Travel is the antidote for many ailments. From heartbreak and stress to stagnation or straight up boredom, stepping out of your comfort zone into a new place in the world can help refresh your perspective and infuse within you a sense of joy you didn’t know was possible.
Still, when you have a business to run, the idea of getting away and exploring can feel impossible. Here are four ways to make possible that gap year in which you’ve always dreamed:
- Robust Processing Power
Upon deciding to take your business on the road — or across the ocean — for a gap year, one of the first purchases you should make is a new laptop. This will be your lifeline for all of your professional dealings and your way to keep in touch with clients, family, and friends, as well as the main component of your roaming office. Splurge on the most powerful laptop available to ensure speedy processing power. This way, you’ll avoid wasting time waiting for programs to load and minimize the amount of technical malfunctions you’ll deal with while traveling.
Additionally, opt for a slim, lightweight machine, like the latest MacBook Pro, which packs up to 4.1GHz of processing speed into a 13-inch laptop. Oh, and it weighs a mere three pounds. Whether you’re roaming city to city through Southeast Asia or spending your days working from Parisian cafes, you’ll appreciate having a featherweight laptop compared to the bulky bricks of years past.
- Powerful Wi-Fi Anywhere
When you’re living abroad, Wi-Fi becomes more than just a daily convenience — it truly becomes a lifeline to the comforts of home. Whether you use it to email a client, FaceTime your family or make all of your Instagram followers jealous with photos of you lounging in a hammock (your “office” for the day), a Wi-Fi extender is a must-have to improve your wireless connection wherever you are in the world.
Many cellular providers, including T-Mobile, have begun transitioning to wireless calling and texting, so a wireless range extender can even be used to power your mobile phone’s connection. Wi-Fi extenders are compact and usually the size of a wall outlet, which is also how most are powered. Be sure you have a dedicated power adapter for this device so you can use it no matter your location.
- Great Connectivity in the Cloud
When you’re a digital nomad, the cloud is your best friend. In fact, cloud-based software and services are integral to helping you roam the world while running your business, as they help you avoid being tethered to any one place. In the months leading up to your gap year, make the switch to cloud-based products for all of your business essentials, like accounting, banking and data storage.
Accounting can be an especially tricky endeavor to undertake during a gap year, as you may need to pay taxes in your home country and wherever you may be living abroad. In this case, use a cloud-based program like Xero to keep track of everything in an efficient, organized manner, which will make it easier to get help from a seasoned tax professional.
- Like-Minded Travel Mates
For some people, the solitude of solo travel is the most enjoyable aspect of embarking on a worldwide excursion. Still, others yearn for connection, which can be hard to find in a foreign place where you don’t know a soul. With that in mind, make the most of your gap year — and create lasting connections for life — by traveling abroad with a group of like-minded digital nomads who are also working on the go.
Not sure how to go about it? Remote Year is a 12-month program that takes the hassles of planning out of the equation. Instead, the worldwide excursion program offers you the opportunity to travel and work abroad with a group of 50 to 80 other entrepreneurs, freelancers, and working professionals. For each month of your journey, you will:
- Stay in luxurious, private accommodations
- Travel to multiple worldwide destinations
- Gain access to co-working spaces to conduct work
Upon passing the application and screening process, the $27,000 program includes a variety of events to engage travelers and help them build long-lasting relationships with fellow participants and locals within the communities they visit.
