On occasion we post important content from our book, The NuNomad. This post is one such excerpt.

I don’t know about you, but I’m not one to simply follow conventional wisdom. Okay, aside from the obvious choice in my lifestyle design, I’m referring to inoculations and prophylactics that most travelers are recommended to take.

“Oh, you’re one of them!” you snigger.

Not so.  Am I one to not take aspirin even though I have a major headache? Hell no, I hate pain; and aspirin works for me. But, I am cognizant of the fact that taking any medication when not really necessary is generally considered not a smart thing to do. Aside from the negative side effects the accumulative use of any drug may have on a person’s body, extended use of a drug may make you resistant to the drug’s ability to heal you. That’s why, and my previous article on recommended immunizations notwithstanding, I often accept the risks of not taking certain prophylactic measures. The annual flu shot is one such preventative I shy away from. Another (which is the topic of this current discussion) is anti-Malarials.

Does this make me a risk taker? No, I don’t think so. I do take appropriate steps to avoid infection.

Most medical professionals agree that the best way to avoid getting diseases like Malaria, which are transmitted by mosquitoes, is to avoid being bitten by them. This is done by simply wearing protective clothing (long sleeves, pants and socks—as opposed to a beekeeper’s uniform). When you sleep, use a mosquito net and/or burn a mosquito coil or plug in your electric mosquito “pad” heater. Having a fan blowing directly on you also helps a great deal.

Now, let’s look at a few points.

The pharmaceutical option:
Aside from protecting yourself from mosquito bites, there are the prophylactic options, which I’d alluded to a moment ago, at your disposal: Chloroquine Phosphate or Mefloquine. These medications are widely available, but provide only partial protection and can have significant side effects.

Effectiveness:
In some parts of the world anti-malarials simply don’t work. Moreover, many medical professionals say that if you contact Malaria while taking the pills, it can be more difficult to treat.

If choose to take anti-malarials and you experience severe side-effects from the use of them, then you may need to discontinue their use. Do note that these medicines are not effective if taken intermittently. Also, the exact medicine recommended is different for different places due to resistant strains of the Malaria parasite.

If Malaria is contracted:
Treatment for the disease in areas where it is prevalent is often good because of local doctors’ experience with the disease. Luckily, Malaria tablets are far cheaper in countries where malaria is a problem. (They’re quite expensive in the U.S. and European countries.)

Conclusion:
My opinion (and it’s only an opinion) is that if you plan to be in a high-risk Malaria area for three months or less, then go ahead and take the pills. The short term use of them should be tolerable. If, however, you find yourself in a Malaria-prevalent area for more than three months, then don’t.

Resources:
You may wish to research this subject further, consult your immunologist (who will, no doubt, confuse you even more), the CDC, Internet, and books such as Staying Healthy in Asia, Africa & Latin America.

(Special thanks goes to Dr. Nick Walters, MD—tropical and preventive medicine specialist at Mission Hospital, Bangkok, for his help on this article.)

by Ricardo

On occasion we post important content from our book, The NuNomad. This post is one such excerpt.

This is the time of year when we get questions about pre-travel preparations. You know, the stuff you have to do before going. It’s when one is in their final weeks of preparing for that first big nomadic adventure that the pressure of getting your “to-do check list” completed can disrupt one’s peace of mind like a pebble in a flip-flop. Yes, pre-travel preparations can be as maddening as it can be exciting. It could also be a bit trepidatious. Example: travel vaccinations.

Let me get the first question in your mind, “Do I really need them?” out of the way. It’s “yes.” (Well, probably.) If you’re planning to base yourself in Western Europe, Australia or Canada, you may not need immunizations. But for most everywhere else, you’ll need the protection!

But don’t get your knickers in a twist. The series of immunizations is not the daunting task you may think it is.

Let’s start with cost and where to get them. If you get them from the county or local government health department, the price may range from free (if your government is not the USA) to $150-250 USD. However, many private health insurance programs and HMOs often provide them to their members free of charge. (Note: be sure to get the International Certificate of Vaccination—“yellow card”—which records all of your vaccinations and the date you received them. Some countries may want to see your yellow card before they will allow you to enter.)

If you want to save some money, check to see if the country you’re heading to can provide travel immunizations cheaper than at home. If you’re traveling to a lesser-developed country, such as Thailand, you could save some big bucks. I got my last booster series in a hospital in Bangkok for a fraction of what it costs me at home (USA).

Okay, so what immunizations are recommended? Here’s our list!

The Nu Nomad List of Most Common Travel Vaccinations
(You may not need all of these.)

¹ The new JE Vax will be replacing the now widely used vaccine for Japanese Encephalitis. ² The typhoid vaccine is either tablet or injection. In Asia it is injection since it is cheaper and doesn’t need a strict “cold chain.” If the tablets aren’t kept at the right temperature they don’t work. ³ The hepatitis A and B vaccines are now available in a single vaccine for those who need both, it means one less shot. ⁴ Those with HIV or immune suppression should avoid the MMR vaccine and the oral polio vaccine. ⁵ For the polio vaccine, it comes as either a shot or as an oral solution. The shot is safer, has less chance of side-effects, but is slightly less effective. The oral liquid is not recommended for those who have never had it before.

(Special thanks goes to Dr. Nick Walters, MD—tropical and preventive medicine specialist at Mission Hospital, Bangkok, for his help on this article.)

But wait! There’s more! If you plan to do a lot of trekking in places such as in Asia, Africa or South America, it is worth considering the rabies vaccine. It takes a month to give the series of three. However, if you get bitten by a rabid animal it is still vitally important that you get several more booster shots of the rabies vaccine, even if you’ve had the rabies vaccine before the incident. Any mammal can carry rabies. Rabies cases are 100% fatal.

Additionally: If you are traveling during flu season, you may want to get that shot too. (The flu shot is yearly.) Those with lung problems or heart problems should have a pneumococcal vaccine once every 10 years. And a Tuberculosis test is a good one to have as well. (Be sure to keep your certificate showing the negative result.)

Want more Info? Check out The (US) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention .

What About Malaria? (I’ll cover that in my next article.)

Photo by: mksphotos

From time to time we may feature some of the ideas we have written about in our newest book, The Nu Nomad.  SMART ASS goals is one of those ideas.

The Danger of Forgetting Our Dreams

Most of us have dreams of ourselves in some future, living a life that is light years better than the one we currently have.  Your dream may be of living in far away islands, winning a Nobel Peace Prize, or completing a marathon while your amazingly beautiful love interest cheers you on at the finish line.  Whatever your dream, you’ve probably come to accept that getting from here to there is not as simple as you’d like.  I mean this damned current ordinary life gets in the way.  My own dream consists of a tuscan style home surrounded by grapevines and beautiful setting suns – but every time I move towards it inevitably one of my kids gets sick, the car needs repair or the air conditioning breaks (living in Texas that’s serious stuff).

Too often our dreams take back seat to the fires we’re putting out around us.  Before we know it, years can go by and our dream is still that – a dream, only older and seemingly more elusive over time.  One day you might find yourself at the kitchen table with your kids asking, “What did you used to think you were going to be?” and you might not even remember what the dream was.  If this dream was something that really reflected your life passions that would be tragic.

So how can we prevent the loss of our next dream into this mental haze where nothing gets realized?  Well, obviously, the dream must transform into an actual plan and actions over time to bring it into reality.  In my recent post, 6 Stages to Successfully Design Your Lifestyle , I discussed Prochaska’s stages of change and the importance of contemplation and planning.  Let’s get down to a more concrete level now. What does good planning and action look like?  Well, in my world it’s about being a SMART ASS.

Being a SMART ASS

Being a SMART ASS is about knowing how to properly design goals so that they can be executed with the greatest chance of success.  SMART goals have been around for a long time.  For all of you who have ever sat through a corporate meeting while some consultant explained this to you in the buzz of fluorescent lighting as the smell of cheap coffee and perhaps a stale croissant sandwich (if you were being treated well) rose to your nostrils, I apologize for going over it again.  But bear with me – it’s solid stuff.

So let’s revisit SMART goals in light of lifestyle design.  When you are setting goals it’s easier than you think to create a goal that will lead you to failure before you even begin moving towards it.  Remembering SMART goals will help you create goals that are actually executable.

S – Specific State your goal specifically.  As a coach one of my pet peeves are people who will say their goal is “just to be happy”.  Just wanting to “be happy” is a sure-fire way to failure.  What does “being happy” mean to you?  Get specific!! For one person it may mean getting out of debt, for another it may mean finding a spouse.  Dig down and get specific about what your goal is.

M -Measurable Your goal must be measurable.  This is related to being specific.  I mean, it’s pretty hard to measure happiness (although a lot of psychologists have created tests for this – we’re not going there).  Create a goal that you can measure so that you’ll know when you have arrived.  You can measure if you are out of debt.  You’ll know if you’ve gotten married.  Want to travel for a year?  You’ll be able to measure if you did that.

A – Action Oriented This is a somewhat subtle but important point to understand.  Your goal must be stated in action oriented language.  For instance, a person may want to lose weight.  In order to lose weight they will likely need to diet and exercise.  The catch is that they may diet and exercise and still not lose weight in which case they will feel they have failed.  So, if the goal is stated, “I want to lose 50 pounds” that person may end up feeling like a failure for causes beyond their control.  It’s possible that 50 pounds is no longer reasonable for their age even with proper diet and exercise.  What is more important is that this person sustain the healthy action over time.  If they get discouraged that their weight loss is not occurring and they go back to being sedentary and eating twinkies, in the long run the purpose is defeated.  On the other hand, if the person stated their goal as, “I want to maintain a low carb diet and exercise 4 times per week”, then success or failure is within their control.  Likely the result of these actions will be weight loss but the mental shift is in making the goal be about the positive action – not the outcome.

R – Realistic – Make a realistic goal.  A goal like, “I will work 40 hours per week towards my new business” may not be realistic if you already have a 40 hour per week job and maybe even a family.  Don’t delude yourself into failure.  Take a careful look at your current situation and know what is realistic in terms of what kind of actions and time commitments you can promise to.

T – Time Oriented Your goal needs to have a time component.  By when do you plan to pay off your debt?  For how long will you maintain diet and exercise before your re-evaluate?  Your time component also needs to be tested for being “realistic”.  It may be realistic to set a year goal for paying off your debt.  It may not be realistic to think you can do it in 3 months.  Without a time limit attached to your goal it is too easy to slip into that future where the goal has faded into the mist.  Even if you set a goal for a life habit you intend to continue forever (such as proper eating) set yourself a time at which you will stop your actions and evaluate how it’s going.  It will also give you an opportunity to tweak your actions or perhaps even set a greater goal if things are going well.

OK, so there are SMART goals.  They may be new to you or you may have seem them many times.  While they are fundamental in understanding proper goal setting, I always felt they left out some very important aspects of ensuring successful movement to your goal.  And so I created SMART ASS goals.  Here are my additions:

A- Accountability – Make yourself accountable to someone.  It’s too easy to slide our goals under the rug and pretend we never made them if we keep them private.  Tell another person your goals and ask them to hold you accountable.  For some people this can be a family member or close friend.  Other people use coaches just for this function.  Make sure to set a regular time (weekly works well) when you will check in with that person and report in on your progress towards your goal.

S – Structure – Create structures to help yourself meet your goals.  A structure is a concrete thing in your environment that exists to remind you about your goal or to make it easier for you to take the actions towards it.  Want to take off for a year to Budapest?  A simple structure could be to tape pictures of Budapest to your bathroom mirror as a reminder of your goal.  Want to get out of debt so you can take the trip to Budapest?  Another structure could be to remove all credit cards from your wallet and put them into a safe deposit box so that you cannot be tempted to use them next time you’re out shopping.

S – Small Steps - Finally, break your goals into small steps.  “The elephant is eaten one bite at a time”.  Stating a huge goal can feel overwhelming and keep you from taking action.  However, breaking it into small steps can help you realize that it is actually doable.  It will also give you a lot more chances to notice and celebrate your successes along the way.  (I’m all for celebrations!)

It may take some up-front time to sit down and get your goals to fit SMART ASS criteria.  However, remember that in Prochaska’s model those people who spent more time in contemplation and planning were the people who maintained their goals overtime.  Put a bit of extra time in now and save yourself a lot in the future!

You can read about SMART ASS goals and how to apply them to becoming location independent in our newest book, The Nu Nomad.

Photo by Fast Eddie 42

I’m pleased to announce that The Nu Nomad is now a book!  The product of more than two years of fact-finding and personal interviews with other Nu Nomads living the location independent lifestyle, this guide will provide you with the necessary information to become a sustainable nomad. We have left no stone unturned.  Here is just a partial list of the topics we cover in our 200 page book:

• Is this lifestyle for you?
• Setting your goals to be in alignment with your values
• Planning and building your remote business
• Saving money via favorable exchange rates
• Tools of the trade
• Planning your route
• When things go wrong
• Finances
• What to bring/what not to bring
• Practicalities including safety, immunizations, travel with children, solo travel, taxes, etc.
• Settling in (ie your daily nomadic life).
• Legal concerns
• Health concerns
• and more…

In addition, by purchasing this book in either paper or e-book version you will gain access to private pages of our Nu Nomad website which will lead you through preparatory exercises to move your plans into action.  We will continue to add to this private section of our site over time – providing you with more great information and support to make nomading your way of life.

So Why Should You Listen to Us?

Between my partner Richard Hamel and I (Carmen Bolanos) we offer you 10 years of professional coaching experience, helping others achieve and maintain their most important business and personal goals, a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology (to help you get your mind in the right place!), 9 years of full time nomading,  experience visiting or residing in over 2 dozen countries,  and solo nomading experience (Richard’s) as well as family nomading/homeschooling experience (Carmen’s).  And to top it off – we’re pretty darn nice people willing to lend a helping hand and listening ear.

Get more information on this great book here