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Make Money and Travel – Tal Gur

I am living the dream…my life on my terms. Making a living, no fixed office and the freedom to move and work from wherever I like.  So can you.

This Make Money and Travel series exists as a source of inspiration.  By sharing examples of real people around the world making money from anywhere and living the lifestyle they want, proves where there is a will, there is a way.

Meet Tal Gur, an online entrepreneur and motivational guru.  We first came to know Tal when he reached out to us for a feature on his website Below Zero to Hero.  At first glance I thought “I’m not a Zero, and I definitely wouldn’t consider myself below zero” but after a quick look over the site I realized this motivational site was the perfect platform to share our story of leaving “everyday life” to satisfy our wear-out-your-shoes sense of adventure.  We’ve been virtual friends ever since!

Tal_Gur_Peru

To say that Tal is a passionate person would be an understatement.  He always seems to have a smile on his face and is eager to help others achieve their goals and dreams in life.  He is a big what goes around comes around kinda guy and has even managed to turn helping others into a business.  Here is how he sold it all, began his travels and more importantly how he funds it all.

The Job(s)

These days, you could label me as an online entrepreneur, a blogger, and founder of PassivelyFree.com, a site dedicated to those who seek more time, location, and financial freedom in their life.

2009 was the year I finally became a digital nomad; I quit a well-paying corporate job, sold almost everything I owned, packed a small backpack, left my beloved Australia, and went on a four-year nomadic journey around the world.

I’ve not always had this freedom. In my previous life I was an (average) IT manager in a financial company but after racking up ~$30,000 in debt and becoming quite frustrated by my dependency to my job , I made some drastic lifestyle changes…

What made my dream a reality is creating multiple online income streams such as advertising, eBooks,  subscription, coaching, freelancing, online courses, and recently software.

This online income allowed me to pretty much live and travel to anywhere I wanted. For four years I set my own schedule and made my own rules. I didn’t need to look for a job upon my return to my home country. In fact, I didn’t even have to go back home. I could choose to go wherever and do whatever I wanted to on any given day.

Needless to say, I’m extremely passionate about this freedom lifestyle and happy to share my journey with others.

 

The Hours

Creating my first website was a labor of love and exploration – I must have spent hundreds of hours on writing and designing. I launched it fairly quickly, in a matter of a week or so, and improved the content and layout as I went. While travelling I worked only when I wanted to, sometimes I did not work on it for weeks – travelling and immersing myself in new experiences were far more important to me than work at that point.

My life is currently structured around journeys so a typical day varies greatly. In a few months I’m starting the process of writing a full length book about financial freedom so I expect to put major hours into this journey.

 

The Pay

Pay also varies greatly. Last year I made 6 figures from online sales. This year will be in the 5 figures range. It really depends on traffic and that, as you probably know, can fluctuate greatly:)

My income is influenced directly by three things: 1. rankings on the search engine. 2. the direct marketing of my services 3. The content I produce and publish.  Since some of my sites are ranked high organically, I hardly spend any time on direct marketing. I prefer to spend my time on producing valuable content that is useful and might be shared. From my experience, this is the number one factor for obtaining high rankings in search engine results.

Top 5 earners by order : Advertising , Freelancing (web design and coaching), eBooks, Affiliate, and Software.

 

The Tools

I’m only using a laptop. I don’t own a Smartphone or other mobile device with an internet connection as it helps me to disconnect from everyday life and immerse myself in the environment.  Besides email, I use a little piece of online software I built for myself, called Goals Software.  Goals Software is a powerful goal-setting tool that allows people to effectively set, manage and track their goals online.  I don’t think I would have been able to achieve some of my goals this year without it – it really keeps me on track and focused on my dreams.

I used to use social media but nowadays I rarely use it because I find it to be a real time sucking ‘blackhole’.  I even wrote a short eBook about how to stop Facebook addiction as I was quite addicted to getting ‘likes’ on Facebook 🙂  

 

The Client

I have a few coaching and freelancing clients who mainly find me through my Below Zero to Hero blog. This specific site is positioned quite high for a few key search terms and that always help. Most of my other income is passive in nature so I don’t have direct contact with the clients.

 Tal_Gur_Nepal

The Up’s

Oh.. so many!

Here are my top three:

1. Waking up every morning knowing that I can work from anywhere, whether it be from the comfort of my own home, a local café while sitting at the beach, or even on a boat drifting down the Amazon river.

2. Being able to spend time with my loved ones, my friends, my family, whenever I need and without asking per­mission.

3. Being able to live anywhere I want and contribute to the world in whatever way I choose.

 

The Down’s

Well, I used to miss having a really good desk but that’s not a problem anymore. I guess the biggest ‘down’ part for me is the absence of sense of local community but that can easily be solved by spacing the amount of moving from place to place.

 

Hindsight

If I could travel back in time to give myself a piece of advice, I would tell myself to fully and completely believe in myself and my dream.

I waited too long to start my journey to freedom. Like many others I’ve been conditioned from an early age to believe that trading time for money is the safest way to earn a living, but the real truth is that there are much better ways!

 

I like Tal’s approach to income because it is so very broad.  Not everyone has one specific revenue stream, idea or talent and this is an excellent example of not putting all your eggs in one basket.

If you want to read lots and lots of other inspirational stories of others who have made their dreams a reality, check out Tal’s Below Zero to Hero.  If you are looking for some help in the passive income arena, check out Passively Free and if you just need some goal setting software to get you going, click over to Goals Software.

Got questions or comments?  Do you want to share how you make money and travel? Tell us in the box below!

Famous for my "how-not-to" videos, and typically the man behind the camera, sometimes I’m forced to be here in the “spotlight”. When you see my face you’re probably reading something more technical than adventurous, but either way I do my best to tell it like it is and infuse my opinions into the commentary…after all this is a blog and not MSN.

Comments (10)

  • Mimipiggiesmama

    We just discovered some of your videos and are really enjoying them. We love having virtual adventures with you. Is there a way to find your videos sequentially starting with your first one?

    reply
  • Justin Yoder

    This was so cool,

    I would love to see more Interviews from people in their early 20’s, because I’m 22, I want to see how they managed making money and travel at such a young age, where as the other interviews are people that have worked for years in what they did or still doing and had the money to start right off the batt traveling and making money or so it seems so.?

    Thank you so much for this “make money and travel” blog. its giving me the itch to travel and just go for it!

    reply
  • Josh

    Thanks for this post. I keep reading posts like these and they give me good ideas. At the same time for some reason it still feels unattainable to me. I am 26 and have had different 32 jobs. THAT is how uncomfortable I am working for others. I am about to look now for job # 33 and am doing the usual ‘pump myself up’ rally to get hired. On the surface it looks like I am moving forward but it feels like I am just torturing myself all over again. At this point I am unclear as to what is holding me back from fulfilling my dream of being a digital nomad. Do you think even broken people can obtain this sort of dream lifestyle? I think I can be more than happy if I can make just 1k a month passively. I am literally gluing myself to my computer chair in order to create ‘something’.

    reply
  • I am thinking about rv living as a retirement option. I cannot live without my canine kids, how realistic is having them in rv? How do others retired living this lifestyle, visit and share with their families?
    I’m assuming that we would sell our house, is there places you can stay for longer periods, like snowbirding.
    This is my first look into and really found a lot of information on your site! I also liked the comment section, as it had questions I might have or didn’t think of, and the variety of responses is nice.
    Just curious if this is an option for us or not.
    Thanks for your feedback, I’ll keep watching site/blogs

    reply
    • Traci, there is no way we could travel without our little furry passengers, and there are so many people living full-time with theirs! Check out this post: https://www.gonewiththewynns.com/traveling-cats
      The best part about RVing is you can move your home. We consistently meet up with family and friends on the road, or have family come fly to us and stay in the same campground. Read this post: https://www.gonewiththewynns.com/easter-holiday
      Arizona, Southern California, and Florida are all hot spots for Winter Snow birding. Scroll through the campgrounds section on our website, specifically search Lake Havasu City and Yuma for starters.

      Thanks for your comments, we hope this will help you get stated. If you have any specific questions please leave a comment; we do our best to answer each and every question.

      reply
  • Honored to be featured on your site. Cheers!

    reply
    • raz

      you said you waited to long to start your journey. no, you started on the day you were supposed to. i’m 70 and i am still out here. you weren’t ready.

      ice cream, raz

      reply
  • Such a good interview and what a cool guy!!!!!

    reply

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