Have Laptop, Will Travel
They swapped cubicles, traffic and wind chill for beaches, adventure and significant savings
These restless Torontonians packed up their laptops and swapped cubicles, traffic and wind chill for beaches, adventure and significant savings. Where to? Wherever the sun shines and the Wi-Fi is reliable. Meet the digital nomads Interviews by Christina Gonzales
Soul-crushing winters, gig economies, eternal commutes—the urban struggle can be very real. But instead of giving in or giving up, these 10 Torontonians got out: they packed their laptops (and yoga pants and GoPro cameras) and took their work on the road. Where to? Places like Bali, Sydney and Medellín, which have become hubs for digital nomads and thriving micro-industries to support them. But mostly, the destination is wherever the sun shines, the Wi-Fi is reliable and the living is easy. Scenes from the new frontier of work
Dorene WharTon, 48, a tourism strategist and marketer, and Troy young, 50, a video producer and editor
Where they do it Colombia, New Zealand, Laos, India, Sri Lanka, Indonesia MoNthLy expeNses Housing: $700, transportation: $50, food: $100, entertainment: $250,
work expenses: $1,150 for co-working spaces and website subscriptions, health insurance: $250
Dorene:
In 2012, I worked in marketing for a global spirits company, and we owned a home in Leslieville. It was always our dream to pick up and leave for a year to travel. We’d already saved about $15,000 and we figured we needed twice that to cover 12 months of travel.
Troy:
I worked as a video producer and editor, and around 2013 I started to notice that my income was becoming stagnant—I'd hit a ceiling. I had 20 years of experience in the video business, but people who were more junior than me were getting the jobs. Nobody wanted to pay the rates I charged. In late 2013, Dorene was asked to relocate to the U.S. for work. She declined, and she was fired shortly after.
Dorene:
In November 2014, we sold our home in Leslieville. We made $725,000. We worked with a financial advisor who helped us invest some of that money so we could reap monthly returns, and that gave us the capital we needed to change our lifestyle completely. We could travel for an entire year without even having to think about work.
Troy:
When we left Toronto in January 2015, we initially did a lot of moving around—nine countries in nine months. Eventually, we landed in Medellín,
Colombia, and we loved it. The people are extremely friendly. All year round, the climate is like Toronto’s in early summer. It’s a hub for digital nomads, partly because it has a very good health care system. We made it our home base, and we rent a place here. There’s only a one-hour time difference to Toronto, which makes it easy to work with clients at home. I started picking up jobs with some American clients. Now I probably do about three video projects per year. They pay between $5,000 and $10,000 each, which goes a long way in Medellín.
Dorene:
Troy and I also began working together after I started a marketing consultancy for local breweries, tour companies and hotels. That’s one of the things about leaving Toronto—Troy and I are together now 24/7. On the flip side, we’ve become entirely different people. We’re not as frivolous with our money—we’re conscious about what we spend. The freedom of being your own boss makes it worth it. We used to be so scheduled in Toronto. Now we can work—and go— wherever we want. So far we’ve been to New Zealand, India, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Laos and Indonesia.
Troy:
The one drawback is that we’re not around friends and family for important moments. When we’re in Toronto, we try to make it count.
“There’s only a one-hour time difference between Medellín and Toronto, which makes it easy to work with clients back home”
“I sometimes pay a little more for spaces that have co-working and co-living facilities all under one roof“
ElisE Darma, 32, instagram marketer
Where she does it The Netherlands, Indonesia, Germany, the U.S. Upcoming: Costa Rica and Mexico MoNthLY expeNses Co-working space/housing: $3,000, work expenses: $80 for devices, data, SIM card, transportation, including flights: $1,000 to $1,300, food: $500, health insurance: $83
I grew up in a Mormon household. In many ways, it was a prescriptive upbringing with a restricted worldview. When I was 18, I went on a trip to Europe, visiting France, England, Austria, Italy, Germany, Greece and the Netherlands, to name a few, and the experience transformed my life. For the first time, I saw new cultures, people who were living outside my tidy little universe, and they were happy! It was an incredible realization. Ever since, I’ve had the itch to travel.
As a student at Ryerson, I got a job at the university’s Digital Media Zone—an incubator for start-ups—doing marketing and social media stuff. It was a pretty standard nine-to-five job, and I remember thinking it felt so mundane and limiting. I knew I could do much more on my own, so I took on some freelance work for clients in the bridal, fashion and home decor industries, helping them boost their Instagram followers. I decided to go out on my own full time. Eventually, I realized I could take my business anywhere, so I did.
I left Toronto for the first time in 2014, and I posted my rental condo on Airbnb, which helped cover costs. I went to Melbourne and Sydney, Australia, then Ubud in Bali and Oahu and Maui in Hawaii, all of which are well-known hubs for digital nomads like me. In Bali, I booked an Airbnb that was 20 minutes from my co-working space. One night, I left work near midnight and felt unsafe about walking home. The person who ran the co-working space suggested I hop on a stranger’s scooter—they’re like taxis over there. It worked out fine, but now I pay a little bit more for co-working and co-living spaces that offer both accommodation and workspaces under the same roof—Outpost and Outsite are two well-known brands. These spaces also have program directors who arrange activities, which gives me, a natural introvert, the chance to meet people.
The biggest challenge of working from a beautiful location is that I have to remind myself that I’m here to work—it’s not a holiday. It can be tempting to want to see all the best beaches instead of working, but if I don’t work, I won’t be able to afford my lifestyle. My mindset is: work first, then enjoy. Sometimes, dealing with client emergencies on the road can be stressful. How can you run a business from the coast of Nicaragua if your devices won’t connect to the Internet? But the joy and variety compensate for the downsides. When I wake up somewhere new and I look outside and see a beautiful vista, I feel so much gratitude.
CoLeman moLnar, 33, and
Lisa FeLepChuk, 35, content marketers
Where they do it Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam MoNthLy expeNses Housing: $2,000, utilities: $200, transportation: $600 on gas, groceries: $450, entertainment: $400, work expenses: $300, home and vehicle insurance: $300, miscellaneous: $250, health insurance: $160
Lisa:
I was working in the publishing industry as the editor-in-chief of a women’s magazine. Coleman was the digital editor of a men’s magazine, and that’s how we met.
CoLeman:
I had travelled quite extensively. After high school, I spent a year in Bordeaux, France, and during university I went backpacking around Southeast Asia, Australia and Central America. I had dreams to do long-term travel. I knew I’d find a way.
Lisa:
We went for an evening run in High Park in March 2015. It was dark and windy and miserable. We were both like, What are we doing here?
CoLeman:
Toronto winters were definitely the catalyst, but I was growing disgruntled by the pay at work, and I wasn’t satisfied with where I was in my career, either. At the same time, I had started to notice the boom in content creation and opportunities for freelance work. So I quit my job in September 2015 and found a position with a marketing company that created written and video content for various brands. Best of all: I could work remotely.
Lisa:
By that point, we were living in a condo at Peter and Adelaide and I worked at Richmond and Spadina.
I loved my job. I had started working full time right out of university, so the idea of leaving a stable nineto-five was scary. Still, quitting was the right decision. As a trial, we decided to buy a 1983 Volkswagen Westfalia and drive across Canada.
CoLeman:
In May 2016, we got rid of our condo and moved into the van. That summer, we went east to the Maritimes then drove west to B.C. We stayed in Vancouver for while, then in October we went south to Washington, Oregon, California and Arizona.
Lisa:
It was a little scary to leave security behind. I don’t know if I would’ve been able to travel full time if Coleman hadn’t been with me. But it got easier the longer we did it. Earlier this year, we spent six months in Southeast Asia working remotely. We’ve been fortunate enough to have contacts through our old journalism jobs. We do traditional journalism and content marketing for brands under our company, Li et Co Media.
CoLeman:
We also created a brand for ourselves on Instagram, which generates a bit of money. We don’t identify as influencers by any means, but we figured that if we were teaching clients how to create consistent content for a specific audience, we should probably practise what we preach.
“It was scary to leave security behind, but it got easier the longer we did it. We just spent six months in Southeast Asia working remotely”
Lauren Grant Spicer, 35, a project management consultant, MichaeL Spicer, 37, a primary school teacher, and hawksley, 2
Where they do it Bali, Panama, Guatemala, Antigua, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Mexico, Colombia, Peru, El Salvador MoNthLy expeNses Exercise memberships: $200, child care: $450, dining out, entertainment and travel: $800, groceries and child care products: $900, transportation: $300, rent, electricity, Internet: $1,500, miscellaneous: $350, health insurance: covered by Michael’s employer
Lauren:
and I was In pursuing 2010, Michael an online had finished master’s teacher’s degree in college international in and Australia. community We were development living at my through parents’ a house university at Bathurst and St. Clair to save money.
MichaeL: There weren’t many teaching jobs available, so I went to an international job fair and got hired at a school in Panama City. It came with health insurance, a housing credit and visas for both of us.
Lauren: Panama City is a hectic place, but we were close to remote surfing destinations and had easy access to Guatemala, Antigua and Nicaragua for hiking trips. Of course, there were things we missed about Toronto, like online banking, proper city planning and road infrastructure. But as we continued to live there, the city grew, and I guess we did, too, and those things became much less of concern.
MichaeL: Lauren ran a wellness company, helping local businesses plan yoga retreats. My teaching job was good and my income increased every year, but the cost of living in Panama City did, too. Groceries cost $1,000 per month. Eventually, we realized we wanted to live a cheaper, beachier lifestyle. We wanted to slow down.
Lauren: Everything changed when our son Hawksley was born in January 2017. Michael began looking for jobs in Asia, and he landed one in Bali. We’d never been to Bali before, but we knew it had a digital nomad community. We also knew that child care was good and affordable there.
MichaeL: Now we live along the beach in Canggu, a tiny community on Bali’s south coast. Most of our neighbours have children, too. It’s lovely. The hardest bit about being away from home is not being able to see family and friends. Still, we’re lucky that so many beautiful parts of the world are accessible to us. There are nearly 18,000 islands in Indonesia alone, and we want to see as many as we can.
“From Panama City, it was just a short flight to countries like Guatemala, Antigua and Nicaragua”
DaviD Roa, 35, international food broker
Where he doeS it Medellín, New York, Miami, Panama MoNthLY expeNSeS Housing: $550, transportation: $45, food and housekeeping: $500,
work expenses: $700 a year for workspaces and $90 a month for a virtual assistant, health insurance: $50
I arrived in Toronto from Bogota, Colombia, via the U.S., when I was 18 years old. I studied at the University of Toronto but dropped out when I got a job selling newspaper subscriptions. I discovered that I’m really good at sales. The money was great until the recession hit, and I needed to make a change.
I’d always been interested in specialty coffee, and one of my dreams was to import beans, but I had no experience in international trade. I landed a remote internship with a company in Colombia that sourced fruit concentrates and sugar. Because I speak Spanish, I was able to help broker deals with sugar producers. In 2012, I stumbled upon the book The 4-hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss, which outlined how to operate a lean digital company. I decided to start my food trade business by leveraging relationships I already had with people at the Colombia trade commission, who I’d met during my internship. From my living room at Bathurst and Eglinton, I started Roa Naturals. I had a professional-looking website, a corporate email and mailing address, but otherwise I was untethered.
Before I fully jumped into the nomadic lifestyle, I tested things out. I went to Niagara Falls for a few days with just my laptop. Then I went to New York for a week— I figured I could fly home in an hour if anything went wrong. When I realized there was no need for me to be in Toronto, I flew to Panama for an entire month. Eventually, I worked up the courage to leave permanently— I left all my belongings and transferred my lease to a friend. Over the next two years, I visited 22 different countries in Europe, North America and Central America, usually staying with friends or contacts. Otherwise, I used Airbnb. I took my bull terrier, Papo, everywhere I could.
My business has now evolved into sourcing ethical and organic ingredients from small producers in Latin America and selling mainly in Canada and the U.S. Usually, I’m in remote areas of the Amazon, working with Indigenous people. Banking is tricky, as is security, so I always carry two debit cards in case one gets stolen.
To live a nomadic lifestyle, you must have an adventurous heart. For me, it’s worked out in business and in my personal life: I met my wife, Nathaly, in Medellín, and we recently had a son, Ethan.
“Before I jumped into the nomadic life, I went for a few nights to Niagara Falls with my laptop, just to try it out”
Belinda Macneil, 45, a virtual assistant, and david J. Macneil, 49, a freelance video producer and voice-over specialist Where they do it Costa Rica, with plans for South Africa, Spain and Portugal MoNthLy expeNses Travel: $300, transportation: $100, food: $400, entertainment: $825, health insurance: $83, work expenses: $160
Belinda: We had always dreamed of retiring in a Spanish-speaking country. Last year, I was working as a product manager for a travel company, creating custom itineraries for long-haul destinations, negotiating contracts and creating brochures for various cities.
david: We got married in Costa Rica and loved it so much we returned twice. On one of our trips, we met a couple from Calgary who introduced us to an expat community of about 30 people. We met more people on that trip than in four years in our Toronto condo.
Belinda: We owned a two-bedroom condo on Fort York Boulevard, and one day we saw an ad in our mailbox—the unit above ours had sold for nearly $900,000.
david: I thought, Could this be our way out? We had bought it in 2015 for $460,000. In May, we sold it for $890,000. With the proceeds, we bought a 41-foot, two-bedroom yacht. We had to spend $8,000 to fix the transmission and plumbing and update the interior. We’ll live in it at a marina on the waterfront between May and October, and dry-dock it through the winter.
Belinda: People think the biggest challenge of living on the boat is space, when it’s actually about managing the environment the boat is in. The high waters in Toronto this past summer were really challenging.
Belinda: I tried to convince my bosses to let me work from Costa Rica, but it didn’t work out. David was more successful in that negotation: as long as he has the proper technology on his laptop, his clients are fine with him working from wherever. When I heard about virtual assistants—people who help with email, scheduling appointments and more—I decided to give it a try.
david: We recently bought a two-bedroom condo in Costa Rica. We use one of the bedrooms as an office space, where Belinda works. I don’t mind taking my laptop outside. We just arrived, but I estimate that we’ll spend about $3,000 a month on everything. That’s 60 per cent of what we spent when we were living in Toronto.
“We met more people during one trip to Costa Rica than in four years living in our Toronto condo”