Photo of Doi Suthep, Chiang Mai

Since our last update almost a month ago, we’ve had an interesting time here in Thailand!

Our place in Phuket was ideal for a couple but not so ideal for a couple plus young baby. It was a large (60 sqm) studio apartment with the bedroom area tucked away at one end. We thought it would be ok – but it wasn’t. Although it was brand new, modern and trendy it was actually pretty uncomfortable and stuck up a massively steep hill.

Plus we thought we didn’t like the fact that we basically had to have a car there, deciding that we weren’t cavalier (stupid?) enough to risk our lives on a moped – yes, that’d be all 3 of us on the one moped with only the driver wearing a helmet, as is the custom here in Thailand. So all in all we weren’t too sold on the idea of staying there in Phuket for 3 months and decided to head to Chiang Mai – a place where everybody raves about.

We soon found out that sometimes however, it’s better the devil you know…

As a treat and because I’d got a great deal online (like 70% off the regular rates – check out Wotif), we booked to stay in Le Meridien upon arrival in Chiang Mai. As we always do, we’d done some basic research about apartments & accommodation before we arrived but decided that, like many things in Thailand, it’s sometimes much easier to do things face to face. So we packed up all our stuff and off we flew to Chiang Mai.

It’s a lovely city; the climate is cooler than down south, the vibe is very laid back for a city (especially in comparison with Bangkok) and things are unbelievably cheap, even for Thailand. But could we find the accommodation we wanted? Not unless we can hang around until February or, in some cases April!!!

We’d had some recommendations from one of our lovely online friends who lives here (who we had lunch, coffee & great chat with the other day) and spent a morning traipsing round the Nimmanheim Road area (very nice) calling in at all the apartment blocks we had researched (and even those we hadn’t but came across on our walk). In most cases, they’re booked out until February and in some cases April. Hmmmmm, what to do?

We basically had 3 options:

1. Extend our stay in a hotel (not Le Meridien since that would likely bankrupt us which meant moving to yet another new place) until our chosen places were available.
2. Compromise and stay in an apartment in another part of the city.
3. Head somewhere else.

We’re somewhat fussy (discerning?) when it comes to accommodation and have learned that if we try and make compromises, especially on location, we often end up unhappy and want to leave early. That’s just something we’ve learned about ourselves and while I sometimes wish we could “make do”, now we have Mali, it’s even more difficult to justify doing this.

So, what did we do? We headed back to what we know! Yep, that’s right, we’re now back in Phuket again but in different accommodation this time round.

Weighing everything up, we decided that while we would have been quite happy in Chiang Mai, the lifestyle in Phuket is much more fun for Mali. Here she can go swimming, to the beach, to the malls and to coffee shops & restaurants. In Chiang Mai, it’d pretty much have been coffee shops & restaurants – not so fun for a 6 month old. Not only that, the following were also good reasons to head back here:

• My Dad & stepmum (Mali’s grandparents) are here for another month
• The accommodation we’re now in is super cheap (£220 per month) but more suitable with a separate bedroom and a pool right outside our door
• While we thought we didn’t like having a car here, based upon our experiences in Chiang Mai, it’s infinitely easier than having to use our own baby car seat in taxis or risk her safety & not use one at all.

We’ve been back here for a week and I can safely say it was most definitely the *right* decision for us. Mali seems very happy & relaxed here, she’s sleeping brilliantly (11 hours every night & self-settling – which she’d fallen out of the habit of doing when we were in a studio and hotel room), really enjoying the pool and we’re all much happier…which, after all, is what this lifestyle is all about.

It’s been a very useful learning experience (yet again) and was great to check out a new place but we were reminded (yet again) that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side!

The Gibbons Family in the Alps

As we always preface at the beginning of our interviews, one of the things we hope to convey with this site is the fact that there is no single *best* way to be location independent parents, travel the world nor educate your child.

We all choose to do different things, based upon what works for each of us. So with that in mind, we have interviewed a wide range of location independent parents (of all types – nomadic or not) to demonstrate this!

We also have found it useful to be able to point to others living this lifestyle, when faced with questions and challenges from friends and family – so with this series, we’re hoping to give you plenty of social proof for this very purpose!

In this interview, we feature Julie Gibbons who runs an online personality profiling company – People Maps - with her husband…

What type of location independent parent are you? (nomadic, entrepreneurial & nomadic, stay-at-home entrepreneur). Can you give us a brief overview of what you do & how this enables you to be location independent?

I would say we’re fully location independent, entrepreneurial travellers – with a permanent base in the UK. We run an internet business - PeopleMaps - and home educate our son, which allows us to travel wherever and whenever we like. I usually say, “we work from home – but that ‘home’ can be anywhere in the world” – and that philosophy is central to our business, and applies to every member of staff.

We have 11 people working with us at any time, and those people are all over the UK, Europe and India – and mostly all choose to work from home. In fact, one of Martin’s main goals when setting up the business back in 2001 was for it to allow him geographic independence – but we only fully realised that as a family when we removed Ruaridh from school a couple of years ago, before setting out on our first 3 month long home exchange adventure.

What benefits do you feel that travel and being location independent brings to you & your family?

This is a difficult question – there are just so many benefits! Travelling is a great eye opener, and head leveller. For Ruaridh, it offers him the best of educations. There is the journey itself, which affords so many of the great memories (particularly when things go wrong!).

Being stuck in a car for hours on end kicked off Ruaridh’s voracious reading habit which has continued to this day – and the limited choice of material on offer leads to some choices which aren’t so obvious – like the time he read “The Importance of Ernest” and declared Oscar Wilde a genius – I’m pretty convinced he wouldn’t have chosen to read Oscar Wilde at the local library!

Also, the more often you get in the car and head off for months at a time, the more courageous you become. I must declare “Doris” (our GPS) as the best invention and must-have gadget though – my map reading skills are still quite limited even after 10,000 miles.

The locations themselves offer up endlessly fascinating options and more often than not, throw up ideas and challenges we might never otherwise consider. Like the time this summer when I was allowed to indulge my love of Vincent Van Gogh by dragging the family around the Van Gogh walking trail in Arles to see the very sights and locations of some of his most famous paintings.

This most certainly wasn’t a choice that Ruaridh might have made himself (especially in the 40 degree sunshine) but it was one which introduced him very personally to one of the great artists – even if, at the end of the trail when heat exhaustion had set in and we arrived at the washerwoman’s bridge he declared, “a bridge is a bridge, is a bridge”.

Learning a second language or more has been one of the most practical benefits and is a very strong factor when choosing our destinations. We’re pretty competent in French now – and almost totally through exposure when in the country itself, although we do take some lessons at home.

Spanish is our next European destination and between us we have very little vocabulary, so that will be our next linguistic challenge (slightly easier than the Moroccan Arabic we were trying to learn at the beginning of 2009, when we were supposed to spend a couple of months in Morocco!).

But I would have to say that the greatest benefit is meeting new people. Travelling helps to build up that global world view, and I’m sure if more people travelled and understood that, cultural differences aside, people are just people all over the world, there would be less conflict and even less poverty. We have made lifelong friends on our travels, been exposed to tremendous generosity and in turn have been comfortable enough to welcome strangers into our own home. Our mindset has changed, and we find the most value in that.

When you’re not travelling, what advantages does being location independent bring to you and your family?

Even when we’re at our home base (which we have been for around 3 months and counting…) we know that we could respond to any opportunity that comes our way – and therein lies a great deal of ‘freedom’. Staying at home has also allowed us to play host to some wonderful visitors from abroad and enjoy the experience of sharing our country and culture, whilst still experiencing some of theirs.

What about schooling? How do you do it on the road or overseas?

Our policy on schooling is pretty ‘free range’ even when we are at home and it’s not really any different when we’re travelling. The travel, the people, the language, the culture is in itself an education of course.

Ruaridh is mostly free to study subjects of his choosing with our guidance and lots of the work he does involves a computer, so as long as he is connected to the internet then that work can continue uninterrupted no matter the location.

Our next destination is Kolkata, West Bengal and is firmly based around our business, so we have a very firm project in mind for Ruaridh for that trip and will hire a tutor whilst we’re there to help him achieve that.

How do you cope with working from home and having the kids around you?

This is one of the best parts! I think it was Brian Tracy who said that the exception to the “quality over quantity” rule was for time spent with children. Our aim is for quality but of course it really is very much a question of a balancing act when it comes to spending time on the business and time for the family – and one we don’t always get right. We’re all too often aware that the business is creeping in too much and try to limit the subject when we’re at the dinner table, for instance!

I’ve been working from home since Ruaridh (aged 11) was pre-school, so he knows how we expect him to behave throughout the day and how to handle business calls and such – and we have very few embarrassing events.

We have the great luxury of spending lots of relaxed time together – 3 meals together in a day is in itself a wonderful opportunity that most families never get to experience, for instance. That’s not to say that there aren’t a whole set of other challenges – but we take them as they come and find that we get better at it the more practise we have.

What fears did you have about becoming location independent that turned out to be unfounded?

Probably our main fear was based around being away from our home for such long stretches at a time. Ruaridh wondered how he’d cope without ready access to his friends and everything in his bedroom. I worried about leaving all my kitchen accoutrements behind! Martin had experienced lots of extended travel on his own but as a family we’d never been away from home for more than a month, so he worried that we would all miss home too much whilst we were away.

This all turned out to be inconsequential. Sure, Ruaridh missed his odd game or book and his pals, and I missed all of my kitchen gadgets. Martin missed his sofa – but the truth is that travelling fills up your time and opens your mind to such a great extent, that there’s little time to miss anything and we find the unburdening of ‘stuff’ completely therapeutic.

As regards home education and location independence, we have complete confidence that we’ve made the right choices for our family. We don’t take it blindly for granted though  and constantly reassess our choices and appraise our delivery against our aims and expectations.

We know it isn’t the right choice for everyone but would encourage anyone who is hinking about it to let go of their fears and do it even for a short period of time. It’s so easy to be location independent without making any grand gestures of leaving the country for good so you really can dip your toe in the water without fear of ‘no turning back’.

Did any of your fears materialised? And if so, how did you overcome these challenges?

Not being in control of our own environment throws up the greatest challenge for us and aside from the ties to home, our greatest fear is being stuck in a location we don’t like.

Staying in a down-town apartment in Marseilles this summer came closest to that and after a mugging outside our apartment and enduring incessant noise from traffic and nightly neighbourly disturbances, we were feeling pretty wretched about our choice.

It was completely our fault that we’d ended up in a location which just didn’t match any of our wish list yet once we’d accepted that we were where we were, we began to settle down and enjoy the city for what it was, instead of holding on to what we wanted it to be.

It was hardly a life or death situation but did remind us that the dwelling can be almost as important as – if not more important than – the city or country you choose. I’d advise anyone starting out to make sure you make informed choices against a clear check list of requirements to avoid having to endure any uncomfortable situations.

Your top 3 tips for parents or soon-to-be parents wanting to be location independent?

#1 Do it. Do it. Do it! It’ll be the best fun you’ve ever had and the best education you could ever give your children – no matter their age. If you have school-age children you will need to devise a policy for their education but remember you don’t have to stick to it rigidly: you might need to experiment with lots of approaches before finding the one that works for you. We’ve gone through some tears and tantrums and it has taken over a year to settle down into something that works for us.

#2 Be prepared for some negative reactions from friends and family and prepare your responses to avoid being caught by surprise. Most people are fully supportive and enthralled by this lifestyle choice but we have experienced some quite hurtful reactions, often from those closest to us. One of our biggest frustrations is when business contacts refer to our being ‘on holiday’; some people just refuse to believe you can travel and successfully run a business! You’ll certainly gain confidence and be reassured when you can network with like-minded families.

#3 Lastly, be open-minded and prepared for the extreme generosity of others. Be prepared to lose all your inhibitions and in addition to the destinations making an impact on you and your family, be prepared to make an impact in return. Be confident in your choices and be aware that your time with your family is finite. Make it count.

Congratulations on your baby girl, Misha – she’s gorgeous! We’d love to know whether you’ve found it as challenging as we have, being both an entrepreneur and a new father. How did you manage to “crush it” as well as cope with the demands of a newborn/young baby?

Thanks so much, it’s been an incredible experience! It’s not easy to find the right balance and I’m willing to admit that I haven’t been perfect. With the book, Vaynermedia starting up, Cork’d relaunching, Cinderella Wine and Gourmet Library all happening over the past 6 months or so I’ve been running around a bit more than I should so I’m trying to get better with that…

It’s about balancing contradictions, something that I’m very comfortable with. On one hand your instinct as an entrepreneur is to work your face off, on the other hand your instinct as a parent is to spend every second with your family. It’s not easy but I think as long as you remember what’s really important in life it works out in the end.

According to the three rules you mention in your book “Crush It!“, “love your family” is number 1. Sometimes the practical implementation of taking care of your family seems to differ between male & female entrepreneurs. What does taking care of your family mean to you?

I mean, there’s an instinct there that you want the people you love to be able to live comfortably and have nice things, right? I didn’t get to really know my father until I started working at the store when I was 14 because he was working so ridiculously hard to make sure that his kids would have a better life.

I don’t have to make the same sacrifices my dad did though, in a large part because of the groundwork he laid for me. So for me, part of it is working hard to provide for my family, but a bigger part is making sure that I’m there for them.

One of the things we’ve found the most challenging as entrepreneurial parents is fitting in work around our baby girl’s schedule – this has often meant working until 3am just to get everything done. What advice can you give when you’re faced with the real time-crunch challenges of being a parent but still want to crush it?

We all have to be realistic about our responsibilities and remember that family comes number one. If you cut out all the video game playing and Lost watching and you’re still struggling to find enough time for your family then you need to start sacrificing some of the hours you were putting in to “crushing it”.

In a perfect world there would be enough time to go 2000% with everything, but as long as you’re cutting out the things that you’re not passionate about that take up your time, you’re on the right path.

In “Crush It“ you provide some very clear & useful steps for leveraging the social web to create your own success. For anyone who has not read it yet, what advice would you give to a complete newbie & non-techy? Where should they start?

My advice would be that platforms like Twitter and Facebook don’t change basic rules of marketing and business. They actually allow you to concentrate more on the basics and become like the baker and butcher of the 1950s.

I would get an account with Twitter and Facebook as well as checking to see if there are any forums or communities that are based on the niche that your business lives in. Once you’re there, listen for a while and then start joining the conversation. And by that I mean talk, don’t sell.

The biggest mistake people make is to start selling from the minute they launch an account, and that will always cause people to tune out. If you engage and converse and answer questions, you’ll be learning what your target customers want and you’ll be in a position to over-deliver. Once you understand how to over-deliver and consistently provide a great experience for your customers, you’ll be able to build the word-of-mouth marketing which is the true power of these new tools.

As a new parent, is there anything you’ll do differently when it comes to running your business & living your life?

I’ll definitely have to adjust how I work and live and I’m already starting to work on that. I’m still going to hustle because that’s in my DNA, it’s just who I am, but I’m accustomed to hectic days at a frantic pace, and I need more structure to make sure I’m doing everything I want to do. That will mean blocking out certain nights to always be home, scheduling calls for specific portions of the week, and saying “no” a bit more often than I am used to. But I’ll make it work.

On a personal note, any exciting travel plans for your family & new baby girl? When you do travel, do you continue to work?

Traveling is actually one of the times I get the most work done. I don’t want to think about how behind I would be in emails if it weren’t for cross country flights. Lizzie and I do have a special trip planned this year, but we’re keeping it private.

Editor’s Note: Thanks so much to Gary for taking the time out of his busy schedule to answer our questions. I received a review copy of Gary’s book Crush It! - it’s an easy read with some extremely valuable tips on leveraging social media and branding yourself. Highly recommended! None of the links in this post are affiliate links, they take you straight to the website for Gary’s book.

Image: Mali & I on location at the beach in Thailand

Wow, I can’t believe we’ve already been on the road again for 4 weeks…last time I wrote about the countdown to leaving our home and what we did to prepare and already I’m writing a post about what we’ve learned so far. I guess most of you will know already that that’s what happens with children & babies…not only do they learn constantly but so do you!!

So here’s a bit of an update about where we are now (both physically & mentally) and some thoughts about what we’ve learned since being location independent & nomadic with a young baby….

Current Whereabouts

We’re currently in Thailand on the island of Phuket. We came here because we knew it already (which we thought would be an easy introduction back into location independent nomadism with Mali, our daughter) and my parents were going to be here for some of the time we were here.

We had a 1 week stop off in Dubai to stay with my brother and help Mali acclimatise to both the heat & the time change more gradually and that worked really well. But…we’re already thinking about moving again!

Every single time we stay somewhere, we learn more & more about what it is we look for in a place and what kind of place lets us live the lifestyle we want.

It’s no secret that while we enjoy the nomadic lifestyle, we’re actually on a quest to find those 1-2 (maybe 3) places in the world where we’d like to shuttle between each year and we do envisage settling somewhere at some point – at least for 6 months of each year. But unfortunately Phuket isn’t it. So we’re thinking about heading further north to Chiang Mai and seeing how that suits us.

Experiences So Far Of Being Nomadic With A Baby

We had all sorts of fears, anxieties and worries before we set off:

Would it be too much for Mali? Would it be unsettling? Is she going to scream for the whole flight? Will she cope with the heat, the time zone change, the mosquitos? Are we being irresponsible and bad parents for doing this to her?

Thankfully most of those fears have been allayed – although every now & then we do still wonder if this really is the *best* kind of lifestyle for Mali. Actually I’ve come to the conclusion that at her age (5 months), location doesn’t really matter but I think it will be more and more of a factor as she gets older.

For now though, here are a few of the things we’ve experienced & learned so far since we’ve been on the road again with Mali in tow…

Equipment: On a practical note, we have uhmed  & ahed about the equipment & stuff to bring with us for Mali. I’ll be writing a post about some of the gear we’ve been road-testing but here’s what we’ve found so far:

• In a hot, humid, tropical climate a buggy isn’t really necessary: you’re unlikely to walk around much and if you do, the baby will get really hot unless you get some kind of fan-contraption rigged up. If the baby is still small enough (or if not, you’ll need a strong person around!), a sling seems to be the best thing to use. We’ve hardly used our buggy – only in the malls a couple of times – but we use the sling almost every time we go out, particularly since Mali loves being able to see the new stuff around her.
• We expected to be able to get some of the basics really easily in Thailand; things like a simple changing mat (we have a travel one but wanted a cheap one for the apartment), packs of cheap babygro’s/onesies. Have we been able to get them? No! They seem to have all the fancy stuff (changing mat integrated into fancy changing table) but none of the basics.
• We really struggled for a baby bath since there’s no bath in the apartment and at 5 months, Mali’s quite a large & long baby. My parents had got the biggest baby bath they could find before we arrived but it was still too small, so we now use…a blow up paddling pool w/ our regular bath support! It works brilliantly & because it’s light, means we can take it with us elsewhere.

Flying with a baby: I had all sorts of stress about Mali hating flying, having problems with her ears and screaming for the whole flight. The reality? She played happily through the first flight from the UK to Dubai and slept a little (it was a day time flight) and slept in a bassinet for 90% of the 2nd flight from Dubai to Bangkok, despite being woken up at midnight to traipse to the airport!

No crying, no screaming and her ears were fine, despite not feeding on the way up & down, as we were advised by our health visitor. I can’t tell you how awkward it was though, trying to breastfeed her on the plane with a Muslim family next to me & trying not to expose myself, while at the same time trying not to let Mali’s kicking feet kick their child in the head!!

While a bassinet is useful, in future we may try & select the seats which give us a row to ourselves (use Seatguru to check out your plane & seat configuration) so we’re not sat next to another family with their own kids, reducing the cramped space even further.

Heat, humidity & bugs: We have acclimatised Mali fairly slowly to the heat by keeping the air con or fan on most of the time but gradually turning it down so she gets used to the natural temperature here. I’ve been very wary of dehydration and at the advice of our health visitor, have just offered her more milk, more frequently particularly when she seems to be hot & bothered.

So far, we’ve not had a problem with mosquitoes but brought with us some natural repellant rather than anything chemical-based (and certainly not DEET-based for a baby). We’ve managed to avoid the mosquitos by staying indoors at prime feeding time (dusk) and being vigilant about keeping the doors & windows of our apartment closed. We also have our homeopathy kit at the ready, in case of any bites and know which remedies to apply should Mali get any bites.

And the biggest thing we’ve learned so far?

Thai nappies (diapers) are crap!! We must have tried every brand available (including western brands here such as Huggies, Drypers etc.) but unfortunately nothing is as good as Pampers.

The best ones to use here (and thanks to everyone on Twitter who also recommended these) are the Mamy Poko brand – they’re slightly more expensive than others but worth it and are the closest thing we can find (both in comfort, fit & performance) to Pampers.