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Today on The World Wanderers, we are sharing a special Insider interview with Jason Robinson from Thenomadexperiment.com!
Jason began his nomadic adventure at age 39 with 14 days worth of travel experience. Over the past few years, Jason has achieved complete location independence as a Full-time Nomad, Author, Videographer, and Travel Blogger documenting his experiments and experiences for beginner travelers.
In this episode, we discuss Jason’s story, the mindset of experimentation, and advice for anyone at the start of their traveler journey.
In this episode:
- Growing up without a lot of travel experience
- Putting pins in your map of the world
- Experimenting with the travel lifestyle
- Giving yourself permission to change your mind
- Financial tips for a nomadic lifestyle
- Career tips for a nomadic lifestyle
- The negotiable nature of work
- Staying productive during the pandemic
- Writing a blueprint for beginner travelers
If you would like to get access to the past and future episodes of our nomad series as a World Wanderers Insider, head on over to Patreon.com/theworldwanderers. Thank you so much for your continued support!
Connect with Jason Robinson here:
Digital Nomad Life: Mapping the World One Experiment at a Time with Jason Robinson from Nomad Experiment
Welcome to the World Wanderers podcast, your source for travel stories, travel destinations, and travel philosophy. We are your hosts Ryan and Amanda, and we will be taking you on today’s adventure as we speak with this week’s guest.
In this week’s episode, we are joined by Jason Robinson from Nomad Experiment, who has been making his way through the world one map-pin at a time.
He is a digital nomad who created this lifestyle a little later on in his life and has been pushing and challenging himself through his travels, which he calls experiments.
This lifestyle switch he has made by turning completely nomadic has been very successful, and he shares it all on his blog and social platforms.
We were excited to meet him and find out more about his recent life-changing journeys!
Growing up without a lot of travel experience
It was surprising to find out that Jason started his nomadic journey pretty late in his life at the age of 39. He is originally from Ohio and says that he never really got introduced to travel until he was in college.
“Interestingly enough, I didn’t have a lot of early travel experiences. That’s kind of where it started, it was the lack of travel. Honestly, by the time I was 19 years old, we used to go camping and hiking in the summer, we didn’t go to other states. We didn’t go out of the country, things like that. And while I was happy with that, I understood that there was this possibility that I could do all these other things.”
His first traveling experience was at 23 years old when he went to visit his dad in North Carolina. Even though he didn’t leave the country, it was still a trip inside the states.
“I went to visit my dad who had recently moved down to North Carolina, visited him four or five times. That was when I was 23 and still in college.”
By the time he started his nomad life, his overall travel experience consisted of only 14 days of international travel. Especially considering his recent lifestyle shift, it was pretty fascinating to hear that number!
“Honestly, up until about age 39, I was only out of the US a total of 14 days, which includes that one week trip to London back when I was 25.”
At a certain point, he realized what he could do, and discovered all the possibilities that were waiting for him out in the world that he hadn’t ever experienced before. Jason decided to start pushing his limits and set out these “travel experiments” to discover the world!
“In my late thirties, I started these experiments to push my comfort zone and start traveling.”
Putting pins in your map of the world
Jason shared one interesting thing he does that inspired him to start traveling. He says he always admired the people who mark the places they have visited on a map, and one day decided to do that himself.
“I put all my pins on the map and I realized that there weren’t many pins and they were all concentrated around about 20 states within the US.”
Once he put his pins down, he was shocked to see how much there was still to discover, and he had not even scratched the surface of this amazing life waiting ahead.
So once he started his “experiments”, putting pins down on the map became a drive to push himself even more and discover even further what the world has to offer!
“I went, oh my gosh, I’ve barely even opened the cover of this book of travel that I have the opportunity to have. So of all the things I’ve gotten rid of, a year ago I sold my house and went completely nomadic, that’s one of the things that I keep under my dad’s bed back in Charlotte, North Carolina. And every time I go back, once I’ve gotten to some new destinations, I pull it out and I put some new pins in it.”
Experimenting with the travel lifestyle
It’s clear from the blog title that he got into travel by treating this whole life alteration as an experiment. In order to achieve his dreams and pursue the adventure he’s always wanted, he’s had to let go of all his fears.
He learned to finally get out of his comfort zone and go on to discover the digital nomad life one step (experiment) at a time.
“I had this epiphany one day, and I started viewing things as an experiment, and that gave me the freedom to try things without this pass-fail mentality. And I didn’t have to find an answer in one little experiment.”
He always had a fascination with this type of lifestyle and would always read about and look up to other travelers, but soon enough he realized that until he decided to do those things himself, he would never know what it’s really like.
So, as he shares, he started traveling domestically, one trip at a time. Each time, he returned back home until he decided this is what he really wanted to do. Eventually, he got the travel bug, got a one-way ticket to Mexico, and later on even sold his house and belongings to turn completely nomadic!
“Until you start testing those things, you’re never going to truly know. And it seems a little bit silly to just sell all your stuff and then go, oh man, I don’t like this lifestyle. So I started traveling domestically just to push myself a little bit more in, see if I enjoyed it.”
Giving yourself permission to change your mind
Because of having this experiment mentality, he allowed himself to have options and not rush into making decisions. It was important to him to be able to change his mind, so he gave himself permission to do so in the process!
He covers the importance of this topic, and encourages everyone to believe in their abilities and that they can make any shift they want in their life.
“So I always gave myself that flexibility to kind of be flighty is what I call it. People think it’s weird when you change your mind all the time. I think in our society, that’s viewed down upon. I’ve kind of flipped that on its head. And I said you’re trying stuff, you’re growing more than most people are growing, so allow yourself to do that.”
Nothing is permanent, so even if you don’t like the life you are creating, you can always turn back- this is something he always stood by, which led him to successfully build everything he anticipated.
Having this mindset allows you to grow, and eliminates all fears of failure!
Financial tips for a nomadic lifestyle
Jason shares some tips related to finances and his own experiences for how to make a big life change like this. We find out what it has been like for him, and how he managed to get enough income to support his nomadic lifestyle.
He covers all important aspects, how much you need to spend, and what the difference is compared to his previous lifestyle. Even though he had a lower income for almost a year, he tells us that there was a much brighter side to the whole situation, and it’s not just about the amount of money you make when you are traveling.
“I did have to pull the plug on all of my clients and over 90% of my income and, pretty much live on ramen for a year while I rebuilt. But there’s something else that goes with that.”
The experiences you get from traveling are irreplaceable, and your paycheck does not need to be big to support your dreams.
“If you don’t spend as much, you don’t need to make as much. And I think that a lot of people in our society don’t realize how much money they’re spending on things that they don’t necessarily get good enjoyment out of…”
Another tip he shares is getting rid of any debt before starting your nomad journey. It is something he has done himself and having done that made the path so much easier. He suggests spending time to take care of any debt before starting to constantly travel since it’s going to cut out so much of your stress.
“A crazy suggestion is to get out of debt. I know that sounds super light as far as how much debt people can be in. But when I was 28, I was 50,000 dollars in debt. I was single, living by myself and I realized, I got to fix this. And four years later, I was debt-free.”
Career tips for a nomadic lifestyle
Additionally, by sharing his own story, he gives tons of useful tips when it comes to making a shift in your career while you are rebuilding.
He is evidence that anything is possible, and even he, who is an architect, managed to keep working in that same field, no matter the circumstances.
“I had six months there where my income was very low as I was rebuilding, but you know, people are interested in somebody who has interesting stories or the courage to do things that a lot of people don’t do. They want to work with you. They want to be along for that ride. And if you set up your expectations right out of the gate, just like you should any good work relationship or professional relationship, there’s not much difference to it.”
It’s important to have a conversation with whoever you are working with, and he reassures that most of the time, it is going to work and people will be willing to negotiate.
Having a career while traveling is definitely possible!
“So I think the breadth of possibilities is getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Start having those conversations with your boss, your management, and don’t assume that it is not possible, or don’t assume that there’s never a chance.”
The negotiable nature of work
Since we touched on the topic of careers, we were interested to find out what he does. As previously mentioned, he is an architect who did not need to make a career change to pursue his digital nomad life.
“I didn’t make a career change. I’ve been self-employed as a contractor or freelancer or whatever you want to call it since I was 28 years old. I used to work on a lot of high-profile architectural projects at airports. I had to make a choice. I could either take this next big contract, knowing that it was going to tie me to a place for another two to three years or I had to pull the plug and I had to say, okay, you’re going to rebuild. And that’s essentially what I did.”
He explains that every job has a negotiable nature, and anyone can make it work from anywhere. Especially with the rise of the pandemic, you would be surprised to find out all the “traditional” jobs that made a shift to remote working.
“For better or worse, this pandemic has shown us that a lot of jobs can be done online. Even those of us with a more remote frame of mind, we’re even being surprised at what more traditional jobs are getting done on the internet or via Zoom and things like that.”
Staying productive during the pandemic
Jason also shares what his experience during the pandemic was like, and how that affected his amazing recent start at nomadism.
He is being honest about the disappointment and demotivation he felt at a certain point, but from which he shortly recovered.
In fact, this pandemic has grounded him for a while and helped him focus on his career in which he has been really productive.
“There’s probably a lot of reports out now, after being in a pandemic and people working remotely at the productivity level, either being similar or better… That was a massive trade-off that’s being talked about now. And that’s why a lot of these companies are going to cut the overhead and let people continue to work remotely.”
Besides all circumstances, he is thankful for the opportunity he gets to keep working and stay productive until he gets back on track when the world re-opens!
Writing a blueprint for beginner travelers
And finally, we were curious to find out about his most recent project, which is a new book he will be releasing.
It is a book he started writing at the start of the pandemic. We get a little insight into the book and what we can learn from it. There, he shares his experiences, his story, tips for becoming a digital nomad, and everything you need to know before making this life change.
“So the book I have been working on for the past year since the pandemic started is taking everything that I’ve learned in the past three or four years, going from corporate nine to five, location-dependent, a person who never really traveled, to where I’m at now and how to use all of the mechanisms that I had to use personally, to go from beginner traveler to world nomad or anywhere in between.”
It is basically a guidebook or a blueprint for beginner travelers, as he likes to call it. It will be released in 2021, so make sure to wait and stick around on his social media and blog for his big announcement!
“It’s also a little bit of a self-help book. There’s a little bit of everything in the book… It’s kind of a blueprint for beginner travelers that will be coming out at the end of the first quarter of 2021.”
Last Words
It was exciting to get to know and learn about Jason’s extraordinary life story and nomad experience, and hopefully, his journey brought you some inspiration as well.
He is living proof that all things are possible and it’s never too late to gather courage and start chasing your dreams.
Life is yours to create, so why not start by taking the first little steps and go on with creating your own “experiments”!
To find out more, check out his content on all social media platforms, and his blog Thenomadexperiment.com!
