If your vision of a meaningful life includes travel, I hear you. My aspirations always included a curiosity and longing to see other places.  As a young 20 something I traveled through the USA, by bicycle, and sailed from Florida, through the Panama Canal to Mexico.  That travel adventure took well over a year.  When I finally decided to return to my home country, I was tired, sick and broke.

Over time I recovered my strength, found a job, settled into “conventional life.” Eventually I married, raised children, returned to school, worked corporate jobs and started several businesses.

I consider this conventional time in my life to be just another, rather long, adventure.  However, when that time of my life came to an end: my children set out on their own, the dog died, my house grew too big for my life, my desire to travel resurfaced.

Seven years ago, I moved to South Africa with my husband. He worked a corporate job and I wrote my book.  When the project that sent us to Johannesburg ended, we moved to Ecuador, where I began to test out the possibilities of working from a distant location.

Three years later, I have work I do because of where I live not despite it.  I know others who have come to Ecuador to start businesses or have found their way to making money somehow: gym owners, English language teachers, home bakers.

You too can figure out a way to make money if that is what you want.  But, trust me, it won’t happen without sacrifice and, without a strong portable skill set, those sacrifice might become burdensome.

This month we will look at the possibilities of living and working wherever you might choose to be. Working remotely is a new phenomenon.  Its allure is exotic, but the reality can be hard. Read on for exciting possibilities and sober words of caution.

Photo by Jeff Santos