6 Tips For Working On The Road While Cycling (I Cycled The World And Worked For 2 Years)

I travelled and worked for two years. I went around the world on a bicycle and served my clients. I had real work commitments with clients who needed to be served monthly with set deliverables. It was (and still is) my serious job. The second year I travelled and worked, I had my biggest profit and revenue year (wild, right?)

Travelling and working doesn’t mean sacrificing income or scrapping for work. I had reliable, retained clients who I loved serving on the road. To achieve this, though, you need a certain level of professionalism, and that’s what these tips will help with.

Get a reliable VPN

Use World Time Buddy

I was in Australia and New Zealand for about six months. I didn’t know this until I got there, but some time zones in Southern Australia are on the half-hour.

We stayed in Ceduna for three nights after cycling across Nullarbor Plain. Ceduna is on the Australian Central Standard/Daylight time zone (ACS/DT)

In ACST, noon in the UK was 9:30 pm; not too bad, but I had clients in the US, and the time difference was a real pain to work with. My 2:30 a.m. was their 9 a.m., so yeah, I had to get up at 2 a.m. to take a meeting.

The worst thing was that although I had done all my due diligence, the half-hour time zone threw me so badly that I got to the meeting late and missed the whole thing. I’d gotten out of bed for nothing.

Thankfully, my client is amazing! They’re still with me today and didn’t even expect me to attend anyway; very reasonable indeed.

World Time Buddy is a desktop “app” and even a phone app (Apple and Samsung).

As you can see in the screenshot below, World Time Buddy makes it super-easy to see what time different towns, cities, and countries are in.

You can put any timezone or place in the search bar, and World Time Buddy will have the time zone details. The bar highlighting the same time across countries is super helpful. You can adjust the display (24-hour clocks, including am/pm, etc.) and save commonly used time zones for quick access. One client I work for has a global remote team, so I used to save the time zones of the people I met with.

Treat yourself to a premium hotel with breakfast.

When Stew and I cycled around the world, we planned to do it on a budget, but budget accommodation simply wasn’t good enough when we had a tonne of work.

Budget accommodation is smaller, sometimes darker, and you generally need to sort your meals.

When you work, you need to be able to think properly. My environment significantly impacts how I feel and how productive I am. I didn’t realise quite how much until I tried working and travelling.

If you’re anything like Stew and me, you might find your work flow changes. Instead of working little and often, you might work many hours condensed into a few days so you need to do everything you can to keep yourself productive during those heavy work sessions.

Premium hotels (sometimes Airbnbs) were the way forward for us.

With more expensive accommodation, you get space in your room, often a desk, maybe even lobbies and meeting rooms that you can work in to save you from cabin fever. You may even have a maid service so you don’t have to worry too much about cleaning the room. You can get your head down and work, work, work.

For us, breakfast is a must, and then we generally sort out lunch and dinner, though we did call room service plenty of times, too. With breakfast sorted, there’s no cooking, washing up, or mess. You don’t have to think about that meal which is actually a lot when travelling, so you can roll out of bed, have your breakfast and get started.

Front-load work and get ahead

This is a risk, especially for consultants or freelancers serving many clients, but I highly recommend taking it.

This work and travel tip prevents a travel drama (like holding up a ferry for four hours and owing the Azerbaijani government £400 - yep, we did that) from impacting your clients.

For your clients who you really like working with and are highly likely to stick around, get ahead on your work deliverables. I worked a month in advance while travelling so every delivery went to my client on time.

The first month is a lot because you overwork for one, but it settles into a regular cadence.

The benefits

• You have your work ready to go in case of sickness, messed-up travel schedules, or bad Wi-Fi.
• Your clients will never notice you’re travelling which is what you want because if they see you managing everything, they’ll keep you on.
• Stress reduction for you because you’ll never be working on the deadline.

The risks

• You could work for nothing if the client resigned you.
• Plans change, so your work could be obsolete by the time you go to deliver it (some of my clients change their plans like the weather)

For me, the risks are worth the benefits, but see how you feel.

Hire a Virtual Assistant (VA)

I found my wonderful VA on Upwork. She’s based in the Philippines, and I’ve worked with her for over two years. She changed everything about how I worked. She helps me mostly with administration but also with designs in Canva, scheduling LinkedIn content, and more.

You can find VAs very affordably, especially if you are off-shore, but for what it’s worth, I don’t agree with paying rates less than the rate you’re earning. I earn in Great British Pounds (GBP), so my VA is paid as if she lives in the U.K. That’s a moral issue, but that’s my stance. You do you.

A VA can help with a multitude of tasks, such as

• Managing emails and scheduling
• Conducting online research
• Handling customer service inquiries
• Managing social media accounts
• Booking travel and accommodations
• Data entry and database management
• Invoicing and bookkeeping
• Creating reports and presentations
• Transcribing audio or video files
• Organizing digital files and documents

Use a project management tool

Are you going to try travelling and working?

I would love to hear from you if you're thinking about travelling and working. Or, if you're a seasoned digital nomad, drop a comment with a tip!