Early retirees Dave and Bill are the latest nomads we’ve encountered while staying in El Nido. The charismatic English/Scottish couple of 23 years has just recently left their home in cold and rainy Scotland in search of a quieter life abroad. The two are part of a wave of people we’ve been meeting all over Asia. These Contemporary Nomads choose to travel or live in countries much cheaper than their own where they can enjoy a higher standard of living for much less money.

But leaving their busy lives behind wasn’t a small step for the two Brits. Dave was a social worker, Bill owned two hair saloons, and together, they ran an organic farm on their 100 hectare property 20 minutes outside of Edinburgh. They were workaholics. After Dave’s near-death accident on their farm, however, they solidified their plans to retire early. They realized that having successful careers and running a farm was not their ultimate goal, but spending more time together and finding a small home in a warmer climate was.

Clearly, finding a house takes time. Bill and Dave are taking a year to travel through Southeast Asia, the Philippines, Australia and Southern Europe where they eventually want to settling down. Already, we are thinking of paying them a visit after having enjoyed their company in El Nido during our nightly dinners at Squidos. Dave turned out to be quite a storyteller, and Bill with his dry humor and strong Scottish accent constantly cracked us up. (Thanks, Bill, for distracting the drunk Fin who was terrorizing El Nido during our stay).

We are sad to say good-bye, but such is a nomad’s life. I know we’ll see them again, perhaps even along the way.

Yes, the Nomads of the world are uniting as ContemporaryNomad.com joins forces with NomadicNarrative.com to take on Southeast Asia. Our blogs, and Asia, may never be the same.

Michaela, Stephan and Tony on Rabbit Island

We used to have a big community while living in San Diego. There were “happy hours” with co-workers, dinners with friends, and Survivor and Amazing Race nights with our family. After moving to Berlin, we had to start over, and our community was reduced to a handful of new friends. Now that we have gone completely nomadic, building and maintaining a community has become one of our greatest challenges. But that’s where social media comes into play.

Facebook and Twitter are excellent tools for following other travelers and connecting with them along the way. Tony and I have made it a priority to stay in touch and meet up with people over and over again. There was French Thomas who we met in China and India. We met Jonathan and Rebecca in China, Tibet and Nepal. We encounteredRichard and Emma, several times in India. Our latest rendezvous was with Michaela and Stephan, a German couple from my home state of Baden-Wuerttemberg. We first met in India in 2008, saw them in Thailand in 2009, and met up again in 2010 for a few days of island hopping in Southern Cambodia. Speaking my native dialect reconnected me with my home (and drove Tony slightly insane). But it is important to reconnect with your own culture once in a while.

Online chat, Skype and email have all been great instruments to bring home a little closer. But sometimes it’s just not close enough. What do you do if you can’t go back as frequently as you would like to? You convince your friends to visit you on the road, like Lisa and Garrett from San Diego or Beverly, who’ll be traveling with us for a couple of months in Cambodia and Laos.

So to answer the question of whether our lives as nomads have been lonely – absolutely not. Sure, it takes time and effort to stay in touch, but social media has made this process a lot easier. Of course, I want to sit in a cafe with an old friend and laugh until I cry, but I can’t have it all. In the meantime, I satisfy myself with XOXOs, LYs and LOLs.

In November 2008, we met German tourists Michaela and Stephan  on vacation in Southern India. A few weeks ago in Bangkok, we reunited with Michaela and Stephan, now travelers and novice nomads traveling around Asia on a shoestring. Their short trip to India sparked their interest in doing the travel circuit full-time. So, taking a year off to explore the world, they said good-bye to Deutschland.

Just 2 weeks into their travels, we got together over green Thai curry and Shanga beer in Bangkok’s tourist hub Banglamphu. Still shell-shocked from the huge transition into a nomadic lifestyle, they were trying to cope with all the changes: plenty of free time, living out of a backpack and having had to say good-bye to the people they were close to. “It’s difficult to leave your family behind,” Stephan told me, “but, somehow, our departure drew our attention to how important our family and friends are to us.”

After visiting Hindu India last year, Michaela and Stephan came to Southeast Asia to experience the Buddhist culture, the unique landscape, and the gentle people in this region. Starting in Thailand, they’ll work their way to Laos, possibly Vietnam and Cambodia and then continue their trip to Northern India, one of our favorite Buddhist territories. Once they get to Leh in Ladakh, their focus will shift from traveling to volunteering. Yes, these two are thinking ahead in times of economic crisis. Both of them quit their jobs as social workers / care givers, but they will use their time volunteering with Ladakh-Hilfe to bolster their resumes. They’ll be visiting different areas in Ladakh helping people with physical and mental handicaps. Luckily, it shouldn’t all be work. It sounds like a wonderful way of getting to know locals on a very different level.

Michaela and Stephan at Ellora Caves in India, 2008

After listening to them, I wonder if they are Buddhists in the making. During our conversations, Michaela and Stephan mentioned how good it felt to leave most of their worldly possessions behind and that this should be a lesson for their future life. I think there is a little Buddha in all of us nomads.

If you can read German, you can follow the two on their travel blog SchwabenNomaden.

Our Swedish friends Emelie and Carl, who we met while traveling in India, had the brilliant idea to buy Indian textile items that would appeal to Westerners and then sell them in Sweden. During a recent trip to Calcutta, their entrepreneurial side quickly took over and they went shopping on a big scale. Scarfs, bedspreads, handbags, shawls, and other decorative items. I would have had a lot of fun with that.

But then came the shipping. Sending stuff from India and having to deal with the post office can be quite intimidating but once you get the hang of it, it’s not as scary as it looks. Just make sure every package is sewn into white linen – that’s a good start. And then pray to Hanuman that your shipment will make it.

I just recently contacted the two Swedes, and they sent me the latest update on their successful sales business. The pictures show Emelie and Carl shopping and shipping the goods in India, and then reselling them on the island province of Gotland, a popular holiday destination in Sweden. Good choice, people in vacation mode are much quicker to spend their money. This is important, especially if you want to finance your next trip and continue your nomadic lifestyle.

Importing products from India is a great idea because goods there are comparatively cheap. Having said that, many other third-world countries offer similar opportunities. Be it baskets from Ethiopia, silver jewelry from Morocco or weavings from Guatemala, there’s a definite market for ethnic art in the West. You just need to know what your potential customers are looking for.

But before you go out and spend your last cent on exotic knickknacks, make sure you’ve thoroughly investigated your country’s policies on importing merchandise. Even for a small number of items, you may have to pay import duty, sales tax, and, in the end, income tax.

Well, you don’t want to run into trouble with the law, or, instead of doing souvenir runs, you might find yourself on the run.