Have Internet, Will Travel: A Freelancer Case Study
Melissa Antonelli spent five weeks this year living and freelancing in Italy.
Melissa Antonelli didn’t start out wanting a freelancing life—but she found it suited her adventurous spirit.
I met Melissa in 2005 when we were both studying journalism as graduate students at New York University. She had recently graduated with honors with her bachelor’s in English from Penn State and was ready to get her feet wet in New York City.
During her time at NYU, Melissa worked for a travel magazine and realized, rather quickly, she hated working from behind a desk all day. “I liked the work, and the people I worked with, but I knew that the typical 9 to 5 job wasn’t for me,” she says. Her number one passion in life is travelling, so after completing her Masters, she decided to take advantage of the transition in her life and spend a year in New Zealand.
The Impact of Travelling
What she learned from working her way around a foreign country for a year is valuable stuff: how to be self-sufficient, the importance of independence, that you can create family wherever you go, and that travel is almost as valuable an educational tool as a graduate degree.
When she moved back to the U.S., Melissa didn’t have a plan, but a few different things brought her to San Francisco, where she currently lives. “I did some freelance jobs here and there while job hunting—everything from writing articles, to ghostwriting, to research,” Melissa says. She eventually got a job as a marketing communications specialist in Silicon Valley, and worked there for over a year before she started a full-time freelancing career.
Going Freelance
“I’ve actually been freelancing since I was 19-years-old,” she says. “Back in 2001 I was living in Philadelphia and met a woman at a networking event who wrote for a living from home. It sounded like a dream job and I wanted to know her secret!” Melissa eventually became an intern for this woman, who helped her publish her first article. It was a mentorship Melissa won’t forget.
What prompted Melissa’s freelancing career was the elimination of her marketing job in Silicon Valley. Her boss asked her if she would continue writing for them as a consultant. She jumped at the chance.
I was doing the same job without the stressful commute, and I wasn’t tethered to my desk all day. It was perfect.
Melissa Antonelli on the slopes in Tahoe.
Melissa mentioned that she has since worked with many other clients in a variety of industries, creating web content, SEO, blogging, writing press releases, you name it. And since her clients are scattered all over the country, Melissa can work where she pleases.
“As long as I have a computer, a phone, and an Internet connection, I can work from wherever,” she says. “I just spent five weeks working from Florence, Italy!” Melissa currently splits her time between San Francisco and Lake Tahoe, which allows her to get her city fix, and then head for the mountains when she needs some peace and quiet.
“Every month I spend about two weeks in San Fran and two weeks in Tahoe, which is about a 3.5 hour drive from each other,” Melissa says.
In San Fran I can take coffee breaks at my local café and morning walks in Golden Gate Park. In Tahoe I have two ski lifts in my neighborhood, so I can go snowboarding during my lunch breaks. It really is the best of both worlds.
I completely agree!
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It depends on people how well he or she can travel around the world while getting the job done. For instance I don’t have any problems but I had one friend who were freelance web designer and once we traveled he were drinking too much, couldn’t get his mind on track and so on. He felt that he was on holidays even after 3 months of traveling around. Maybe this ability comes with time.
But I really love to work and travel at the same time
Does anyone have any idea on how to get international work once you’re in the country? I mean, legally speaking, in terms of having the required documentation or something like that? I’m thinking about travelling to Amsterdam, and thought about getting freelance jobs there. But the question about the legal issues got me, I can’t find this kind of information. Does anyone have an idea?
Getting work in another country is not easy. You have to apply for a work visa, and even then you aren’t guaranteed work.
But as a freelancer it’s different. Many freelancers have international clients, and how you deal with the taxes is up to how the tax structure is set up where you physically live. If you are on a two-week vacation in Mexico, and you do some freelance work, you don’t have to file Mexican taxes.
How do you handle taxes when traveling around? Do you treat everything as if you are still in the US / a citizen, etc?
What’s the point of this article?
I asked myself the same thing when I read it. It seems more like showing off than telling of any benefits to traveling as a freelancer… I expected some insight on what she does in her freelancing. Is there a reason for the travel, or is it to brag that she has enough money to go wherever she likes?
This article is not to brag — it’s to illustrate how one woman maneuvered into a freelancing job after being laid off. Working as a freelancer has given Melissa the opportunity to do what she loves best—write and travel. Many people who are not freelancers do not have this option.
The benefits of being a freelancer is that with a computer and internet connection, you can work from anywhere. In Melissa’s case either in San Fran, Tahoe, or in Europe. Sure you have to work around time change differences, but freelancing has given her the freedom to work, well, wherever she feels like.
This is the freedom you get when you work on your own.
Have spent 12 months in the US. Now I am in Spain, on Costa del Sol for 1 month or so. Freelancing is perfect for my travels and I can earn money while not being ‘pinned’ to my home city. It’s really amazing how just an internet connection and my trusted laptop can make such a huge change in the way I live and work.
Love Costa del Sol! Lucky you! Does working while you travel change your “typical” work day schedule?
This is the kind of story that makes lots of people go, “Oooh! That’s so glamorous!” and “I want to do that!” Well, I have done that – in fact I still do – but let’s be realistic. What do you do when you hit a work drought? I’d love to take off to Tahoe for a few days, but instead I find myself tethered to my laptop and phone waiting for messages to see if a new job is coming in. What about when you think you’re taking off to write somewhere else for a week, only to have an editor tell you the piece you just submitted isn’t so great and needs a lot more work (but you won’t get any more money). And – then there’s the Internet connections in faraway places that won’t work when you need them to. This has happened to me just about every time I accompany my partner on business trips to Australia, where I often freelance for 3 and 4 weeks at a stretch. You also left out things like paying your own health insurance and working on holidays to meet deadlines (why not? you’re not getting paid for taking Christmas off or anything like that). That said – I do love freelancing. I could never hack going back to a 9-to-5 office gig. But let’s be real when we write these pieces, ok?
When traveling while freelancing, planning is most certainly key. Find out about wifi before booking a place to stay.
Thank you all for your messages on this post. It wasn’t supposed to be a blanket statement about how every freelancer can travel at will while working. It was a profile of how ONE woman, who has a home base in both San Fran and Tahoe (3.5 hours away) makes it work for her.
Everyone’s freelancing life is different. And yes, there are things to think about like health insurance, not getting paid for time off, and challenges with Internet connections. This is a BIG site, and you can find blogs that talk about every issue a freelancer has to face on a daily basis. This is just one post on one woman—and she is not, in any way, meant to represent all freelancers across the globe.
True, Kathy, freelancing isn’t all glamorous. But this post was to show you how a little planning and the freedom to work where you want, can help create the kind of lifestyle you want…whether it’s traveling across the globe or down the interstate.
I thought the article was great Melanie.
It has definitely given me some inspiration.
cheers
How do you get freelance work? I mean, where do you go to find it? How do people find you to employ you?
Hi Melanie,
Thanks for the article. In fact the reason why I learned everything about about the web was very similar: basically to be able to travel in between South Africa and Germany whenever I wanted – not haveing to beg a boss to allow me too.
@The dame
Generally it is wise to get most of the freelance work right in your home town. Meeting your clients in person beforehand will usually get them to trust you more and pay higher rates. Once you are doing good work and they see that you can work well from anywhere they will most probably refer you to other people.