Who Are The Trading Travelers?

Brittany was that girl. That girl that was on her way to living the “American Dream”. She took all of the steps society told her was “normal” after high school. She went to university, earned a degree in Psychology, and snagged a cubicle in the corporate world 2 weeks after graduation. She was always filled with wanderlust and tried to escape to NYC every chance she got. She eventually took a position as an Event Coordinator which included travel, so that someone else could fund her travels. She quickly learned working while traveling was not exactly what she had in mind. She knew the only way to travel the way she wanted was to keep working, move up that corporate ladder and make more money. So she thought…

Enter Charlie.

Charlie was that guy. That guy that never lived by the rules. The one that refused to work 9 to 5, get married, have kids, take out a loan to finance a cute little house with a white picket fence, and then work overtime to pay it off. At age 17, he began dabbling in the trading world. Instead of heading off to university and partying his weekends away like most guys his age, he was at home buying and selling pigs and cattle. Completely normal at age 17, right? He earned a degree through the University of Florida’s online program and had a brief stint in a cubicle at Morgan Stanley that confirmed what he already knew: an office job was not for him. He continued to trade, and even acquired a brokerage firm of his own. But, being the guy that’s always looking for a way to make more by doing less, he tried his luck with a vacuum business, selling mosquito magnets, operating manatee tours, and even got himself wrapped up into owning a restaurant. While some of these were a success, and some failed miserably, Charlie learned what he is really after is freedom. The ability to be his own boss and a location independent lifestyle. He doesn’t want to wait to live his life until after retirement.

How Did We Get Here?

It really didn’t take much convincing. Brittany quit her job in August 2013 and we sold everything we owned between two yard sales, Craigslist and eBay. With Charlie trading currency at the time, we still had an income as long we had an Internet connection. Plus with everything we sold, we had a fair amount of savings as back up. We landed in Khon Kaen, Thailand where we spent our first three months at expats and it was definitely a culture shock. Especially for Brittany. We eventually made our way to Chiang Mai, where we were introduced to the community of digital nomads and this is what really set us on our path to location independence. You may have even seen us on the popular HGTV show, House Hunters International: Chiang Mai!

We have since found a profitable online business model that allows us to continue this location independent lifestyle, traveling over 30 countries while still making money! However, we are always looking for ways to diversify our income. And to be honest, we are kind of workaholics! We prefer to travel slowly and try to stick to somewhat of a routine. We get pretty cranky otherwise. We like to mix work with play and have come to the conclusion we will never be able to make it as backpackers. This is also why we love housesitting!

To help you get started:

For travel stories and tips, you can search by destination from the main menu at the top (US, Europe or Asia).

Head over to housesitting to learn more about how it works and why we love it!

For information on how we fund our travel, head to Charlie’s short series of posts on Forex trading.

If reading isn’t your thing and you want to skip to the videos, head straight to our YouTube channel to find hours of entertainment videos from our travels across the globe as well as our RV series road tripping across the USA.

For additional podcasts, videos and interviews featuring The Trading Travelers, visit our Press page.

If you are interested in partnering with The Trading Travelers, please send us an email to see how we can work together.

If you have any other questions, comments, suggestions or would just like to say hello, please feel free! We’d love to hear from you 🙂