Remote with: Pip Jones
Hey Pip!
Thanks for being a guest on the Remote Worker! So, tell us a bit about yourself and your business:
I'm a freelance travel writer, radio presenter and podcaster with my own travel websites and podcast. I write for a range of outlets including the Travel Magazine, Rough Guides, Insight Guides and Culture Trip.
I also have my own travel websites and travel podcast - Travel Goals, which provides actionable travel tips and advice to listeners. Every week I present Travel Zone on Travel.Radio, a digital radio station dedicated to the travel trade and consumers.Additionally, I also own two audio production companies, Clear Wave Music and South Girl, with my husband Luke. We specialise in the creation and production of bespoke musical and audio content for film, television, radio and podcasts.
What’s your business mission? Why do you do what you do?
My main objective has always been, how can I travel more? Throughout my 20’s this meant working multiple jobs to get enough money to get to the next destination. I wanted to constantly be in motion. Now I'm a bit older, my focus is on creating a balanced lifestyle that works for me and my husband. We own a house that is our comfortable base but we are also able to travel and work on the road as we both work for ourselves.
As a travel writer, I'm normally on the road most of the year, [pre-covid], bouncing from one destination to the next on a series of press trips all over the world. Travel writing can often be perceived as incredibly glamorous but covering destinations for publications is exhilarating and exhausting in equal measures. Most press trips consist of long hours and heavy itineraries, leaving little time to do your own work. Often on press trips I have fit emails, filing stories and also doing company work in and around the travel and activity schedule. I tend to come home from trips looking utterly haunted from the lack of sleep.
When I'm not on press trips I travel with my husband and we’ll work on the road for stretches of time. We try to pick places with better weather and a lower cost of living and have travelled around places like Morocco, Sri Lanka and Central America, working from our laptops. Working on the road actually requires quite a bit of prep work as we have to make sure all our audio work is done in our studio before we leave, as we can only perform certain tasks remotely.
How long have you been working remotely? And what inspired you to go remote?
Travel has been my entire world from a very young age. It’s all I ever wanted and over the years I have built my entire life around travel. I live my life always looking to the next trip, living a modest life at home and not accumulating lots of material items. It’s the years of travel experience and the variety of travel experiences I have had that allow me to write about travel now. I predominately freelanced and solo travelled in my 20’s and I have spent the last 4 years working as a freelance travel writer.
Having the flexibility to work from anywhere in the world was always my goal. I tend to have spurts of creativity rather than long hauls, so I try to make work fit around my travels.
What’s your biggest tip for going remote? (Or tips for anyone currently remote working)?
Manage your expectations! Quitting your job to travel or to be a digital nomad, is often sold as the solution for everything.
In our instant gratification society, jacking in your day job to find yourself in Thailand is as deliciously indulgent as it sounds. My biggest tip would be to take a moment to question your motives, plan how to explain employment gaps and be realistic about finances.
Quitting your 9-5 to travel and work remotely is also not as easy as ‘live the digital nomad dream’ ebooks would have you believe. There are numerous things to take into consideration. Your career implications, the possible impact on your mental health, where your stuff will go, outstanding debts and how will you save enough to travel and live on the road.
Living on the road can be hard work and it’s not realistically portrayed on social media at all. It’s not all floating breakfasts in Bali whilst lazily managing your ‘drop-shipping business’ poolside. It’s important to recognise that often you are being sold a pastel pink filtered dream on Instagram. You need to research as much as possible and understand the realities of working remotely as much as possible before you ditch that 9-5.
And finally, where can we find you online?
Subscribe to the Travel Goals Podcast - https://podfollow.com/travel-goals-podcast
Websites and socials - https://linktr.ee/pipsays
Instagram - @pipsays
Twitter - @pip_says
