In this edition of our “Love of Travel” series, we will introduce you to some friends that we made recently while visiting Chiang Mai Thailand. We enjoyed our time hanging out with fellow travel bloggers and internet entrepreneurs, Ben & Annie, especially in the wee morning hours when they came out to join us at a Hot Air Balloon Festival. They are from the beautiful country of New Zealand, but recently chose to live life on the road for a while as digital nomads. Check out our interview with them and visit their website Sell Up Go Travel.
Tell us a little bit about yourselves and your travel blog.
First of all I would like to thank Liz and Josh for having us here!
Hi my name is Annie and I travel with my husband Ben, our home town is Auckland, New Zealand. We love big dogs and our favorite fruit is mangosteen. I come from a retail background, I like to call myself a bit of a retail guru and Ben’s background is finance and marketing, we both love trance music and endless summers.
We have sold up everything to pursue our dreams to travel the world with carry on luggage. We have been in Chiang Mai for 2 months, then continue our travels to see more of Southeast Asia.
We wanted to write our life story for the years to come, when we are old and our memory gives up on us. Sell Up Go Travel is our life journal, where we share our adventures the hurdles and our experiences with friend and family.
What made you want to sell everything and start a travel blog?
Ben and I were tried of doing 9 – 5 and working for the man, we had often talked about owning our own business. We eventually quit our jobs and started looking at buying a business, the plan was to put our lives on hold for two years,make some money then sell the business and travel for a year.
We started up a produce business in 2010 and were working on a crazy schedule seven days, 12+hours per day. Working like this we had no social life and hardly caught up with friends or family. After a year into the business we realized we had to find change the way we were living.
Ben started to look at different on-line business and found there are heaps of people making income while traveling the world. The more we looked into it the more we liked the sound of traveling and generating an income on the move.
Having this business taught us few things, most important of all flexibility. This is how Sell Up Go Travel was born I wanted to document our stories for the years to come, at the same time inspire people through our travel journey.
What are some of the things you are looking forward to sharing with your readers?
We will share stories about what we see on our travels, talk about the endless road blocks and bumps which come along our way, we will share costs of living, where to find the best deals on food, gym memberships, renting apartments and finding the best WIFI spots.
What are some of the highs and lows from traveling the world and running a travel blog?
Lets starts with the highs:
Traveling the world opens up so many doors, you are surrounded by endless opportunities. Their are many like minded people, who are supporting each other by sharing their local knowledge, helping others improve their on-line businesses or just chatting over coffee.
I guess the lows (which are not really lows)
There is so much to explore in each destination we visit and I struggle to keep the blog updated. I am not the fastest writer, it literately takes me a few days to write a blog post. I am working on my speed and manging my time better so I don’t spend endless hours getting distracted on Facebook.
You two recently left home in New Zealand and started living out your dreams of traveling the world. What destinations do you look forward to experiencing the most while you are traveling the globe?
There so many places we want to go and discover, but here are the 3 which come to my mind right away
Sihanoukville Cambodia – We both love a good dance party and for 10 days Cambodia is hosting Kazantip – one of the biggest outdoor beach parties in Asia.
Nevada Black Rock Desert for Burning Man – This has been on our list for about 10 years once we have finished traveling through Southeast Asia, we will make our to America
Mongolia – We would like to go horse trekking through the plains and learn about the Mongolian culture.
What advice would you give to couples out there who are thinking of selling everything to live out their dreams of seeing the world?
Stopping thinking and start living the life you always wanted to, we all need money but don’t let money get in your way of following your dreams, there are endless opportunities once you hit the road.
Learn a new skill or improve your current skills, I come from a retail background and I knew nothing about computers and now I am learning the new language of on-line business. Click HERE link for a list of business ideas to get you started making money on the road.
What can we expect in the coming year from Sell Up Go Travel?
I am not very technical but I am learning as fast as I can, Sell Up Go Travel will improve as we go along on our journey. I plan to add a lot more content on the site and in near future make travel videos. We would like to show everyone it’s not too hard to live your life out of a backpack.
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** All photos were kindly provided by Ben and Annie.
We want to thank Ben and Annie for sharing their “Love of Travel” story with all of us. It was so great to meet you in Chiang Mai and we had a blast hanging out with you. Hopefully our travel paths will cross again in the future!
Be sure to check out their blog, Sell Up Go Travel!
