5 Challenges of Working From Anywhere And How To Overcome Them
Following on from Skellie’s excellent Web Worker series, in this post I’m going to outline some of the most common challenges faced when you work from anywhere and how you can overcome them.
Since my husband and I left the UK last year for destinations unknown, we’ve been running our business from exotic locations such as Panama, Buenos Aires, Grenada, Dubai and we’re currently in South Africa for the next 3 months. Is it all it’s cracked up to be? Most definitely but it doesn’t come without its drawbacks.
Here are some of the challenges you’re likely to face if you plan to work from anywhere – and how to overcome them…
Unstable internet connections
The bane of a web worker’s life, dodgy internet connections can make or break your business. If you’re in the wilds of Africa without a fast, stable connection there’s not a huge amount you can do about it. The best advice therefore is to do your research before you go and find out as much as you can about internet access and ideally the infrastructure that provides it, in your chosen destination. Consider researching the following aspects:
- Type of connection – satellite or cable
- Maximum speed available – both upload and download
- Availability of internet cafes (often a good indication of a decent service)
- Cost to access the internet and how it’s charged
If you find you’ve got your heart set on a particular place but the internet service seems dodgy, then think long and hard about it. There’s nothing more frustrating than not being able to connect and nothing more stressful than knowing that you’re letting clients down. Perhaps consider a more suitable place to work from and leave the other destination for a holiday.
Staying in touch & being contact-able by phone
If your internet connection is stable, fast and VOIP is allowed (it’s banned in parts of the Middle East although it is now available in Dubai & the UAE), then staying in touch and communicating with clients is relatively simple. If you typically service clients from one country, then consider purchasing a SkypeIn number to allow them to contact you easily and cheaply. I personally have 3 SkypeIn numbers – one for clients in the UK, one for clients in the US and one for Australia.
If VOIP is not an option and you need to be in contact by phone, then you have a few options:
- Ask your cellphone provider before you leave if there is an international roaming package which gets you cheaper calls – both making and receiving – at your destination. Ensure you also have a quad-band handset.
- Use local calling cards which let you dial a local access number and make cheaper rate calls.
- Have a VA or assistant take initial calls for you and then email you about any relevant calls you need to deal with.
Lack of office equipment
As much as I’d love to be able to carry a portable printer and scanner around with me, it just doesn’t fit with our goal of travelling with under 20kg of luggage between us. Fortunately, in every place we’ve been to so far, printing and scanning facilities have been available at an internet cafe.
There are also a couple of nifty tools which are great for scanning, copying and faxing certain items using your cellphone – these are Scanr and Qipit. For faxing,consider using an online fax service such as eFax.
Another simple alternative to scanning is to simply use your digital camera if you want to make digital back-up copies of documents.
Difficulty sending & receiving snail mail
One of the big drawbacks of working from an exotic, remote location is the postal service. Aside from having to figure out how things work in a foreign language, many postal systems around the world are less than reliable. In most cases, couriering important documents is your only method of guaranteeing fast delivery.
There are a few useful services such as eSnailer (free but to US only), Postful (from US$99 to US & internationally) or ShinyLetter (from $2 to anywhere) which print and send out snail mail for you using their online services.
To receive snail mail whilst you’re overseas, we use Earth Class Mail which provides you with a US address or there are alternative services such as Paperless PO Box or Mail Boxes Etc. which have franchises worldwide.
Managing clients across multiple time zones
It can get pretty confusing when you’ve been travelling for 24 hours through multiple time zones and realise you have a call with a client the day after you arrive. Ensuring I’ve scheduled the right time with clients is something I obsess about – and so far, I haven’t got it wrong despite living in 6 different time zones over the past year. Here are 2 things I do to ensure I don’t screw it up:
- If you use Firefox, install the Foxclocks add-on which puts all the time zones you need directly in your browser for reference.
- Always write the time of an appointment in both your local time and the client’s time zone in your calendar.
And to manage clients’ expectations, either use an online appointment planner and ensure you update the available appointments according to your time zone or work out your “available slots” whenever you arrive in a new place, to ensure you don’t give someone the option of scheduling a 3am call with you!
Here’s one additional tip for dealing with a challenge for which I was totally unprepared…
Too many distractions & disruptions to focus on work
Working from exotic locations can pose a rather nice challenge to have – but it’s a challenge nonetheless – the fact that you’re surrounded by new and exciting things to do that you’d far rather be doing than working. For my advice on how to maintain your focus whilst travelling, check out an earlier post I wrote about being location independent.
For many freelancers, being an online web worker is “living the dream”. Having done it for the past year, I’d have to agree although it does pose some unique challenges which can threaten to ruin everything.
The best advice I can give is this: Think through all your plans very carefully in advance, ensure your clients are going to be minimally impacted and have contingencies for everything.
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This advice could not have come at a better time. In exactly two months I will be packing my bags and semipermanently relocating to Vietnam (I just bought my tickets last week – yay!). I have lived/studied abroad before, but never as a freelancer. One of my greatest anxieties about the upcoming return to VN relates to how I will manage snail mail in the United States and deal with bank statements, bills, etc. Ideally, I will be able to go paperless, but that’s fairly difficult to do when I receive as much mail as I do from friends, family, and clients. In any event, thanks for the insightful article – it definitely came at exactly the right time.
Wow.
Awesome article. A few other resources have inspired me to travel with my work, as well.
Question: How do you take payment from overseas clients? Do exchange rates affect your payment, or do you get paid in the currency of whatever country in which you’re a permanent resident?
I ask because most of my clients are local small businesses who prefer writing checks. Checks, obviously, aren’t an option when you’re overseas, away from your bank, let alone postal service.
try xoom.com – that is how I send money to my VA in the PI.
Great article. I’d love to travel and live in various places while still working my independent business. We could actually do it if we didn’t have a mortgage to deal with! I’m envious, to say the least!
Vincent’s question is exactly what was going through my head. Paypal, perhaps?
One more thing to mention.. the safety of your equipment.
Crazy story, I was in Mozambique in December 2006. While we were all at the bar someone got into the beach hut next to ours and literally took out his mac book from the pouch so they could put his camera, wallet and all other small loose stuff lying around inside the pouch. Leaving the notebook unharmed on the bed.
I think some advice would be either bring your most precious asset with you wherever you go or even hide it under the mattress when you are at dinner or walking on the beach etc.
Obviously different countries vary, but getting your laptop stolen would cut your business/holiday very short.
First of all, great article!
I recently spent 6 months freelancing from Argentina, Urugay, and Brazil, and would like to offer additional items that I think deserve to be looked at:
1. Get a GOOD travel AC adapter with a fuse or surge protection. Many countries may have voltage that is within the limits of your laptop (assuming you are not lugging around a desktop), but the amperage goes overlooked. I learned this the hard way by having my 17″ Macbook fried on TWO separate visits to Argentina. Apple assured me that my AC Adapter was compatible, but in fact the amperage was the culprit. suggest an adapter with a fuse or surge protector. Also the apple technicians I found in South America (luckily I am fluent in Spanish and Portuguese) did not have enough time working with high-end Macs to accurately diagnose the problem. I was given a bid of $1000 to replace my screen, and was suspicious. When returning to the US, it was found that it was something else, resulting in a $200 fix. In the end, It was very frustrating to lose clients and good projects after the incident, so please learn from my bad fortune!
2. Get an online billing and estimates system! This makes billing and payment a breeze. I personally use Freshbooks (www.freshbooks.com), but can also recommend Blinksale (www.blinksale.com). If you travel with a PC, or run a Windows emulator, look into using Quickbooks or Quickbooks Online, which also can handle all of your finances, including estimates and billing. Your clients approve estimates online, and can pay you via PayPal or credit card.
3. Get an UNLOCKED quad band cell phone. This topic was touched on, but really was a lifesaver. I mainly use a SkypeIn number with clients, but having a cell phone when out and about really helps out. Having an unlocked phone lets you use local prepaid SIM cards (the physical chip you put inside the phone), thus giving you local rates. In many countries, incoming cell calls are free, even international calls. You can even have NO credit on your card and take calls!
4. oDesk! Odesk.com is a site where you can post a profile, find or be found for work, and log hours remotely. The also take care of billing clients and getting you paid, with many options. I have been so busy, I haven’t really worked through them too much, but they are worth taking a look at (my profile can be seen at: http://tinyurl.com/3dv7xt ).
I totally agree on this point: “Too many distractions & disruptions to focus on work”
When I was working in Starbuck, they sure have pretty girl distract my eyes. Anybody got the solution for me?
That is very true- Many destructions working anywhere makes you stack on your work. I suggest don’t do working anywhere. Thanks for the informations this is another great post Lea.
This sounds exactly like my experience. I’ve done some writing work from the Caribbean, and the instability of the internet connection is the bane of my life. What I do is open several tabs in FF to get my research and copy as much as I can into an offline document if I know it’s going to go down. If I have no warning, then I use the time to catch up on writing blog posts, doing my accounts and so on.
@Philip Arthur Moore – how exciting! Have you been to Vietnam before? It’s fab – I did a charity bike ride a few years ago out of HCM and into the countryside. Re. your concerns about managing mail – over time as friends, family & clients get used to you not being there, you’ll find that mail might start to dwindle out…in the meantime, you might want to consider using something like EarthClassMail (they’re pretty good) or see if you can use a friend/family’s address as a forwarding one.
@Vincent and @no.e – yes, Paypal is definitely an option. I’ve actually written about this very topic today on my blog here.
@no.e – we do actually have a mortgage – but we decided to rent out the property so the tenant pays the mortgage for us.
@AsiaPartTime – blinkers?
@Sharon Hurley Hall – yes indeed, dodgy internet connections drive me to distraction. Only today we had a power cut which knocked out the internet for a while…and my Dad who is currently in Thailand said the whole of the south of the island was knocked out for around 12 hours yesterday. Good tip about the FF tabs…..It’s funny though, how productive I can be when I don’t have access to the internet
In regards to an unstable internet connection issue –
Setting up a working web server on your laptop helps out tremendously. I frequently travel by train and plane, which before I set up a properly working local web server, was a real pain for developing web applications in PHP and MySQL. Once I set up the increadibly easy to use MAMP (MacOS) or WAMP (Windows), I could develop applications offline, fully tested and debugged in my own locally running copy of Apache, PHP and MySQL, then I could upload to the internet when a connection became available.
I agree on this article. I would rather to stay working in one place than to work in other places that you haven’t know if that place has no/low internet connection, etc. which makes your works delayed. Great post though.
A good list here and some helpful tips, I work from home, always. So no problems with internet or any like that to worry about…
I started my own business — and began working from home — about 7 months ago. I have experienced some of the same challenges you described here, even in the U.S. My power has gone out a couple of times. (That wouldn’t have happened at my other job, because they had a back-up generator.) And my Internet connection has gone down a couple of times, as well. But that’s all part of the freelancer’s life … no corporate IT department to help me. Just my electrical engineer husband!
I wanted to add another resource that I have found particularly helpful. It’s called Carbonite (www.carbonite.com), and it’s a service that backs up all your files (even e-mail) on their servers. When I worked at a corporation, they had their own back-up servers in case my computer went on the fritz. But now that I’m on my own, I need another back-up option — and this is better than an external hard drive, because it won’t be destroyed in a fire, or in case of theft, etc. There are other services out there like this one, but I believe this is one of the least expensive (a flat rate of $50 a year). So far, it’s been great!
Jessica Satterfield
http://www.TheSatterfieldAgency.com
@Lea: Thanks for the kind words. That’s so cool that you were in TPHCM a few years ago! I lived in Ho Chi Minh City during 2004 and later in Can Tho during 2005. Both trips were for study abroad but I made so many friends and new family there that it’s time for me to go back and be close to them. Wonderful advice about dealing with the snail mail – I will definitely look into it.
The last is the most difficult for me – I get distracted by my surroundings very easily (or suddenly find myself surfing blogs and leaving comments…) My best top to others for that is to have a set schedule. I try to stick to a schedule every day, and only when I do I allow myself to indulge in things I want to do other than work. It has really helped me to write down what I have to do every day!
Not only is the article full of very useful info but many of the comments contain extra resources and details. I definitely can use this material. Thanks!
Easy to receive snail mail. Assuming you’re on friendly terms with family, have one receive your mail and forward it to you. Their home address is your business mail address. Being at college, I have my parents receive important mail since I don’t really trust the school’s post office, and because the address would seem unprofessional to some clients. I don’t live with my parents at any time of the year, but they have no problem forwarding letters. If I were to live overseas, I doubt this would be a big deal either. If postage got pricey, I’d be happy to pay them back. And Paypal’s fine if you have a US account can access it via ATM or bank transfer overseas.
I’ve been dealing with these issues a lot the last few weeks as I’ve moved location within Argentina… Internet has been much less reliable than I expected, and not available in the first place I landed, so I’ve had to adjust to having a much more mobile “office” than usual, lugging my laptop to WiFi cafes, etc. just to check my email! I agree it’s key to research Internet, etc. as much as possible before you arrive. I’ve since heard that it’s generally unreliable here (in one of the biggest cities in the country, that’s come as a surprise), and hope it won’t be too much of a problem for me.
The distractions of being in a new place have also been a challenge, but that’s exactly why I decided to come for two months instead of trying to take a short vacation.
Don’t underestimate the downtime of making a move — I would recommend not having any deadlines or really heavy workload for the first week, at least, that you’re in the new place (not to mention the week before you leave!).
I just remembered another invaluable resource that I didn’t list in my earlier post:
http://www.Regus.com. They have a lot of virtual office services in their packages, which include:
1. You can use any of their 950 WORLDWIDE business addresses as your own. Meaning, if you are in, let’s say, Paris, you automatically have a business address in Paris that locals can use.
2. A local phone number and receptionist, with message forwarding included.
3. Mail Forwarding.
4. Resident Agent services.
5. Meeting rooms available around the world for your use.
6. Finally, the service that has been MOST ATTRACTIVE to me is their network access package.
7. Outsourcing
8. More – check it out……
This is from their page (http://networkaccess.regus.com):
Introducing Network Access, the only membership program that provides unlimited network access to 950 business lounges in 400 major city centers around the world.
Network Access will help you to be as productive on the road as in your office. Each business lounge is fully staffed, furnished and equipped with high-speed Internet access. In addition to business lounges, each of our locations also offers fully furnished offices and executive suites, a variety of meeting rooms, virtual office programs and on-site business services.
Improved productivity with Network Access is available wherever your business takes you for only US$300 a year for individual members and as low as US$90 for multiple members.
———-
@Amy – let me know if you need any tips/advice in Argentina!
TO MODERATOR: PLEASE DO NOT APPROVE THIS POST ON YOUR BLOG
i wanted to make the suggestion that you add the ability to PREVIEW entries before posting. I’ve put a few on this page that in the back of my mind i was thinking i could preview and edit, taking out the many typos and information out of order….i have unfortunately been dissatisfied with my earlier posts…
just a suggestion
thanks
i enjoy the site a lot, by the way. great job!
TO MODERATOR: PLEASE DO NOT APPROVE THIS POST ON YOUR BLOG
Great article, Lea! Will be linking to it
.
Brilliant article. It sounds like you’ve been travelling to some wonderful places. I would love to be able to work from somewhere warmer – even just for a few weeks. And your advice has shown that it is possible. Thank you.
I know you used it for artistic effect, but I lived in Kenya as an ICT Peace Corps volunteer and I was better connected in the “wilds” than I was in the city. But anyway I digress …
Some tips for slow or unreliable internet connections:
I lived in Nairobi for 5 months and the internet there was terrible and slow. One thing that saved our time and mental sanity was using a download manager. I’ve been using Free Download Manager (http://www.freedownloadmanager.org) and it’s awesome. Not only did it speed up downloads, but if the internet went out mid download, I could just wait for it to come back and then resume the download.
Another thing we did was surf with pictures turned off. In most other countries you pay for what you download so turning off pictures saved bandwidth, pages loaded faster, and cost us less money. On a similar note, if you like pictures but hate flash ads, check AdBlockPlus extension for firefox (I’m sure there are other great ad/flash blockers for other browsers too). Get rid of those bloated flash ads!
Another trick we used when checking our email was downloading headers only. For those that don’t know, downloading headers is an option that most email clients have, it basically just downloads a description of the email: subject, size, date, from, etc. This allowed you too get an idea of what emails are essential to download and what ones you could live without. If your relative sent you a 3mb picture you could wait to download it till you were at a good internet cafe. Or you could parallelize some of your work. First download all the regular sized emails, then mark the big ones to download. While the big emails are downloading you can read the other emails you’ve already downloaded.
Another trick is how to reliably download large email attachments. This requires several of the above tips: headers only, download manager, and a web based email client. What we used to do is when we saw that an email had a large attachment. We’d mark it not to download into our email client. Then we’d log into our web based email client and download the attachment using the download manager. This allowed us to download attachments faster AND resume them if they got interrupted.
Another commenter posted about unlocked phones, we have a couple from Kenya that are great. The great thing about the phone is that we can also use it as a modem. In Kenya and South Africa there weren’t any of these silly “tether plans” like the US. We bought Motorola L71 phones because they used USB cables to connect to the laptop (you could charge too that way), the phones were EDGE capable, and Java enabled so you could use the awesome GMAIL app and Opera MiniBrowser.
Anyway, great article and sorry for the long post.
Mark
Oooh sorry a couple more tips:
When I lived in Kenya and South Africa we were able to call the US for free by using various VOIP operators. In Kenya we could use Skype to call US land lines. In South Africa we used VOIPDiscount. You basically had to pay 10 US dollars to activate an account, then you could call the US infinetly. Another time I called my wife from Kenya to South Africa using the voice feature in Google-Talk.
Also if you are traveling alot for work, go on ebay and check out the unlocked HSDPA modems, for 100 bucks you can get a ulocked pcmcia card that will work anywhere in the world. We’ve used ours in Kenya, Tanzania, South Africa and here in the US.
Really last comment…
The snail mail section also got me thinking about faxes. If you are on the go you can’t take your fax machine with you, we used eFax, works great for receiving faxes via internet. Sending can be a bit more problematic. If you have digital files, no problem, it’s those pesky papers that gum things up. You may think, why can’t I use my scanner, well you can. But if you are traveling a lot chances are you don’t have your flat bed scanner with you. BUT you can use your digital camera to “scan” in documents. Just find some place flat and sunny. Then snap a picture from as directly above as possible, you don’t want any angle to the page.
Ok bed time …
why is my legitimately insightful post awaiting moderation, while my obviously-not-valuable-to-the community post was approved?
arrggghhhh
hopefully you read these, and will not approve this one…..double check…my previous submissions….please…..
With all the comments about dodgy internet connection, isn’t there some way to get a satellite connection directly, so that you rely on no one for your internet connection other than yourself?
I haven’t looked into what equipment and costs would be involved, but am curious if anyone has.
“Gracias” for the article! It really helped me out to clear my mind.
On my case, I’m the same story, but turned around! I’ve started my business in Argentina (I’m a Porteño) and decided to move to Munich, then Milano and now here in Andalucia.
I got used to all this “first class” connections in Europe and now, after 6 years travelling, I’m having a look to exotic places (little scary about idle connections).
Every time I returned to Buenos Aires in thiese years, I felt this internet speed problem..but anyway, I know a lot of freelancer there, that work every day for US, EU, Australia..etc and they look pretty happy. I guess is just a matter of understanding that you are nearer to Patagonia than to the Italian Alps
Cheers
http://www.diegopen.com
All – thanks for the additional tips.
@Rob – There’s just one thing I want to point out about carrying your valuables with you…depending upon where you are, I’d advise against it. Having your items stolen from your room is far more preferable than having them stolen from your person – especially if threatening behaviour is used. I’d go with your other suggestion about either hiding them somewhere in the room (although if a thief wants to find something, unfortunately he usually will) or trying to secure them by using locks/security ‘nets’ for your bag or some other prevention device for valuables.
@Jared Hilton – I haven’t looked into that but that’s usually because one of the criteria for where we decide to go next includes internet connection as a priority. I’d imagine a direct satellite connection would be expensive though…but if not, the can somebody please let me know?
yes i agree to this points
Hey, I use a similar service to Earth Class when I travel, http://www.privatebox.co.nz They seem to do a very good job!
Whenever I go to far places my main problem is that the slow internet connection and I can’t maximize my works.
If you work from home and find it hard to focus and are interested in a virtual office there is a great company called Servcorp, http://www.servcorp.com/, that have great offices and suites in 13 U.S. cities as well as around the globe. They also offer business address’ and phone answering as well.