Sell your stuff, buy good gear & a DRONE! Learn to prepare for your own Nomad Lifestyle [AED-S01E02]

By Paul Trausner | November 15, 2021

Our Gear

In the last episode of the #AdventureEscapeDiaries we heard about the #QuarterYearlyLivingChallenge: https://youtu.be/Sct15b8-Gjc

In this episode we will focus on how to prepare for your big departure.

Learn from my story of #Escaping my 9-5 Lifestyle to live as a #DigitalNomad in #LatinAmerica. My first step was selling all my stuff that was not essential for my life on the road and then I focused on just buying #TravelEquipment that could be useful for my journey.

Follow me on my Journey to #BreakFree and learn how you can do it for yourself!

Be part of this #StepByStepGuide and make your own life into your greatest #HeroesJourney!

Experience through me the ups and downs of finding a new life in #LatinAmerica.

I’m on a quest to get #PermanentResidency in #Paraguay and will show you how to do it yourself.

Keep at it, there will be a new episode every Tuesday.

Let me know what you think in the comments on how it’s all going to play out and what you’re looking forward to seeing next!

USEFUL ADVICE:

If you want to know which documents are required for a residency in Paraguay or you want a free digital nomad coaching session with me, sign up here:
- https://calendly.com/trausner/adventure-is-calling
Alexandra’s Blog and Videos on her own Channel:
- How can you do it? As Digital Nomad around the globe! – https://alexandraallover.com/as-digital-nomad-around-the-globe/
- Alexandra Allover as Digital Nomad around the globe – https://youtu.be/h9vm5iM2y1s
- Painful experience at Nationalpark Donauauen – https://youtu.be/Q_iouUgWd-8
- The Roman city of Carnuntum – https://youtu.be/ZtO7XuZFlQc
- Morning Yoga Practice at the park – https://youtu.be/BUFIHjacs54

GEAR:

DJI Mavic Mini Drone – Amazing Areal Videography
- US: https://amzn.to/3hpw3rx – DE: https://amzn.to/3C8Eb7T
Moment Wide Lens
- US: https://amzn.to/3CfQDCu – DE: https://amzn.to/3CfQDCu
DJI Osmo Mobile Gimbal
- US: https://amzn.to/3Fk4utx – DE: https://amzn.to/3qAHXEq

MY MESSAGE:

So the stage for this game was set.

The circumstances were not promising. But these are the cards i was dealt. Id have to make it work, there was no other way.

My plan was to move to South America and make my Quarter yearly living challenge work there. 3 months in every country – working and traveling – a modern day nomad lifestyle. But the World is on Lock Down.

With only the positive outlook of discovery of new lands and an exciting life on a new continent I approached Alexandra Allover with the plan. Originally i was gonna do the journey alone but it for sure feels better to have a partner, especially in these crazy times.

(Alexandra Allover as Digital Nomad around the globe – https://youtu.be/h9vm5iM2y1s)

Due to the Lockdowns,

Alexandra’s job, organizing language exchange trips for students, didn’t offer any more future perspective and her work hours were reduced to just one day a week. The personal Fitness coaching and the Paleo Lifestyle Airbnb Experiences I offered to my clients were also not an option anymore. At this point I had already moved the majority of my client work online. I was well prepared with Video Coaching and my Online Courses. Now with the dire outlook Alexandra’s employment she joined me in working on her own online business full time and we started planning our new Adventure.

THe original plan was to go to the US first and then fly to South America but suddenly the US banned Europeans form entering the country. There goes that plan down the drain.

SO what was gonna be the best first destination?

With lots of research into traveling, with the purpose of relocation and a nomad lifestyle, we came across various blogs that were talking about the Flag theory and how it is important to get yourself a residency in a country that treats you well but also makes it easy for you to get and maintain that residency status.

A residency

…in another country has the advantage of giving you an alternative to the country of your citizenship. It gives you the option to stay as long as you want and you dont have to worry about the typical 3 months of a tourist visa. The added benefit is, that If the country of your citizenship decides to go full fascist, you can always legally travel to your country of residency and escape the insanity. If desired you can even collect multiple residencies around the world.

So where to go?

Residency programs around the world differ from each other. Some residencies are easier to get, some others really hard. In our case we were searching for Latin American countries only, so we had 2 easier options to choose from: Panama and Paraguay.

Both of them offer fast and cheap residency programs to certain nations, for which we qualified. In both cases one has to show the equivalent of around 5,000USD, and bring a whole list of notarized documents.

I personally had been to Panama before and i really enjoyed that country, but I was also excited to explore something new. At that time i had never made it to South America and with Paraguay being in the Heart of South America one has easy access to many countries in the direct vicinity.

So paraguay it is.

But its not gonna be just that easy. We had to get all kinds of documents and then have them notarized and translated and notarized again and… what documents exactly do we need? Let’s ask the Paraguayan Embassy… oh well. “What? You want to go to Paraguay? Like now? Sorry but Paraguay is under lock down and the borders are closed.“

Ok, that sucks. Ahm so, i mean borders will open up again, right? So just in case the country opens up again, what documents do we need?

„Ahhh, well… let me research that for you…“

No Clue

So it turned out that the people at the embassy actually had no clue what documents are needed to get a residency in Paraguay. We went back and forth and they came up with a list of documents… but they still weren’t sure… and so after weeks of research online we came up with a list. It was gonna be around 7 major documents that all needed to be applied for, pre-notorized, apostilled, translated and notarized again… and then these documents would just be valid for a maximum of 6 months. all in all it took us many weeks and cost us approximately 100 USD per document.

In a later episode, you will learn, how most of this process was completely useless for furthering our goal of planting our Flag in Latin America.

Documents

While being on the hunt for all these precious documents we continued working on our business plans and our travel pans for South America. As part of our preparation we actually started sleeping on a Futon floor mattress. This is good for your spinal posture and toughens your body. Who knew what hardship we would encounter overseas. Strengthening your body is always a good idea, especially in all kinds of creative ways.

Already at the early stage of planing it was clear that we were gonna film it all and take some cool youtube videos about that journey. We are both super amateurs when it comes to filming but everyone starts somehow.

Gear

So we were thinking we needed to find a way to create some great footage. And how to best do that if not with a drone. I got the DJI mavic mini for easy transport. That was important. But what else was needed? We didn’t wanna carry too much gear either. So we decided to film with our phone cameras for most of our footage. This saved a lot of space in our minimalistic setup and also kept our costs to a minimum.

I got myself a DJI Osmo Mobile 3 phone gimbal and a Moment Wide angle lens to make the phone shots look more cinematic.

Additionally i equipped myself with backup batteries and all kinds of cables, microphones and lighting tools. We spent our last free days in Austria with testing the equipment and shooting some footage in the same style we were gonna repeat on our big journey. We traveled to the Danube river, Donauauen national park,

(Painful experience at Nationalpark Donauauen – https://youtu.be/Q_iouUgWd-8)

saw the Roman settlement of Carnuntum,

(The Roman city of Carnuntum – https://youtu.be/ZtO7XuZFlQc)

Spent some time at The Ottensteiner Stausee – a beautiful reservoir at the Waldviertel, a picturesque area of Austria, full of forests and lakes.- . And tested the drone with lots and lots of Austrian castles shots.

Good Time

The irony of all this was that with all that discovering and traveling around in Austria, we actually had an amazing time. I felt more connected to the country than ever before. Being in nature and experiencing life is just the best way to go about things.

(Morning Yoga Practice at the park – https://youtu.be/BUFIHjacs54)

No matter if it is in a far away and exotic location or in your own home country. – You can watch the Videos about our Austrian Adventures on Alexandra Allover’s YouTube channel. Follow the links in this video or see the list in the description below.

It was good that we felt great about Austria. That way we were not leaving with a bad taste in our mouths. It’s the positive energy that fascilitates change and we knew that our journey will start soon, no matter that Paraguay’s borders were still closed. Fortunately we werent alone with our desire to leave. There was someone else who had enough of the bad developments in Europe and he inspired us to find a way to leave Europe, cross over to the New World and all that despite Paraguay’s closure.

More about this in the next episode of the Adventure Escape Diaries.

Until then… make sure to Like this video, – subscribe and check out my other content on HaveYourADVENTURE.com