Just recently, my mother called me up and said “Get your passport! We’re going on an all-expenses paid cruise in September!” I was not expecting this pleasant surprise! I thought I’d taken my vacation back in March and here my mother calls me with an opportunity to take a spontaneous trip!
The beauty is as a freelancer I can work from anywhere in the world. I can take off on a spontaneous trip whenever I want. As long as that cruise ship has WiFi I’m good.
Of course, the downside of being able to take off whenever you want is that you need to make sure you have systems in place so your business keeps running even when you’re not there. I’ve covered this to some extent in the past, but that was more for planned trips. In this post, I’m going to detail some of the things you need in your business so that you can take unexpected trips and still keep business as usual.
Make sure you’ve built in support.
Many freelancers feel like they can’t step away from their businesses. It’s usually because they haven’t built in the support they need in order to be able to do so.
The only reason I feel even remotely comfortable taking a spontaneous trip as a freelancer is because I’ve built support into my business in the form of a virtual assistant, an accountant and using automated systems. That way I know that even though I physically may not be around, important things in the business are still getting handled. In fact, when I hired my VA a couple of years ago it was right before I left on a random trip to California.
Additionally, you’ll want to start planning out ways to have additional support in the form of other streams of income. You don’t want your finances to suffer because you don’t get paid vacation time. Granted, this takes some time to figure out, but it’s worth starting to work on it as soon as possible. This way, you can take a spontaneous trip abroad or move abroad and not worry about your bills.
Move some stuff around.
Since this spontaneous trip was a complete surprise, it means I’m going to have to move some stuff around – possibly including a launch for a digital course. Again, the beautiful thing is that it’s my business so I can move stuff around if I have to. If I had a boss it would be far more difficult to pull this off.
If you need to pull the plug on something, do it. If you need to readjust your schedule, do it. So long as it doesn’t get in the way of work you’ve already committed to doing, it’s fine.
Get ready to put in some extra elbow grease.
Because this spontaneous trip was a complete surprise, I haven’t had a chance to plan for it weeks in advance. This in contrast to my recent trip to Mexico, which I did plan out. Additionally, in this case, it just so happens that I’ll be on a cruise one week and then I’ll be taking a flight across the country the following week for a conference. Sometimes life just works out that way.
Because I’ll be on the road for two weeks in September, it means I’m going to have to work diligently during the next few weeks to make sure I can at least enjoy myself while traveling. While it may be a bit of a drag, that’s the trade-off to being able to take a spontaneous trip abroad as a freelancer. I’m sure I’ll get over it once I’m sailing in the Caribbean.
