I Was an Expat Freelancer. Lessons Learned the Hard Way

http://www.starrhorne.com/2012/03/05/i-was-an-expat-freelancer-lessons-learned-the-hard-way.html

by starrhorne • 14 years ago

14 4 14 years ago

Thanks for the write-up! I am a junior in college who is very interested in that sort of lifestyle when I graduate and finish off my student loans. I'd be happy as a clam if I could find a job or a number of freelance projects that'd allow me to have a decent standard of living abroad while seeing different parts of the world. I have a few questions if you would be so kind to consider.

Are you considering trips anywhere else? How is your Spanish after spending a year in Mexico? What was your relative standard of living like when making money from these projects? Did you go into it with a reasonable "war chest" of savings to live off of while acclimating to the environment? Was it ever a deterrent to potential hirers that you were abroad? What was the coolest part of your experience?

I might have a couple more depending on your answers.

starrhorne2• 14 years ago

Hi, I'm glad you found the write-up helpful. Feel free to email me if you have any questions. (my email address is in my blog header).

At the moment I'm not planning any more trips. I took a job with a startup in Seattle, and so I'll be here for a few more years. After that, who knows :)

You don't need much of a war chest if you go to the right places & have a decent amount of work. In guadalajara (a big city), $1k / month will get you full-time spanish lessons plus room and board. Hostels are about $12/night if you want to go that route.

My standard of living was very good. I had a 2 bedroom house in the trendy part of the city. Ate out whenever I wanted. etc. I imagine I was spending 20k a year (not including state-side expenses such as student loans).

My spanish is pretty good. You learn survival spanish pretty quickly. After a year I'm able to hold conversations, understand song lyrics, etc...more or less :)

I don't think I lost any clients from being in mexico. It was win-win. They got a good developer at a slight discount. I got my mobility. Actually, about 1/2 of my existing clients never knew I was in mexico. I didn't hide it from them, but it never came up.

Coolest part: making a lot of friends from around the world.

envoked• 14 years ago

I tried something similar this past summer while traveling through Europe/Turkey and found that the hardest part freelancing (beyond the difference in time zones) was finding stable wifi in order to transfer client files. Even in a place like London I found myself in train station Starbucks uploading files.

I imagine if you stayed in a country for a while it'd be easier to get mobile broadband but hopping around a continent makes it pretty difficult since you can't (in my experience) get sim cards with data plans and use them in several countries.

starrhorne2• 14 years ago

Hmm, I don't have much experience with working while traveling through lots of countries. I can imagine that does make it harder. Though, to be honest I did do most of my work from a Starbucks. Even went on a date with one of the baristas. :)

I Was an Expat Freelancer. Lessons Learned the Hard Way

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