How to decide where you travel next. Part 1 of our travel planning series…

When traveling the world with your love & online business there are several things to think about before you start booking flights & accommodations. (Which you can read about in Wednesday’s upcoming post.)

The research phase is the most important and will lead you to some gold mines of information. SO stick with us, and keep an eye out for the rest of the articles in this series… This is just the beginning when it comes to traveling full-time or at least long-term.

Brian + I have been traveling full-time with our business since April of 2017. The ONLY reason we can do it… Our online business. It’s our lifeline and the thing that has given us the freedom & flexibility to BE where we want when we want. (Read more about how we do it here & how you could too.) BUT this article isn’t about that. It’s about finding an awesome country where you can live like a local, have a sweet view while you build your online business together, and explore on your days off. Right? Sounds good huh?

We thought so! It didn’t make sense for us to keep building our business in one place. Well, two… I was up in Toronto, Ontario, Canada & Brian was in Austin, Texas, USA when we started BE Adventure Partners. If we wanted to BE together full-time… We knew we needed to work our butts off to make it happen fast because we were head over heels, and ready to see the world as we built our biz online together! (Here’s a piece of our story.)

YES, you can travel with an online business… BUT…

You need a decent internet connection! We always go to NomadList.com first. This website is super thorough. You can find out the cost of living, the fun factor, approximate internet speeds, safety, and all kinds of other great information that seasoned travelers & digital nomads have compiled. This site has been extremely helpful in giving us an idea of whether a country or city is worth checking out. The only problem is they don’t have too many little villages or towns on there yet. (They just need more travelers to go out there, and report back.) So make sure when you are deciding where to travel next that you check out NomadList.com. Even scrolling their homepage will give you awesome ideas.

How do you know what to do when traveling with your love…

When I am searching for things to do… Pinterest is my number one! It doesn’t matter where on earth you want to go. Someone has pinned a beautiful location, wildlife, food, fashion, or awesome adventures for you to experience. Travel bloggers are pinning all of their favorite experiences, and giving their top 10’s! So get pinning! I have found so many amazing & strange details on people’s blogs, who I found originally on Pinterest.

Example:

When we were traveling to Manuel Antonio National Park in Costa Rica, I read a few blog posts before we went to the park that saved us time & money. Someone mentioned that on the road into the park there would be guys on the street miles before the park entrance claiming that their parking is the closest. This isn’t true. There is parking right outside the gate of the park, and it hardly had anyone parked there because everyone else got suckered into parking super far. It isn’t about walking, it’s about being tricked. Thanks to someone’s blog post that I found on Pinterest… We said “no gracias” to the pushy parking attendants who tried to doop us and drove up to the gates. Saving us miles of extra walking in the hot heat.

Another thing this article mentioned is that it would be chaos at the entrance of the park. This is true. Everyone in his brother is going to try to sell you the best guide, tickets to the park, water bottles, and nick-knacks.

Here are a few pro tips from our experience if you go to Manuel Antonio National Park, Costa Rica…

1. Ask around for a guide with a telescope, and don’t settle so you can see mysterious wildlife up in the tallest trees (like the stick bird I spotted with my naked eye 70 feet up in the trees. See image of it through the telescope below.)
2. Take your own jumbo water bottles, it’s hot.
3. If you want to buy knick-knacks… Those wonderful salespeople will still be there when you exit the park.
4. Expect A LOT of tourists, Manuel Antonio is amazing, and you will encounter incredible wildlife if you can make it past the chaos at the entrance, don’t let it detour you.
5. The only place you can buy tickets is at the Blue Building before the park entrance on the left BEFORE the LAST parking lot.

This kind of information can only come from a person who has been there. Bloggers tend to give really raw information. Some opinions can be taken with a grain of salt, but others provide the quirky, super-valuable information that excursion websites tend to leave out.

Time to get into the dirty details.

Let’s get back on track… There is no other tool that is more effective with details than Google. After making a few amateur mistakes, like landing in a place during mosquito season (ie. wet season)… We like to find out what kind of weather to expect. All you gotta do is type in “annual weather calendar COUNTRY”, and fill in the country. Pretty easy huh? You may even add a small town, village, or city to your search because temperatures will vary depending on altitude.

If you really want to get a taste of the culture, it is fun to Google “cultural events in CITY, Country, YEAR”. Fill in your details, and see what’s happening.

When we arrived on Ometepe Island in Nicaragua, we were pleasantly surprised when the roads were closed, because we got a glimpse of a parade for the rodeo that weekend. Which seemed so out of place to see dancing horses, and people dressed up like cowboys & cowgals.

Lastly… For your safety…

See if your country has a smart travel program. US citizens can use the “Smart Traveler Enrollment Program” & “Registration of Canadians Abroad” is for… Well… Canadians. These programs are set up to send you email notifications about the country you are traveling in while you are there. Both programs provide travel advisories from the US & Canadian Embassies about safety & security, natural disasters, and you could BE notified about personal emergencies happening at home.

If you are traveling to multiple countries, and unsure of where you will go after your first few locations, no worries. You can update your itinerary as you figure out where you are going. This will give you peace of mind, not to mention the people who love you back home.

You have just scratched the surface of planning your adventure together…

Stay tuned for the next post, where we will dive into finding cheap flights that won’t take you days to get to your destination. Plus how to map out long-term travel, without being on too much of a schedule.

Not a reader? You can follow our Travel Planning series HERE on our YouTube Channel. BE sure to hit that bell, so you can BE notified when coming out with fresh new videos. These vids are crafted specifically to help you BE where you want when you want. Together! With your online business.

Have questions or comments? Leave them below! We would love to hear from ya.