In case you’ve been in a bubble for the past decade, a podcast is:

“… a type of digital media consisting of an episodic series of files (either audio or video) subscribed to and downloaded through web syndication. The word is a neologism derived from “broadcast” and “pod” from the success of the iPod, as podcasts are often listened to on portable media players.” (Wikipedia.org)

I have a computer, internet (most of the time) and my iPod. So what could possibly be the problem?

The problem is habits.

Several times each week, I listen to podcasts that help me with the business side of my freelance business. They consist of interviews, ideas and advice from people like Chris Brogan, Brian Clark, and a few other movers and shakers in the blogging and freelance writing worlds.

Back in Florida, I listened in the car when I was out and about doing errands. I’d grab my iPod, plug it into my car’s mp3 jack, and off I’d go.

Here, I have no car. And somehow the thought of trying to listen to a podcast while being driven around Las Tablas at breakneck speeds in a taxi just doesn’t cut it.

I can’t listen to them on the computer, because there are way too many easy distractions. I find myself checking email, looking at my Google Analytics, and generally noodling around online while I listen. As a result, when I get to the end of the podcast I had very little memory of what I’ve heard.

It’s a dilemma — and if you have any suggestions for me, I’d love to hear them!

Workday Rhythm

Here’s another issue (this one I did anticipate, but I suspect it’ll be a while before I resolve it).

Back in Florida, my working day had a certain rhythm, a predictable ebb and flow that I created. It let me do my most demanding or creative work when I was at my best, and filled in with mundane tasks during my non-peak times.

On a typical day I’d start slowly, reading email and catching up on important forums. Then I’d shut off the distractions and knuckle down to writing for a couple of hours. I’d throw in a break, getting out of the house for lunch or some errands, then come back and work hard for another couple hours. I’d ease off by tackling some of the mundane stuff that’s part of any business.

In the evening after dinner was my non-writing creative time — planning, strategizing and such.

So what’s the problem?

I’m living in the real tropics now, in a house that has air conditioning only in the bedroom. By the afternoon, one of the times I’m used to cranking out writing, it’s too hot to think. I’m experimenting with doing more writing after dinner, but that still leaves a chunk of time in the afternoon when I’m not accomplishing much, and my strategizing and planning time is now being used for writing.

I’m sure I’ll get this all worked out eventually. In the meantime, it’s a bit frustrating.

If you’ve already moved your portable career to a new location, how did you handle these kinds of issues? Leave a comment!

Before you get into the technical issues of setting up your blog, though, you need to have some sort of a plan. Because, if you’re doing it right, a blog is a business and every business requires planning.

Sure, it’s wonderful to think about knocking off a few articles from your hammock while sipping margaritas on the beach, but if you want to generate an income you’ll need to do more than that.

Today we’ll take a look at planning for a successful blogging business from a bird’s eye view. Over the coming weeks, we’ll drill down and get more detailed.

Four Things to Think About Before You Start

Before you ever touch your keyboard or register your domain name, here are four basic items you need to spend some time on.

1. What to write about
2. Identify your audience
3. Have something to sell
4. Have a way to sell it

Once you’ve determined what you’ll write about, you can choose your domain name. Your subject will suggest some obvious possibilities.

If you’re living overseas and planning to write about your adventures in your new country, something like NewLifeinPanama.com might work.

If your passion is cooking and you’ll be sharing recipes and techniques, SusannasPanamaKitchen.com says it all.

If you’re a CPA and plan to blog about an accounting or tax-related topic, choose a businesslike domain name that your audience will relate to.

It’s important to have an idea, before you start, of who your audience will be. Two bloggers writing about Panama will have very different content if one audience is 20-somethings who love the night life and the other is mid-level executives tired of the rat race.

Once you’ve settled on a topic and have a sense of your audience, you’ll need a way to make money from, or monetize, your blog. There are lots of ways to create an income from a blog, and you can use one or all of them in combination. They include:

• Selling advertising space on your blog
• Finding companies that sell products or services your audience would pay for, and joining them as an affiliate
• Creating your own product to sell
• Selling a service

Most people look at selling advertising space first, but it’s not very profitable unless your traffic (the number of people viewing your site per day) is very high.

As an affiliate, you can offer almost anything to your readers. Your commissions will vary widely, from a small percentage if you sell a book from Amazon.com to a 50% commission for selling an electronic information product. Many major retailers have affiliate programs, and you can affiliate yourself to companies in the travel industry, retail, entertainment, and more.

While it’s tough to make a good living from affiliate sales unless you have thousands of visitors each day, affiliate selling can be a nice supplement to other blogging income streams.

Creating your own product is more difficult, but infinitely more rewarding than selling someone else’s. You can make a better income with a smaller audience when you sell your own stuff.

I’m mainly talking about electronic products here — if you’re living the untethered expat life with a portable career, you probably don’t want to get involved with packing and shipping a physical inventory of items, although it’s possible to do so.

One blogger I know started with a study guide for a professional exam he was studying for anyway.

I recommend building your blog on a WordPress framework, and teach how to use WordPress in our ongoing tutorial series here. Down the road, I plan to incorporate the tutorials into an e-book about building a WordPress blog.

If your topic is fitness, you could create videos demonstrating the exercise techniques you write about.

When creating a product, keep in mind that today’s buyers are not willing to pay for information, but they are willing to pay to learn how to do something.

Many bloggers use their blogs to generate interest in the service they provide. Writers, life coaches, accountants, lawyers, computer programmers, almost any service provider can create a healthier business by adding regular blogging to their marketing mix.

Do you already have a blog? Share a link in the comments below!

photo by stevendepolo on flickr

I recently received an email from Matt. Matt’s a medical professional who’s starting to research a move to one of the Central or South American countries. He’s not sure how transferable his professional credentials are and asks:

“Thank you once again. I really want to get this project off the ground, and I’ll take all of the help I can get.

“Which leads me to another question: how can one get started in this without much money?”

When Money is Tight, Get Creative

Matt, you’ve come to right place. We were pretty much wiped out by the financial crisis of 2008-2009, so we’re making our move on a shoestring.

However, you really do need to have a little money or at least usable credit.

Matt didn’t explain what “without much money” means to him. Does he mean he doesn’t have $100,000 to invest in the country, or that he doesn’t have a few hundred dollars for a plane fare?

Either way, the first thing Matt should do is narrow down his list of countries from six to no more than three. Then he needs to figure out how he can visit the countries on his short list.

It doesn’t matter how great a place sounds on paper, until you’ve had your boots on the ground you can’t possibly know whether you’d be happy living there. Once Matt narrows down his country choice, he’ll be in a better position to figure out what he needs to actually move there.

When funds are really tight, you need to get creative. What can Matt do to get himself to one of his country choices?

As a medical professional, it’s quite likely he could take some time away without worrying too much about finding or returning to a job when he gets back.

My recommendation to Matt: explore possible volunteer opportunities. Look for something that will pay expenses of transportation, food and lodging in the country and arrange to stay as long as you can. Rent out your home or apartment while you’re gone.

Ideally, Matt could arrange back-to-back volunteerism so he could try out two or even three of his countries during a six-month period. At the end of the six months, he should have a pretty good idea of where he wants to live.

Then he can return to the US and go back to work for a bit while he maps out his next step.

How to Narrow Down Your Country Choice

There’s an almost limitless number of factors that can influence your country choice. Some of the more obvious include

• climate
• language and culture
• work or business opportunities
• cost of living
• health care
• ease of travel to “home” country

To weigh out what’s really important to you can require some deep soul searching.

And, if you’ll be moving with a spouse, partner or children, the equation becomes even more complex.

It’s certainly possible to step through this exercise on your own, or with free help from websites and online forums.

There are lots of good country-specific forums out there. I’ve been hanging around the Panama Forum quite a bit in recent months, for example, and there are some good country forums on Yahoo as well.

If You Can Afford Some Shortcuts

If you have a bit of discretionary income to invest in the process, though, there are a couple of resources I recommend.

The first is 52 Days to Your New Life Overseas. As its name implies, it’s a 52-day (or longer, depending on how much time you have to put into it) series of thoughtful and thought-provoking materials to get you from wherever you are now to your new country. (You can read a review here. For contrast, here’s a review of a program I found to be nothing but fluff.)

The second is not a program for expats as such, but was designed by a life coach to help you really understand what makes you thrive. Called Live Bold & Bloom, it promises to help you create a life that is fun, adventurous, peaceful, exciting, challenging, engaging and meaningful.

You can read more about Live Bold & Bloom here.

photo by paul-simpson.org on flickr

“Since the day my husband and I met I think we knew we were destined to be nomads. Neither one of us seems very good at staying in one place for too long, whatever the reasons may be. But when we had our first girl, we realized that children of parents like us grow up not really knowing the rest of the family.

“Since she was 12 months old, we did our best to get Bianca to talk or interact with her grandparents over Skype or any other video-chat service but to no avail. The only results we got was a frustrated toddler who didn’t really “get” it and an upset grandmother who just wanted her granddaughter to know her. She wanted to do with her the activities she normally would if she were visiting. That’s when we finally said, “There HAS to be a better way”. But we couldn’t find anything that provided interaction between family members and kids.

“That’s when we came up with Family Click. At Family Click, kids can video-chat but can also do all sorts of activities with their long distance family like reading a book, watching short children’s programming, draw and paint together and look at family pictures and videos together. Everything a family is meant to do in a family-room but can’t do when living apart.

“Also, considering that we are multicultural, I’ve made a personal mission to include books and videos from all over the world. I’ve been able to get material from authors and producers from 9 different countries, and counting. That way, my kids as well as any other kid will be exposed to all kinds of children content from around the world.

“All I wanted was for my girls to have fun with family, while being safe! This is why there are so many security layers on the site. No ads, private family groups, by invitation only. While I understand that nowadays social is the in thing, I do know that as a mom I want to keep my kids safe and away from the social media spectacle.

“Even though we launched our BETA less than three months ago, my daughters have been using it almost on a weekly basis with their grandparents. My two-year old starts screaming for her grandmother and her favorite book or video every time she sees our orange screen!

“All the hard work I’ve put into FamilyClick for almost two years has been worth it. I am beginning to see it come to fruition with new users almost every day and other families slowly learning about it and using it.

“Nothing makes me happier than the possibility of sharing with others what has helped my family come together and my girls to enjoy “being” with their grandparents in spite of being 3,000 miles apart.”

FamilyClick allows you to register and use their basic video chat features absolutely free. Then, if you want to take advantage of premium content, simply load your account through PayPal.

Go to the FamilyClick website now.

If you can write or photograph, you have the means to support your overseas life. If you can do both, you can carve out a big niche for yourself.

But what if you need to develop some skills before you get that first paid assignment, or sell the first story or image?

Join a limited number of others for an outstanding workshop which will help you develop a portable career as a travel writer and/or photographer.

The Ultimate Travel Writer’s Workshop

Next month, a very special group will gather in the Windy City, Chicago, USA. AWAI’s Travel Writer’s Life group has put together a program that promises to turn you from traveler to travel writer in three days of intensive workshops. You’ll also have a chance to meet representatives from travel publications who are looking for new writers, and you’ll leave the event with a publishable piece that you’ve completed.

As a special bonus, there will be a session with a professional photographer as well, to help you integrate photos into your travel writing.

Get more information about the Ultimate Travel Writer’s Workshop here.

(If you can’t make the live event but still want access to all the great information about becoming a travel writer, go here.)

The Photographer’s Life

“Ah, Venice!” Canals, gorgeous architecture, world-class museums. Everywhere you turn in beautiful Venice, Italy, you’ll find wonderful subjects for photographs. It’s a city like no other, and this September you can enjoy it as part of a photography expedition.

You’ll learn all about taking — and selling — professional quality photographs.

It’s a five-day adventure. And if you register before the end of July, you can save some money as well.

Find out more about the Venice Photography Expedition here.

If you’d rather learn on your own timetable, click here for information about how to Turn Your Pictures into Cash.

Both these workshops are filling fast, so act now!

photo by Bien Stephenson on flickr

You know all those millions of jobs lost in 2008, 2009, and 2010? Many of them didn’t disappear. They’re resurfacing today…online.

You can find them if you know how to look…and you can fill them anywhere on earth you can get an Internet connection.

I know publishing. Starting 26 years ago, I made a business of the old-fashioned kind of publishing, with envelopes and stamps. Today my business is virtual.

Today, publishing companies (like mine) may need the services of a copywriter or a particular editor only once or twice a month. They don’t want, therefore, to be liable for a full-time salary and the associated employer taxes, health benefits, vacation time, work space, etc. Easier and cheaper to find a freelance worker with the required skills.

This is one small example. The reality today is that there are opportunities like these awaiting entrepreneurs almost everywhere in the world. You can turn a hobby into an income and become part of the new mobile, global workforce. You can approach this low-key, with nothing more than a laptop, or more ambitiously, with the idea that you want to build a business, with a base and staff, to generate the income you need to live the life you want.

I had a friend in Poland years ago who learned that Burger King was going to open up shop there and needed warehouse space for its supplies. My friend bought a warehouse. Burger King became his client. In time, he expanded his storage business to include other clients and other products…and he made a nice living for himself.

Another friend noticed how few coffee shops existed in Warsaw. (This was 15 years ago, before Starbucks came to this town.) My friend found a local roaster to roast the coffee beans and then packaged them himself. He set up a combination retail and wholesale operation that was bought by another larger one. That company is still going strong.

Some of the best overseas businesses start like these two–organically. You show up, discover a market niche, and find a way to fill it.

Others can be more pre-planned.

About four years ago, I took early retirement from the company where I’d worked for nearly 23 years. Six months later, I realized that retirement didn’t suit me. I liked being in business.

For me, the question wasn’t, what business might make sense? (I enjoyed the business I’d already spent 23 years learning how to practice.) For me, the question was, where best should I base the business I want to launch? (Panama stood out as the obvious choice.)

What could you do?

• A laptop-based business (consulting, copywriting, travel writing, photography, programming, even bookkeeping, for example) is the easiest to launch overseas and allows you to work from almost anywhere in the world…
• Online publishing…
• A franchise can be an easy way to hit the ground running with a business model, strategy, branding, marketing, and support already in place…
• A tourism-based business–a bed and breakfast, a dive shop, a bar, restaurant, ice cream shop, wine store, souvenir stand, etc….
• An expat-based business anywhere there is a decent-sized expat community gives you a chance to provide a product or service you (and your fellow expats) miss from back home…
• A niche store…because one of the big advantages of being someone from the developed world looking to start a business in the undeveloped world is that lots of unfilled niches will occur to you quickly…
• Real estate is the business that many expat entrepreneurs gravitate toward. You bring an understanding of the efficient real estate market to places where the real estate markets are typically anything but…
• Import/export…
• A business geared toward the locals…like my friend who started the coffee business in Warsaw. He translated a developed world idea to a developing marketplace full of virgin consumers…
• Farming or wining…

Three-plus years on with my own overseas start-up, I can tell you that it’s not easy. But I don’t regret a single day of it. In fact, my only regret is that I didn’t start sooner.

We’ve had the time of our lives building what today is a well-established, fast-growing operation with an eclectic international staff and a big upside.

In the current climate, as jobs are harder and harder to come by back in the States, where downsizing has become a cliché and new graduates wonder what in the world they’re going to do with their new degrees…

I offer that the question isn’t, what in the world are you going to do to support yourself and the life you want…

But where in the world.

P.S. We’ve included a special Workshop focused on starting a business overseas as part of our Retire Overseas Conference taking place in Orlando in October. Details of that program are here.

Kathleen Peddicord is the acknowledged expert in overseas retirement. She’s the author of How to Retire Overseas and publisher of the Overseas Retirement Letter. With her kind permission, we’ve reprinted the above post from her blog.

photo by WohinAuswandern on flickr

“Give me 31 Days and I’ll Give You a Better Blog,” Darren promised. Actually, he didn’t just promise a better blog, but a dramatically better one!

For 31 days I read his information and instructions, did the assigned tasks, and lo and behold my blog improved.

I started coming up with interesting topics to write about, and more of them.

My headlines got more interesting.

I learned how to engage you, the reader, a little better.

I got some help on leveraging social media to enhance my blogging efforts.

This program, which began originally as an ongoing challenge on Darren’s website, quickly turned into an e-book.

Now he’s just let me know that the price is going up.

Get It Before May 10th

Right now, you can immediately access 31 Days to Build a Better Blog for $19.95. But if you wait until May 10th, you’ll spend $10 more.

By all means wait if you want — it’s well worth the price even at $29.95.

But why spend more than you need to?

Darren will teach you:

• How to convert a trip to the mall into blog improvement
• get more readers by doing something unexpected with a competitor
• conduct an audit of this critical page on your site
• and lots, lots more

If blogging is part of your plan for your untethered expat life, you owe it to yourself to make this tiny investment into improving your blog.

(Or wait until after May 10 and make it a larger investment.)

Click here to view more details.

Ready to buy?

1. Can we see ourselves living in Panama?
2. If yes, do we prefer the David or Las Tablas areas?

This was a no-frills trip.

But even a trip with no frills costs quite a bit these days. Airfare, lodging, meals and travel within the country all add up.

Fortunately, I’ve found a way to get paid for it, and so can you.

Portable Careers Are the Way to Go

Writing — specifically travel writing — is a portable career that can really enhance an expat lifestyle.

It can also pay for your scouting trips to explore your new country.

After I attended the Live & Invest in Panama Conference, my husband joined me for a one-week tour of the David and Las Tablas areas.

Now that I’m home, I’m organizing notes and photos and outlining some articles.

I already have one publisher interested, and I’ll be querying others in the weeks ahead.

My goal is to earn enough from these articles to pay for the trip. If I can make even more, so much the better.

Become a Travel Writer

If travel writing interests you but you need to brush up on or acquire some skills to do so, there are courses available on- and offline.

AWAI

“Six months from now you could be getting paid to see the world!” is the headline.

“Imagine sliding out of bed and knowing your ‘work’ for the day is to scuba dive along the Great Barrier Reef … or to shop at an open-air market in Madagascar … or to attend the opera in Vienna …”

That’s the promise of AWAI’s The Ultimate Travel Writer’s Program.

It’s a program created by seasoned professional travel writer Jen Stevens, and you can complete the program at your own speed in the privacy of your own home.

MatadorU

Matador Network bills itself as “the world’s leading independent travel media company.”

MatadorU Travel Writing Course is structured more traditionally than AWAI’s. It’s 12 weeks of “rigorous coursework, including lessons, recommended reading, and weekly assignments critiqued by editors and peers.”

Once you’ve completed the course, you have perpetual access to the curriculum, the forums and any future bonus modules.

Go Offline

If you’d rather do your learning offline, check out offerings at local community and four-year colleges. Many institutions of higher learning offer travel writing courses.

Tips for Getting Articles from your Scouting Trip

A good travel writing class will teach you how to market your writing. That marketing starts before you leave home.

Here are a few tips to get you started:

• Make a list of at least 10 publications that pay for freelance travel articles for your destination. No matter how great my article is, “RV Retirement Magazine” won’t be interested in my stories about Las Tablas.
• Check their writer’s guidelines. If they have any special requirements (“menus must accompany a restaurant review,” for example, or “we don’t accept articles about destination X during months with an ‘r’ in them”) plan accordingly.
• Visit places of interest to the publications you’re planning on pitching. Not everywhere you go has to be worthy of an article, but make sure to see a few!
• Take lots of photographs and upload them with descriptive information right away. Even if you don’t sell them with the article, they’ll help keep your experience fresh in your mind and your writing will be tighter and more specific.
• If you’re planning to sell photos with your story, take both horizontal and vertical shots. You never know what size space the editor needs to fill with an image, so be prepared.

If you like the idea of a portable career but writing isn’t your thing, download my free e-book, Untether Yourself: 5 Portable Careers to Support You Overseas

A reader recently emailed:

“Hi

“Myself and a friend are looking to relocate to Barbados. Where do we start ? We have both been to the island and both love it and realize that we could defiantly live there. We are now looking for employment, my friend is a hairdresser with 20 years exp. Myself I am more of a office based person with a lot of customer service experience so I am open to any opportunity.

“We would just like some advice on where and how to start so we can relocate smoothly and asap”

Another reader wrote:

“I’ve skimmed the book “How to Retire Overseas” which has given me the big picture of what a person needs to know or think about before making The Move.

“I was born in Aruba but left as a very young child so I have no idea of living conditions/cost. Where can I go to start gathering me info to help me make my decision? Thanks much.”

Cost of Living

How to Retire Overseas is an excellent place to begin gathering general information about moving overseas. However, author Kathleen Peddicord couldn’t possibly include information about every country.

Keep in mind also that cost of living information can change rapidly, so you can’t rely on information printed in a book that’s already a year old.

There are several websites that publish reliable cost of living information:

• Xpatulator
• Expat Intelligence
• Numbeo
• CIA World Factbook can’t be beat for a solid overview of a country’s economy, history, people and more.
  • Expat Exchange
  • Expat Blog
  • Expat Focus
  • Expat Forum
  • Boomers Abroad

The Escape Artist website features a page with links to information about living in most countries, including Barbados and Aruba.

Real estate agents can be gold mines of information, but you have to find one who’s honest, ethical and has been in the country long enough to know what’s going on there.

Employment

Each country has its own rules about who can work there. In general, though, employment is reserved for a country’s legal residents unless you have a skill that’s in high demand. For information about visas and work, consult the country’s embassy or consulate.

Last but not least, engage the social web to help you find answers. Join expat forums online and ask for information. Start with sites like:

Don’t neglect non-expat specific social sites like Facebook and LinkedIn!

If you’re knowledgeable about Aruba or Barbados, leave a comment for these readers to help them find the information they need.

Photo by Paul Simpson on flickr

Places to Live

1. International Living’s prestigious 2010 Quality of Life Index
2. Top Quality of Living Cities for 2010
3. The Cheapest Places to Live in the World
4. Ten Most Suitable Countries for American Expatriates
5. World’s 25 Best Retirement Destinations

Why and How to Become an Expat

1. 100 Reasons to Become an Expatriate
2. Top 5 Reasons to Become an Expatriate
3. How to Become an Expatriate: Step by Step
4. 18 Excellent Tips from Expat Experts
5. How to Become an Expat and Maintain Your Sanity While Doing It

Support Yourself as an Expat

1. 64 Ways Location Independent People Earn a Living
2. Ten Digital Nomads to Learn From
3. 5 Lessons I Learned After a Year as a Digital Nomad
4. Becoming a Digital Nomad: Options for Working Remotely from Anywhere
5. Untether Yourself: Five Portable Careers to Support You Overseas

Do you have a favorite expat list you’d like to share? Leave a comment below!