nora dun
DESCRIPTION
Professional Hobo Personality FeatureTRANSCRIPT
NORA DUNNProfessional Hobo
BY DONNIE RUST
“I love just about everywhere in the world.”
Nora Dunn introduces herself as a professional hobo, a
woman who has travelled the world, visiting some of
the most sublime and breathtaking locations in the
world and has been doing so since 2007. An intrepid spirit of the
sort that H. Rider Haggard would have leapt at the opportunity
to write about Nora is the sort of adventurer and horizon seeker
that you cannot come into contact with and not feel inspired.
Proof, in many ways, that you can achieve absolutely
anything you want in life Nora has been on the move for over
seven years. Travelling across Canada where she lived in the
Rocky Mountains for seven months, Hawaii where she lived
for six months, Australia and New Zealand for over two years,
Grenada, Switzerland, Panama and Peru and to fly in the face of
everyone’s first excuse as to why they don’t travel, she has been
managing to do so in a financial stable manner.
Originally from Canada the thirty seven year old has no
fixed address and has been blogging since 2006. In addition to
the locations mentioned above she’s also travelled extensively
through and spent up to a month in various European
destinations, ranging from Spain to Denmark, Ireland to Russia
and many Asian destinations such as Thailand, Malaysia and
Nepal.
Renowned for travelling professionally in a financial
sustainable fashion, Nora has single handedly become an icon for
travel bloggers across the planet seeking to emulate her simple
approach to hitting the horizon.
“I was a certified financial planner in a former life,” she
explains, “In 2006 I sold everything I owned, which included
my practice and combined my experience in personal finance
and the skills I had learnt in lifestyle design with a deep passion
and experience in travelling to develop a location independent
career as a freelance writer.”
Nora explains that this created a perfect niche for her
writing, since you do need money to travel and now she writes
about travel for many financial publications such as Wise Bread,
Credit Walk, Care One, Amex, Capital One, and others.
“I write about finance for many travel publications such as
Transitions Abroad, Flight Network, Vagabondish, and many
more,” she adds, “I cover topics such as how to travel with credit
cards, how to travel indefinitely with carry-on luggage only, and
how to maximize frequent flyer miles.”
On her site www.theprofessionalhobo.com, Nora combines
two main routes to travelling sustainably. Firstly, showing people
how to travel full-time in a financially sustainable way both
through travelling creatively and inexpensively with techniques
such as getting free accommodation by volunteering or house-
sitting, using frequent flyer miles and exploring slow travel and
secondly highlighting ways to earn money on the road such
as with a location independent career, working holiday visas,
teaching English.
To help others achieve this Nora features regular Financial
Travel Tips, where she offers a free 2-week e-course on how
to travel full-time in a financially sustainable way and she’s
also written a few books, including one on How to Get Free
Accommodation Around the
World.
Nora testifies to having
an insatiable appetite for
travelling, “I love just about
everywhere in the world, but
I like experiencing the world
at a slower pace than just
another holiday maker. So
instead of throwing a dart at a
map and travelling as a tourist
I’ll travel to a location for an
opportunity,”
Most often Nora finds
there’s an opportunity to live in
a place for a while through free
accommodation, such as house
sitting or volunteering and this
allows her to sample the local
life in many destinations over
time, travelling slowly and
understanding the daily life
and local culture rather than
simply passing through and
experiencing somewhere just
as a surface level.
This is also Nora’s
profession, “I’ve been doing
this fulltime since 2007 and it’s
another reason I like to travel
slowly, it gives me more time
to experience the local culture
and also to help me get my
work done.”
Professional Hobo“I run my business as
The Professional Hobo and
international freelance writer,
on my own,” Nora explains,
“Although I do outsource
some jobs on a one-off basis
whenever I can.”
Nora is very honest when
speaking about how Time
management and life balance
while travelling has been
one of her biggest challenges
on the road and continues to be. She goes on to highlight that
there is a big different between travelling on a holiday where, as
a tourist, you hit all the attractions in a set period of time and
being a professional traveller who has to work.
“Although my location independent career is very freeing,”
she continues, “it also requires time and energy and nowadays
WiFi. Social media and answering emails in particular is a
somewhat relentless task that requires almost daily attention.
It’s rewarding, but something that can suck a day away if I’m not
careful.
I try to do my social media work in one spurt each day (taking
about half an hour) and then log out of all my accounts. Emails
are tackled on more of an as-and-when basis, taking up to a few
hours daily I also try to do this in one spurt and not pay too much
attention to new emails until the next day,”
This leaves time for her writing, much of which needs to
be done online as well and for researching or creating links.
However, despite this between managing her Triberr accounts
and responding to tweets, Nora spend probably about 15
minutes per day on Twitter.
“Social networking is very important to my career,” Nora tells
us, “Since it’s a platform for not only engaging with readers and
colleagues, but also a way to promote the articles I write for my
site and other publications. Editors pay me well for my ability
to promote content through my extensive social networks, and
sponsors and PR reps require strong social networks.”
Some Of The Professional Hobo’s Best Places
A traveller through and through, Nora has a unique
perspective on the places she visits and lives brought about
by venturing to a place not
only to visit, but to learn and
be changed by that place so
the question as to where her
favourite or least favourite
places are, is not as simple to
answer as one might think:
“Travel is very contextual;
the most beautiful sunset in
the world could be lost on you
if your heart was just broken,”
she explains, “So my favourite
places might not be another
person’s. Having said that,
there are a few destinations
I’m continually drawn back to,
including New Zealand, Switzerland, France, and most recently,
Peru.”
However, “Russia did nothing for me, and Norway was a little
expensive for my taste,” she laments, “The Caribbean island of
Grenada, which was a former favourite probably won’t be on
my hit list again either, since leaving there also meant leaving a
relationship and I’m not sure I could see myself living there on
my own again.”
And Where Will The Professional Hobo Be Going In The Future
“I’m waiting for the next opportunity to come knocking,” she
says when speaking about where her next destination will be,
“I expect that I’ll be spending a chunk of this summer in Europe
– possibly house-sitting in Switzerland, visiting some friends in
Italy, and or maybe renting a place in Amsterdam or Corsica.”
Once the weather starts
getting chilly in the northern
hemisphere’s autumn, you can
expect to see Nora hopping
back down to the southern
hemisphere either to Peru,
Colombia, or New Zealand
to enjoy the sunshine and
warmth.
“But that’s all far too much
planning for The Professional
Hobo; let’s see what happens!”
she concludes happily.