Today, we’re sharing our interview with Pete Rojwongsuriya, a traveler and entrepreneur from Thailand.
Originally from Thailand, it was not long until he became location independent and travels the world. After 7 years of traveling and being a nomad, he is now a travel blogger at BucketListly Blog, the Founder of Travelistly, BucketListly, and a freelance design at The Pete Design.
How Does Your Remote Workday Look Like?
I am currently creating a business with passive income (BucketListly Blog) which have been allowing me to have more time for travel while helping me limit the number of hours I have to work per week. With that, I can spend 2 – 3 days a week working the entire day and the rest, I have free time to go explore a new city or go hiking.
For those 3 days of work, I often start off my day going to a cafe near where I stay, may it be in a new country where I am traveling in or where I am currently basing myself out of and start going through the list of tasks I have to do. My workday will, of course, depends on the tasks at hand as I have quite a few different tasks to go each week.
If it’s to write an article for BucketListly Blog, I would begin by doing research, create drafts and eventually start laying down the content. Usually, an article will take me around 2 – 3 days to complete and I would spend 2 – 3 hours in the morning writing, spend the afternoon outside exploring or hanging out with people and continue writing in the evening for another 3 hours and end the day.
Same goes for creating video content, except that it could take longer than 3 days to complete. For freelance work, I would prioritize that over everything as it is a client work and there are timeframe I have to stick to so I might spend 5 days that week doing freelance work.
Other than that, I usually limit to 3 days of work in a week and I will prefer to spend my time outside doing exploring new places.
What Tools Do You Use to Get Things Done?
I keep track of my ongoing tasks via Google Tasks which is integrated into my Gmail which is something I go on everyday to keep track of emails and new opportunities. I use Adobe products to create multimedia content like videos (Premiere Pro and After Effects), photos (Lightroom) and web design (Illustrator).
What’s the Biggest Challenge of Remote Work?
It used to be managing time that I found challenging when I was freelancing full time with a client from another timezone. Now that I have a passive income stream, the challenge is in getting a consistent stream of income that can replace freelance work entirely. This income stream also fluctuates a lot more than a fixed income contract I had with my client so a lot of work has to be put first and foremost in building a foundation for passive income that may or may not yield anything fruitful.
With freelance work, you do your work, you get paid. With passive income work, you do your work, and you don’t earn money until 3 months passed and that money earned may or may not be worth the time you spent working on it. It’s a risk that comes with making passive income work which is challenging at times.
What Are the Advantages of Remote Work?
I went into being nomad life as lost as the next nomad you find on the road nowadays, but my main goal in doing so is to travel the world. That is my main passion and that’s what drove me into doing remote work.
The advantage of remote work is, of course, the freedom that comes with it. I realized a long time ago that having money without having the time to spend it is as bad as not having any money at all and with remote work, it gave me the freedom to follow my passion of traveling the world, expanding my worldview in a way no office work can ever do and allowed me to earn money on my own terms.
For me, the amount of money earned is not a defining factor in life anymore, it’s the balance between time, money, and the work you produce to the world that counts.
What’s the Future of Remote Work?
It’s hard to predict the future but after reading the “Homo Deus” book by Yuval Noah Harari, I have come to a conclusion that the future will likely lean more towards the consumption of data and automation of data processing which will in turn increases the amount of remote work that may not seem incompatible today, but will eventually be an option in the future.
There will still be jobs that are location bound but I am hoping to see more and more diverse group of remote workers doing all kinds of different jobs in the very near future.
What Made You Consider Remote Work?
Deep in my heart, I always fantasized about traveling the world, being in a strange land, observing and interacting with different cultures and traditions and learning all about it. I believe it came from countless stories about travelers traveling along these ancient trade routes and writing about it. These kinda stories create an image in my mind of a person going around the world, keeping records on what they see, what they can learn from the experience, and making an impact on people they encountered and that is what made me decided to go travel the world.
The remote work came after as I needed to make money so that I can keep on pursuing my dream.
What Are Your Favorite Destinations in the World?
I have so many favorites! It is often the place I had the most time to spend when traveling that I tend to enjoy the most. I especially love being in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan as I spent 5 months in 2017 basing myself there to explore Central Asia and I was able to create a little community over there.
Another favorite destination of mine is South America, as I spent 6 months traveling across the continent from Colombia to Argentina. It was an exhilarating experience to be able to dedicate each month into each country I visited in South America. I was able to create a little community of my own in Colombia, Chile and Argentina and I still keep connect with the people I connected there today. I also happened to learn a bit of Spanish along the way as well.
What People Who Want to Work with You Need to Have?
I don’t usually work with a lot of people as I try to automate everything I do but when it comes to working with clients for freelance work, people that I can connect easily is the one that understands the value of remote working and good designs. Companies that understand time zone differences, understanding the value of well-designed products and understanding the life of a remote worker work really well with me.
I would say, time and space are required for content creator to create good content and so if you want to maximize creativity, give remote workers time and space they need to do their jobs. I especially hate skyping every day to report on work that could have been sufficient with a single email.
