Sharing Travel Experiences

Travel is ‘Happy Time’

by Andy Hayes

Maybe you think of travel more a a detox, or maybe it is enlightenment or finding yourself or getting away.  We all describe it differently.  Today’s interview guest calls it Happy Time.  Perhaps I’ll let him explain….

Could you introduce yourself?

Hi Andy, Hi everyone, My name is Aaron Bradford. I’m 26 born in Norfolk in the UK and I’m the chap behind HappyTime. I’m a professional hobo (traveller) who blogs about the places I go and the things I see.

Why is your website called HappyTime? Perhaps it is self-explanatory but is there a hidden story in there?

No there’s no hidden story… Georgie (my soon to be wife) picked the name when I first made the blog, I asked her what she thought it should be called and she replied “Happytime”. At first it was called “Aaron and Georgie happytime” but as I got better at blogging and we started to mass readers I decided we needed our own URL and Happytimeblog.co.uk was born.

Andy’s Note:  I like the name.  Simple and says exactly what it is.

You’re nomadic / location independent. How has that suited you as a lifestyle? Tell us about how it works – how do you earn money?

I’ve never been one for routine in fact I just can’t manage it at all. So in that respect it’s suited me perfectly. with readily available internet now just about everywhere it’s becoming much easier to be a travel blogger (note that I put travel-blogger NOT a blogger who travels). The content pretty much writes itself when I’m travelling, mainly because I don’t travel how most people would and that always leads me into interesting situations! Georgie plays a big part too, I think with two people to push things along we never get swamped down with boring admin.

Initially as the description suggests I sold my house and just about everything I owned to go forth and travel, I had a lot of good advice come my way and a lot of good opportunities so I made some “real world” investments in things like property.

The blog as a money maker is a relatively new thing, it’s always made some sort of money but it’s only recently started making enough to support us both while backpacking. I think I’ve been very lucky ads so far, I never set out to monetize it but private ads found their way to me somehow, I asked what was probably a ridiculous sum… They paid it, so I figured I’d give it a go. Nowadays I use the usual affiliate links if I talk about products and a light sprinkle of Google ads, but again… I don’t focus on making money I focus on travelling! Luckily for me travelling = content = money = travel.

Do you think being location independent gives you more opportunity to experience places more than tourists?

Absolutely! Something I’ve found time and time again from other travellers is jealousy of my time to linger. I never have set plans and sometimes that costs extra but it definitely opens more doors. What often happens is people breeze through places and might be lucky to stay for a week or two, in turn the people who live and work in these places are sometimes hard to win over properly. It certainly gives me the chance to get to know faces, names, places and build relationships with the local population… Wherever that is.

Andy’s Note:  It sounds like a fantastic balance of travel, making a living, seeing the world and interacting with it along the way.  Well done.

What’s been your most inspirational travel experience so far?

Wow, I think I will have to say motorbiking through Laos. We set out on what we thought would be a simple motorbike trip from Vang Vieng to Luang Probang… I messed up the mileage and it ended up being close to 600km. It made me question the whole way I’d been travelling up until that point, we were at the mercy of the road and the small villages we went through. Something that really stands out is – we’d stopped at a really small village because we were starving hungry and needed fuel, not one person spoke a work of English and our Laos sucked but everyone in the village came out to see us. The children all gathered round as we tinkered with our bikes and one old chap started playing a guitar type thing. It was exactly the kind of experience that I left home for! What galvanised it was a tourist bus that thundered through the village, horns blazing and packed with half asleep backpackers, all trying to loose that wonderful (but long and bumpy) journey in the pages of a book… I couldn’t help thinking, what have I missed!

Andy’s Note:  WOW.

How do you choose your next destinations? What’s up on the list?

I’ve got a large map rolled up in storage that comes out when I get home. It has circles drawn on it from when I was a little lad and I still add to it now, circles that were put there after watching TV and reading books. A big inspiration for me has been Michael Palin, I’ve watched his BBC programs and books hundreds of times!

Locally (when I’m actually in a place) I will always use recommendations be it from other travellers, local people or other blogs – I don’t use guide books.

Top of my list right now is a grand trip across South America on our own transport, thing are being planned and re-planned right now but that won’t be for a few months yet. We’re keen to go eco and currently talking to some interesting people about the power of electricity…

Lastly, any regrets? Will you always be location independent?

Not one! Again luck comes into play for me because at the time of selling my house if I had instantly re-invested it in property I would have lost the lot with the global recession… If I hadn’t sold my house when I did I would have lost every penny of profit and probably still be struggling to get away! Travelling was a do or die thing for me really and it’s paid off and given me a new passion for writing and blogging.

As long as I can type and walk I’ll always Travel…

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That is one very impressive story. A special thanks to Aaron for taking time out of his busy travel schedule to speak with us. If you’d like to learn more about Aaron, visit his site, Happy Time and follow him on Twitter.

And if you want to learn more about the location independent lifestyle, be sure to check out our live and work anywhere guides.  You can start with the lifestyle guide, which if anything, is guaranteed to give you a fresh perspective on your own lifestyle, location independent or not.

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