Living in Your Home Country as a Nomad
Nomad Profile
Jill is a multi-faceted creative: writing, painting, designing clothes and accessories. As someone without an artist’s bone in my body, I find all this talent so cool and would love to view the world through an artist’s eye.
As a subscriber to Jill’s Artistic Voyages Substack, my favorite article is one entitled “Sometimes the Best Travel Decision is Not to Travel At All,” where Jill talks about the decision to cancel a trip to Europe.
Instead, she and her partner, Chris, decide to stay in Canada for a season to prioritize their physical and mental health and protect their wallet. I appreciate this candid discussion about the realities of living a nomad life.
9 Fun Facts
First Name: Jillian
Age Range: 40s
Nationality: Canadian
Nomadic Stance: Full-time
Last Corporate Job: none
Current Job: Artist / Writer
Favorite Country: Montenegro
Next Stop: Hopefully Ecuador
What do you like best about the nomadic life? Freedom
2 Questions
You and your partner travel together. Is it hard to be together 24/7? How do you both make it work?
We are lucky in that we both prefer to hang out with each other. We work out conflicts quickly and don’t let annoyances build up.
Our conflicts are never focused on our nomadic life necessarily, they are more to do with communication problems. We don’t argue over where we go or how we live this lifestyle.
We have money stresses at times, and that can lead to arguments and heated discussions, but it’s rare. Mostly, we just try and talk things out as soon as they happen, so things don’t build up.
You’ve recently decided to take a break and “stay put” for a few months. What led to this decision to pause your nomad life?
We haven’t stopped nomading, we are just doing it back in Canadá. Family commitments are keeping us in our home country for now.
There is a big difference nomading here in Canada because everything is so expensive. We really have to work at securing situations where we are volunteering or housesitting in exchange for accommodation. We don’t run into the same financial problems elsewhere as we do here.
One advantage though, is that we can work legally here. This allows us to make larger chunks of money than our earnings online, which helps to get us back out.
Also transportation is really poor here. So often we find ourselves far from anywhere and have to be at peace with where we are and not going anywhere.
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Christened “Wander Woman” by National Geographic, Erin Michelson has traveled to 135 countries & all 7 continents. She is a professional speaker and author of the Nomad Life™ series of curated trips and travel guides, including the #1-ranked Explore the World with Nomads.
Curious to read more Nomad Profiles? Get the bonus edition to the guide—Meet 10 More Nomads: Bonus Interviews 11-20.
