Who Am I?

I’m Dave Dean. I’ve spent much of the last 15 years living and working from the road, but the travel addiction started long before that.

Being born and raised in small-town New Zealand provided me with the perfect beginnings for a life of travel. If there’s one thing guaranteed to make you want to get out and see the world, growing up in a little town in a little country at the bottom of the world is it.

After finishing university and somehow falling into a technology career, I started my wanderings in the same way that many Antipodeans do: packing a few things into a backpack and heading for London.

Starting was easy, but stopping has been much harder. Several times I tried to settle down, buying houses, cars, pets, and all of the trappings of a more traditional life. Try as I might, though, that never quite worked for me, and after a year or two I’d find myself back on the road once again.

After thirteen years of juggling a corporate career and a backpack, I eventually figured out what I probably should have known all along: this wasn’t something I could keep doing forever. One or other of those things was going to have to give.

The career it was.

I’m inspired by the freedom to travel like nothing else I’ve ever experienced. I needed to build a life around it.

Where Have I Been?

Finally deciding to make travel a permanent part of my life, I left my job in late 2011, offloaded my stuff, and flew several thousand miles to follow my heart. For seven years I travelled full-time through Asia, Europe, Africa, North and Central America, Australia, and New Zealand. I met my girlfriend in Thailand in the first month of my trip, and we’ve been together ever since.

We’ve had longer stints living in different countries as well: a couple of years in Portugal, a couple of years in the UK, and I’m now based in Australia. Even these “settled” periods see me travelling for a few months each year, mind you: apparently staying in one place too long just isn’t how I’m wired!

These days, many of my trips are built around multi-day walks: it’s a passion I developed after walking the Camino de Santiago for my 40th birthday, and I’ve tried to work in one or two long-distance walks every year since.

How Do I Pay for it All?

Although my IT career gave me some useful skills for running websites, the kinds of jobs I used to do weren’t something I could easily take on the road with me. To make this lifestyle work, I needed to reinvent myself as a writer and small business owner as well.

I now work online from anywhere with a good view and an internet connection, spending more time than I should in front of a laptop and doing several different things to make sure the bills get paid.

I run three websites: this one where I write about travel and hiking, another that’s focused on technology and remote work, and a third that I run with my partner that’s focused on the lovely state of Victoria, Australia. They all make money from advertising and commissions, and are what keeps me on the road to this day. I also did some freelance writing for other publications for a few years, which helped pay the bills while the other sites found their feet.

There’s always a new idea in the back of my mind and a new project to work on. Earning a living like this isn’t easy: a lot has changed about working online since I first started out, and the pace of that change continues to grow. There’s always little certainty and lots to do, but even so, being my own boss is infinitely more rewarding and enjoyable than any corporate job ever was.

Why Am I Doing This?

When I hit my mid-thirties, I decided that the rest of my life was not going to consist of sitting in an office for 60 hours a week and desperately counting down to the weekend.

I didn’t care about the latest home theatre system, reality television, or football results. I wasn’t interested in following the same path as everybody else, and knew that for me at least, there had to be a better option.

Living a life filled with passion and purpose needed to be more than a quote on somebody’s Instagram. It had to be something built into my day to day existence. A mortgage I couldn’t afford, a job I didn’t care about, and three weeks of vacation each year wasn’t going to provide me with that.

Putting everything off for a day that might never come was a risk that was just too big to take. Right now I have the health, ability, and burning desire to live a life I love, to follow my dreams wherever they may lead. This will not always be the case.

I get one shot at this life, and I’m doing everything I can to make that the most fulfilling shot I can. It’s not always easy and it’s not always perfect, but it’s always something that I’m fiercely proud of.

Long may that last.

Stay in Touch

If you’d like to talk about anything to do with life on the road, please drop me a line and I’ll help if I can.

I’m not super-active on social media these days, but still post occasionally on my Facebook page. If you’d like to get an email when I publish a new post or have an update to share, you can subscribe to that here.