Even if your work doesn’t need to be done in an office, it can be very hard to work when you travel. You may be a freelancer, you may own your business, or you may telecommute, but there are ten steps you need to take to prepare yourself to work on the go. They’re especially key for long-term travel, but if you’re only going for a week, consider making the effort: these steps will not only simplify your current trip, but they’ll make it easier to prepare for future travel as well.
- Downsize your equipment. Sure, you can’t do your job without half a dozen gadgets and ten reference manuals. But do you really want to carry all that stuff through airports, hikes or whatever travels you have planned? Look for places to minimize: your reference manuals may be available as PDFs and you might be able to find one gadget that does everything. As a general rule of thumb, if you can fit in your luggage, you’ve got too much stuff to travel comfortably.
- Plan your schedule carefully. You can be spontaneous and wander off into the wilderness if you want, but you should make sure that your clients or employer know that you’ll be unavailable for contact during your wilderness wanderings. Furthermore, most of the wildernesses that I have visited have not offered reliable internet access: schedule yourself to be places with internet access when you need it.
- Check your insurance. Not all insurers cover travelers for even little things like lost laptops. Especially if you’re going for a nomadic lifestyle, make sure that your insurance covers all eventualities — like health care in a foreign country or coverage for a broken computer. Many insurers offer special long-term travel packages, such as Insure and Go’s Long Stay offer.
- Automate as much as possible. Even on the road, you’re likely to have bills, such as your insurance payment. Schedule payments ahead of time through your bank to reduce worry. You may also be able to answer most email questions with an automated email, or handle other business details. Going to the full outsourcing plan advocated by Tim Ferriss may be further than you need to go, but simplifying your obligations as much as possible will make your business run smoothly while you’re on the road.
- Inform your clients of your travels. Things go wrong, no matter how hard you try, and you don’t want your clients to find out that there’s an issue by you missing a deadline. You’ll get more leeway if a client knows that you’ll do everything you can than if you leave your client in the dark.
- Double check prescription medication. If you require prescription medication, it’s up to you to make sure that you can get a refill wherever you go, especially if you lose your meds. You may face some problems, though: TSA regulations may prevent you from caring your medication with you if you fly, or you may be visiting a country where certain medications are restricted (to check, you’ll need to contact the embassy of the country you will be visiting). Your medications may be more of a personal issue than a business matter, but you won’t be able to work if you’re not feeling so well.
- Keep records. You’re not just a traveler, you’re out there doing work for your business. You’ll have the same need for itemized receipts when you do your taxes if you’re in Timbuktu as you would in New York. Personally, I like a small notebook that can serve as a holding place for receipts and other bits of paper, though I know plenty of people who use their wallets as catchalls as well. Consider keeping track of contact information and other details in the same way.
- Bring nice clothes. You never know when you’ll find an opportunity, but you might not get the chance to talk to a potential contact if you’re wearing cut-offs or camping gear. Stick one dress-up outfit in your gear that you can pull out and wear immediately. Avoid things that need ironing or special care, like dry cleaning. Personally, I’ve found that sweaters are often the best tops, especially light ones that won’t overheat you in a warm climate — they don’t wrinkle and, if you wear them with undershirts, you rarely need to wash them.
- Choose a backup plan. Travel presents hundreds of opportunities for you to lose key equipment, such as a laptop. You’ll want to back up your data on a regular basis to a central location — that is, one you aren’t carrying with you. You’ll also want to have advance plans of how you might obtain new equipment. If, for instance, a certain type of cellular phone is vital to your work, could you have a new one shipped to you quickly? Could you make do with another phone?
- Adapt as needed. A traveling lifestyle is full of surprises. That’s half the fun, after all — getting out and doing new things. If you’ve managed to automate the things you’d normally worry about, and you know that issues like insurance and Plan Bs are taken care of, you have the opportunity to relax and go with the flow. Sure, you’ll still need to find some time to take care of your work commitments, but that’s why you planned ahead.
