When I tell people my husband and I are taking off for a year to travel around the United States and Canada in a motorhome, one common response I get is, “Must be nice.” The way this phrase is said to me is what cracks me up. It’s a loaded “must be nice,” that assumes we somehow got lucky. If we are going to travel full time we must not have jobs, we must be rich, or both.

Not so! In fact, not too long ago, I was the person saying, “Must be nice” when I would learn of people who got to backpack around Europe after they graduated college, or take a few months off to “find themselves.” I, on the other hand, felt strapped down by my debt (yes, I somehow managed to acquire a heap of credit card debt on top of my mountain of student loans).

I couldn’t even imagine what it would be like to not work full-time (or more) and still struggle to make ends meet. What a luxury it must be to just up and explore the world. I thought, even if I could afford to support myself in another country with a lower cost of living, how would I be able to pay my American-sized bills every month?

Sometimes what sucks is the strongest motivator. I remember one particular day when I was at the low point of my low point. I was twenty-seven years old, my business was tanking, I was bankrupt, and was losing my home to foreclosure. I remember walking to the cafe around the corner, counting my change to see if I could afford a cup of coffee and trying to ignore my ringing cell phone, which I knew was a bill collector.

It was one of those something-has-got-to-give moments. I remember being hit by a moment of presence and I thought: Okay, I’m still alive. I can feel the sun on my face. I can hear the birds overhead. I can feel my feet hit the pavement.

In that moment, all the busy-ness I had been caught up in and all the struggle that had somehow become my daily reality felt… invented. I thought: This is not what life is meant to be like. I thought about the birds. They weren’t stressed out. They were just existing. Somehow I had thrown all these barriers in my own way.

A few weeks later I abandoned my life as I knew it. I met a boy, fell head-over-heels in love, and decided to move to California with him. I dropped my struggling business and quit my side jobs. I sold everything I owned to scrape together enough money to pay for gas to get to San Francisco and rent for one month while I looked for a job. I’d be lying if I said my struggles all ended instantaneously at that point. Yet, it was certainly a turning point!

Cut to now. Years later, I am now married to that handsome fella that whisked me off to California. What’s more, I have managed to achieve one of my biggest goals — total location freedom in my life. So much so, that my husband and I spent two months in Central America last spring working from the beach. I had to pinch myself every day! Little ol’ me, the one who was strapped down and saw no way out.

So, the must-be-nicers make me smile. They say,

“Oh, well you can travel because you work from home.”

Yes, although allow me to rephrase that: I work from home so that I can travel. Working from home didn’t land in my lap. Over the past few years, all of my business and life decisions have been based on the question, Will this bring me location freedom or tie me down? By choosing only to act on opportunities that create location freedom, and declining those that would tie me down, I eventually arranged my life so that I can work from home — and better yet, work from anywhere!

In an upcoming article I’m going to share the formula for how my husband and I are not only able to work and travel around the country, but it’s not costing us a dime! Holla!

How about you? Can you relate to ever feeling broke and trapped? How about your break free moments? Share your comments and stories below!

February 2013 Issue