Profiles : The Art of Non-Conformity

Profiles

Couple Earns 1.8 Million Frequent Flyer Miles, Sets Out to Visit 100 Countries

Nate Buchanan and his wife Kara had been talking about traveling for years. They finally stopped discussing and started planning. Before they left, they travel hacked their way to 1.8 million frequent flyer miles, which they’re using to travel to 100 countries.

I had been mildly obsessed with the idea of full-time travel for a few years. But in January of 2015 we were sitting at Dairy Queen, and something was different about this conversation. We were seriously discussing what it would take to make it a reality, and not just dreaming about "what ifs."
It’s so easy to discuss theoretically. Reality is, there's never an easy time, and we finally realized that there would never be an easier time than right now. We don’t have kids, we rented an apartment, and both of us were in a position where stepping away from our jobs wouldn’t be the end of the world. We finally decided we would take 2016 to travel full-time and see as much of the world as possible before we settled down.

Profiles

Swiss Man Finds Dream Job Mushing Sled Dogs in Alaska

Sven Haltmann went from a miserable office job existence to living his dream life in Alaska, with not just one but two dream jobs. He now spends his winters mushing and his summers running a hostel, meeting guests from around the world.

I used to work for a health insurance company in Switzerland. Even though I loved everyone that I worked with, I hated the job so much that I wanted to shoot myself in the head every Sunday thinking about the start of a new week.
Since I was only 20 and already miserable, I knew I had to do something different to change the path I was headed down. I applied as a tour guide in Greece, got the job and worked on the island of Crete for three years during the summer. Unsure of what to do during the winter, I applied to work for a dog musher who competed in the Iditarod trail sled dog race.

Profiles

How One Woman Left A Busy NYC Life To Become an Accidental Entrepreneur

Rosie Yakob calls herself an accidental entrepreneur because she’s loved nearly every job she’s had, so never really considered starting her own business. But eventually, the constant busyness of life in NYC became too much.

I loved my job right up until the very end. Which meant I had a lot of explaining to do, as my now husband and I were preparing to leave NYC. “You loved your job!” my friends exclaimed. “Where are you going? For how long? What’s next?” everyone asked, both thrilled and frustrated with my vague response of “Traveling. Who knows!”
When we left NYC, we were surrounded by people who were constantly busy. This culture exists in many places, but we found the answer so unbelievably common in NYC. Even I found myself responding to “How are you?” with the dreaded “b” word. While I loved my job, I always clarified to those who commented on my love for the work that I was “working to live, as opposed to living to work.”
How quickly we trade happiness for business, or busyness, especially when it comes to work and salaries.

Profiles

Connecting the Dots to a Dream Job in the Hemp Industry

Annie Rouse has been passionate about hemp ever since she was a kid growing up in Kentucky. While she knew she wanted to help change the restrictive hemp policies in the U.S., she’s also had some interesting jobs along the way that helped her out in surprising ways.

As a leader in the hemp industry she's now started a hemp foundation, a certification program, and a commercial marketplace.

My job history is like that Steve Jobs quote “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.” While giving out free beer, designing sunglasses and monitoring water quality didn’t seem connected at the time, now I can look back and see how all the different jobs have helped get me where I am now.

Profiles

How One Woman Started a Location-Independent Company Right Out of College

Michelle Rødgaard-Jessen went from a corporate gig, to a social change organization and finally landed on running her own business from the road. As an online marketer, she's narrowed her target audience and grown to the point where she's had to hire employees to keep up with the demand.

My name is Michelle. I'm from Denmark, and I’m a location-independent online marketer. I’ve had a lot of different jobs before this, including supermarket clerk and cleaner when I was in high school, and volunteering in a hospital in Costa Rica. During university I worked for a pharmaceutical company and focused on preparing myself for a job in the corporate world when I graduated.
The last year of my university studies I decided to study in Beijing. When I was in China I was lucky enough to be offered a remote job at a small Danish company who needed market research in China. It was this remote job that opened my eyes to even more possibilities. I hadn’t realized it was possible to create and work remotely.

Profiles

How an Investment Banker Quit Her Job to Travel the World Solo

Kristin Addis seemingly had it all: lucrative banking job in sunny Southern California, and all the things that go with that life. Yet something was missing. The money and apparent professional success weren’t as fulfilling as they were supposed to be. So she saved up some money, quit her job, and bought a one-way ticket out of the country.

I was by myself on the side of the road, in the snow, in the Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of China with my thumb up. I was there because I wanted to trek the surrounding mountains. They were rumored to be beautiful and didn't disappoint. I'd had a continuous run of luck prior to that getting around the country by taking rides, and decided to try hitchhiking from there back to Chengdu.
After about 20 bone-chilling minutes, a couple of guys picked me up and drove like mad men through the mountain passes. When we stopped for lunch, they ordered a feast that even six people couldn't finish, let alone three. One item was a famous steamed fish in the area—a fish with a strange bone in its head.

Profiles

Ultimate 30 Day Challenge: One Man’s Quest to Eat and Train Like Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson

One of the best things about embarking on a quest is that it forces you to change your routine. Or sometimes, it forces you into a new routine. For 31 days, Mark Webster went from "ordinary tech guy" to "following in The Rock's fitness regime guy."

At the end of 2015, I read Jesse Itzler’s Living with a Seal. Itzler wrote: "I felt like I was drifting on autopilot in my life. Wake up, go to work, go to the gym — repeat. I wanted to shake things up. I wanted to get better." And that resonated with me.

Profiles

Man Celebrates 60th Birthday by Running 525 Miles Across the Spanish Pyrenees

To celebrate his sixtieth birthday, Andrew Townsend ran from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea – 525 miles across the Spanish Pyrenees climbing a total of 104,000 ft (4 Everests!) in 27 days. If that wasn’t enough, in 2015, he ran 8 marathons, in 8 countries, in only 8 days! Surprisingly, he spent most of his life behind a desk and didn’t start running until he was well into his 50’s proving once again that it’s never too late to get started.

It was day eleven. I had already run 227 miles and climbed 49,000 feet, but I still wasn’t even halfway there. It was just after 5:00am, but I was already up despite not having an alarm set as my aches and pains provided the necessary wake up call I needed. After a quick shower and with teeth brushed, I was ready for the next onerous task of the day – trying to find some clean running gear or perhaps I should say the least dirty!
Next up was the rucksack ritual – working out what I could discard to reduce the weight, followed by deciding I needed everything and re-packing it. Each day it felt like I had accumulate more things although I knew this wasn’t possible. After all, there were no shops.

Profiles

“You Just Have to Grab the Next Trapeze”: A Former Lawyer Reinvents Himself After Escaping to France

It doesn’t matter how old you are, or how far along you are in your career—there's still time for change. Bill Crow felt like he was living someone else’s life. Even though it was a very successful lawyer's life, he still wasn’t happy. So he took a year off and moved his family to France. Disconnecting from his everyday world allowed him to discover what he really wanted to do next.

I went to law school because it led to the professional career expected of me by my engineer father. I had a lawyer’s dream job in my home office in Vancouver, Canada: I had my own law practice, negotiating contracts on the phone for international clients. Best of all, there was no overhead, and I was able to pocket every dollar I billed.
I loved almost everything about my job: the low hours, the freedom, the money, being able to spend time with my kids, the praise of my clients, the work-from-home dress code (PJs).
The only thing I didn't like about my job was the actual doing of it. Practicing law was like sticking needles in my eyes.

Profiles

“If you’re going to spend the money anyway, you might as well get something out of it.”

Ediza Ferris is serious about travel hacking, and it pays off. A recent trip took her and her husband from the States through Sydney to Dubai—where they were whisked from the presidential hotel suite to the First Class lounge via private chauffeur. Ediza is truly hacking her way to incredible experiences thanks to the world of miles and points.

I started traveling when I was young, around age 5 or 6. My parents immigrated to the States from the Philippines and we've always made steady trips back and forth to go back and see family.
I took the opportunity when I was 16 to study abroad for the summer in a theater program. It wasn't until then where I realized the world was so much bigger than myself, and so much older than how it's described in the history books.
Since then, I've wanted to see more, eat differently, and discover anything new so that I can piece together for myself what this world is actually made of.

Profiles

Student Drops Out of College & Buys a One-Way Flight to Guatemala

After trying and failing to lead a conventional life, Jake Heilbrunn decided to follow his intuition by backpacking and volunteering through Central America. This trip changed the course of his life. I distinctly remember climbing atop La Danta and looking out across vast amounts of jungle expanding as far as the eye could see in all directions. It was humbling to realize how big this world is and how small I really was. Oddly enough, this new perspective gave me the confidence to continue pursuing my dreams and passions. The vastness of the jungle reminded me that if I was really so small, I had nothing to lose.

That night, the twelve of us volunteers cooked up a campfire dinner. There was no service or wifi in the jungle, so everyone sat around and talked, face to face. Nobody was distracted by their phones or technology. There was a powerful energy among us as we shared this intense, jungle experience devoid of distractions.

Profiles

Hacking European Budget Airlines: Learn From An Expat’s Experience

When American expat Julie Smith moved to the UK, she imagined endless jaunts around Europe, weekends exploring foreign cities and spontaneous day trips to Paris. Faced with a limited budget and a need to get creative, she discovered the glorious world of budget airlines and has been a loyal fan ever since.

Ultra low fare airlines like Ryanair and Easyjet changed the landscape of flying in Europe when they were created in the 1990s. They introduced the lowest fares anyone had seen, especially compared to British Airways, Aer Lingus, and the other government subsidized airlines, advertising tickets for as low as £1 plus tax.

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Epic Bike Quest & Failed Mountain Summit Leads Student to “Do More Than Exist”

It's natural to want to give back when someone saves your life. Ethan Maurice thought he was going to be a doctor in order to return the life-saving favor—but then he had another idea.

A brush with death changed my life. At sixteen, I was bitten by the wrong mosquito. I went from being a totally healthy kid to a full on grand mal seizure brought on by a rare viral infection of my brain and spinal fluid. After suffering a stroke, three days in a coma, many more seizures, and nine days in the intensive care unit, I emerged with significant brain damage.

Profiles

How A Wilderness Adventurer Wrote His Way To A Location-Independent Lifestyle

Kevin Casey has wanted to explore the most remote parts of the world ever since he was a little kid watching nature documentaries. Now, as a location-independent freelance writer - that went from $0/month to $7000/month in six months - he’s able to fully fund his adventurous, nomadic lifestyle.

Since I was a boy living in California, I’ve wanted to explore the world's wildest and most isolated rivers. Now based out of Brisbane, Australia, I live that dream and my one-man copywriting business has been paying for all my overseas adventures since 2013!

Profiles

One Man’s Quest to Leave the Oil Industry and Complete a 100-Item Bucket List

Matthew Bailey left the opportunities of the booming oil town that he grew up in to live a more authentic life. Ten years later, and with over 100 bucket items checked off, a new, bolder Matthew is still dreaming up more audacious quests to accomplish.

I'm a small town guy who grew up in Northern Alberta. Although it seemed normal to me at the time, the town I grew up in is anything but - it’s an oil town where almost anyone can make six figures a year, regardless of education or age. Instead of cashing in, I escaped.

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