[TNT]

How many at RVF find the location independent lifestyle can be lonely?

I guess is would be OK up to mid 30s age, but after then I think that many would get jaded by that lifestyle, and perhaps start to think about putting down roots and developing a good social circle or group of friends.

[Trav_Ler]

Yes, and in general it's worse when you're keeping your overhead as low as possible, because the cheapest places to live tend to have few or even no expats.

If you're a US person, moving to Puerto Rico can lower your overhead tremendously while avoiding the isolation problem.
http://tinyurl.com/n9b4utz

[rottenapple]

For me also it depends on the place. In big cities or places with many expats and social life, I never had a problem. Now I'm living in a small ghetto city and I'm the only white guy around, it's a lot harder. No one to relate too.

[Tigre]

(04-09-2014 05:01 PM)TNT Wrote:  

I guess is would be OK up to mid 30s age, but after then I think that many would get jaded by that lifestyle, and perhaps start to think about putting down roots and developing a good social circle or group of friends.

Just to be clear, location independent means you can work from anywhere you choose.

That doesn't mean you have to be a nomad, moving every month.

You can do a yearly rotation of four favorite cities, staying a season in each.

You can live 11 months a year in a house that you own, and hit the road one month a year.

You can design the lifestyle you want. If loneliness is a problem, the response is simply to fine tune your lifestyle. Even if you find yourself moving around less, you're still location independent.

[Tail Gunner]

(04-09-2014 11:34 PM)Tigre Wrote:  

That doesn't mean you have to be a nomad, moving every month.

You can do a yearly rotation of four favorite cities, staying a season in each.

Exactly my goal: full-time PT, moving four times a year. Always spring.

If you can pipeline bitches before arriving, you can certainly pipeline meetups with interesting people before arriving. Explore some business opportunities.

Good flexibility certainly helps in regard to finances. For example, you can live frugally in appropriate areas, but splurge in other locations when warranted.

Learn to think outside the box.

[spalex]

In my experience, it always depends on the city.

Oslo (or any city in Norway) for example... Everyone's a cunt.
Expats usually only make friends with other expats. However it's too expensive to go and catch up over a mid-week beer and a meal.
Depressing and easy to feel lonely


Warsaw. You can make local friends easily if you can communicate with them. Lots of expats and everyone is always up for going out for some food / coffee / beers.
Happy times.

[TopPanda]

I lived in China and Thailand last year. I was never lonely. I met some great expats, some not so great expats and of course many wonderful Asian ladies.

These countries have great night life, whereas in the UK everyone leaves work at 5:30 and goes home to their slaveboxes.

[DaveR]

In Eastern Europe you can usually find a lot of English-speakin expats in the most central Irish bar of any city. If you speak Italian, the Italians usually all know each other and will introduce you.

I agree with the earlier comments about location independence not meaning that you go to a new place every few months - that would be more nomadic. After a couple of years you'll find a few places which suit you and then you can put them on rotation. I suggest from that point you start learning the language and building up local contacts so you don't get stuck in an expat bubble for too long.

[DaveR]

(04-10-2014 12:01 AM)Tail Gunner Wrote:  

Exactly my goal: full-time PT, moving four times a year. Always spring.

Being a permanent traveller to avoid visa and tax obligations does eventually wear you down though. It seems like you have a lot of freedom to begin with, but at some point you may want to stay somewhere for longer than your tax/visa plan allows (90 or 180 days is the usual limit).

It's still possible to avoid all taxes in most Eastern European countries for a few years (or however long your initial capital will cover your expenses for) due to their relatively simple tax laws. That leaves visas as the only real hurdle, and for EU citizens it they aren't an issue.

The way I've been doing it for the past decade is:
1. arrive in a country (eg. Russia) with capital in my personal name
2. set up offshore co to accumulate all of my earnings tax-free
3. loan the offshore co. all of my capital, so I can use it for business purposes
4. offshore co. pays back the loan in instalments each month and I use those payments to cover living expenses. This doesn't attract tax as it's repayment of a loan, or in other words, capital I already owned, not income
5. once the loan is payed back, move somewhere else for six months so I'm no longer a resident of Russia. At that time I then liquidate the offshore co. and bring all of my money back under my personal name.
6. repeat.

I've done this twice already. This time I've been resident in Russia for three years and still not paid a cent of tax. All legal.

Once I though of this system, I could understand why 1%ers never pay any tax - no need to. They have enough capital to live off for the rest of their lives and the rest sits offshore somewhere, never to be repatriated. Their money is never under any jurisdiction that can tax them.

[WD-40]

(04-09-2014 05:01 PM)TNT Wrote:  

How many at RVF find the location independent lifestyle can be lonely?

I guess is would be OK up to mid 30s age, but after then I think that many would get jaded by that lifestyle, and perhaps start to think about putting down roots and developing a good social circle or group of friends.

I would put it a bit differently, I think loneliness is a good preparation for a location independent lifestyle.

By having endured loneliness, you learn to become more emotionally self-sufficient and develop a more efficient repertoire of self-soothing behaviors that let you operate in "submarine mode" for extended periods of time.

This is important because when you finally ship out, you will need to be able to operate this way for however long it takes to establish yourself and build a new life wherever it is that you decided to go to.

In my case, it was rural Latin America. When you come to a place like this, it takes about a year to a year and a half to really get over the hump and it is good to know that I don't need any emotional support or intimacy because have more than enough mental strength of my own to be able to just slog through any difficulties.

Once you beat the demon, you can live the dream- the life that you as a free man choose and create for yourself. I wouldn't have it any other way.

[Courage Reborn]

I struggle with frequent bouts of loneliness.

Choosing the life of a sovereign man is a lonely business.

I have girls in over a dozen countries. I think of them often. Miss them. Once in a while I revisit. But it's never the same. Experience has taught me that chasing the past is a waste of time.

Moving forward, through the loneliness, is the only way. Revisiting ex gf's, is never the right answer. Things ended for a reason. It's hard to endure the loneliness. But when I do, I come out the other side stronger.

Stranger in a strange country. A few flakes. An unsuccessful night out. A few blows like this, and I need a few days of recovery before my game is on point again.

But I know 1 thing for sure. The loneliness of a playboy is my personal choice. And I choose it over the confines of a blue pill prison. Loneliness is the price of freedom.

I've been in the game a long time. The longer I've played, the more price I have paid. In stretches of alone time, and bouts of loneliness.

I don't want to be a "player for life". That price is too high for me personally. But I take great comfort in knowing that due to the work I've put in, I will always have options.

[Exiled Princeling]

(04-09-2014 11:34 PM)Tigre Wrote:  

(04-09-2014 05:01 PM)TNT Wrote:  

I guess is would be OK up to mid 30s age, but after then I think that many would get jaded by that lifestyle, and perhaps start to think about putting down roots and developing a good social circle or group of friends.

Just to be clear, location independent means you can work from anywhere you choose.

That doesn't mean you have to be a nomad, moving every month.

You can do a yearly rotation of four favorite cities, staying a season in each.

You can live 11 months a year in a house that you own, and hit the road one month a year.

You can design the lifestyle you want. If loneliness is a problem, the response is simply to fine tune your lifestyle. Even if you find yourself moving around less, you're still location independent.

Spot on. I'm more inclined to the 11 month model myself. If you're spending less than 9 months in a city, it's very difficult to build a social network. People will see you as being too transient to bother getting to know you.

I don't know how these digital nomads jump around every 2-3 months. I'd find it too destabilizing for my business, to say nothing of the loneliness.
Being part of a community is criminally underrated imho.

[lowbudgetballer]

(04-10-2014 04:09 AM)TopPanda Wrote:  

I lived in China and Thailand last year. I was never lonely. I met some great expats, some not so great expats

I was a professor in Asia for a few years. For the most part, I found expats to be cliquish and going out of their way to avoid any other foreigners. I wrote a post on an expat board about foreigners "scuttling away like cockroaches", and it ended up in a flame war.

Where I was the smart expat men hung out with Filipino women.

Baller

[Kvothe]

(07-06-2014 05:36 PM)lowbudgetballer Wrote:  

(04-10-2014 04:09 AM)TopPanda Wrote:  

I lived in China and Thailand last year. I was never lonely. I met some great expats, some not so great expats

I was a professor in Asia for a few years. For the most part, I found expats to be cliquish and going out of their way to avoid any other foreigners. I wrote a post on an expat board about foreigners "scuttling away like cockroaches", and it ended up in a flame war.

Where I was the smart expat men hung out with Filipino women.

Baller

I agree with you.

There should be at least some people highly interested in a stranger. You can find a niche if you insist on it. I never was that much outside my country yet, but there are people for sure who like travelling and spending time with foreing people.

[Cheetah]

For those that are location independent, how do you set up your routine?

Do you sit and work by yourself in your apartment all day long or do you try to rent an office somewhere shared with others?

If you only work from your apartment, does it eventually get quite lonely and boring or does going out often in an interesting city make up for it?

[trojans10]

what kind of work yall do?

[Cheetah]

..

[DaveR]

(09-18-2015 01:57 PM)Cheetah Wrote:  

For those that are location independent, how do you set up your routine?

Do you sit and work by yourself in your apartment all day long or do you try to rent an office somewhere shared with others?

If you only work from your apartment, does it eventually get quite lonely and boring or does going out often in an interesting city make up for it?

It does get very solitary, but I prefer to work that way. My area of work almost requires that kind of isolation.

If you tend to feel lonely without others around, I would suggest finding social workplaces - libraries, cafes, etc. In Eastern Europe there is a new kind of establishment which combines cafes and short-term rental of meeting rooms. You can go there to work alone or to network with other freelance IT people.

[262]

One thing I'm starting to do here in Poland is making friends with girls that I cold approach that give pretty strong boyfriend "rejections." My hope is that not only will this reduce loneliness, but it'll also create warm approach opportunities, since hot girls tend to know cool guys and ... other hot girls!

[Rawmeo]

You can develop a social circle wherever you are. If you are lonely here, you will be lonely wherever you go. Go make some approaches, meet friends, do online dating.

[Cheetah]

^^^^

Building a new social circle is actually easier if you are new to a place compared to increasing your social circle at home. But even with a good social circle, working alone can get quite solitary.

Quote:

#NoHymenNoDiamond #PoppedCherryDontMarry

Heh. True.

[worldwidetraveler]

(09-19-2015 06:30 AM)Cheetah Wrote:  

^^^^

Building a new social circle is actually easier if you are new to a place compared to increasing your social circle at home. But even with a good social circle, working alone can get quite solitary.

I enjoy it myself. I have a hard time working in environments like cafes. I end up watching people moreso than working. I would still advise you breaking up your day so you're around people even if it is getting a cup of coffee and making some conversation with people you run into.

[Malo]

A few tips if you're feeling you need more company:

If you're staying somewhere for a while:

- Turn girls you approach that aren't DTF into friends and you can build a social circle very quickly (this was mentioned before).

- Stay friends with the girls you slept with. They won't always go for it but sometimes they will.

- Meet expats BUT do not base your friendship with them around pickup, because unless you are a perfect match as wings, the friendship will end very very quickly. Do other stuff with them.

- Keep in touch with back home (friends, family) via voice and video rather than text chats.

If you're moving around very often:

- Stay at a hostel. If you're annoyed sleeping at the dorms then book the private room. There's still the common room to meet a lot of travelers, and also if you stay at a private room then you can bring a girl there.

Caveats are that a hostel (even at a private room) is not nearly as comfortable as a hotel room or a flat, and you may have trouble bringing girls even to your private room as most hostels are very anal about strangers coming in, let alone at night. A private room at a hostel also costs as much as a 3 star hotel or as much as an airbnb flat often times.

[Hafran]

This is an interesting topic.

The location independent lifestyle seems very appealing but it definitely has drawbacks.

If I were to live it, I would definitely go for living in 2 to 3 cities year round. That allows you to maintain friendships and relationships in each of the cities.

I lived twice as an expat in two Asian cities. I agree with what Malo said above. It is very easy to make expat friends if you live in a city with a big enough western population. It is one of the big appeals of the expat life. However, you will also find that most of these relationships are shallow. I strongly suggest that you make one or two real friends among those expats, otherwise you're bound to get lonely.

It still surprises me that we are indeed social beings and we cannot stand being alone for a prolonged period of time (for me at least). I like being lonely, but I will crave company after a few days.