Well I’ve decided I will be quitting Europe to go travelling in South East Asia. Maybe for several months, maybe for a year, maybe for even longer. We’ll see.

I’ve been to South East Asia a number of times before, but up to now they were always shorter trips. This is something much much bigger.

It’s a project I’ve been wanting to do for some time, many years in fact. But I’d always put it off, telling myself it’s something you can only afford to do when you have plenty stashed away in the bank, or that I can’t or shouldn’t risk doing because of the job market, or the economy, my CV or whatever. But I now say balls to all that.

My new policy on life is to really do exactly what you want – right now. Ignore all the negs and naysayers (and there are always plenty of those who peck away at whatever you have planned!).

Nike it, as they say. In other words: just do it.

I feel a more lengthy period of time spent travelling in Asia, becoming location independent and going truly mobile will be a valuable and useful part of my self development.

So, this is my new “Going Mobile” project, as I call it.

This last winter here in Europe has also been a deciding factor pushing me in that direction. We’ve had a really cold-ass winter with freezing weather sent over to us from Russia with Love. Fortunately though it’s now abated and hopefully won’t return again this season.

But the fact is I’m also rather bored with Belgium. It has many plus points but it can feel like you are slowly being anaethetized here. The country is like one giant suburban commuter land. And people here are so damn petty bourgeios, it does get to you at times.

It’s time to move on.  So I’ll be leaving the land of little dogs!

I’ve already booked my flight ticket, will be leaving in mid May. Have just had all the vaccinations. I’d have liked to take off earlier, but I’ve been locked into a lease on my apartment that I’ve only been able to give notice on this month without incurring a penalty. It’ll  give me time to get everything well prepared whilst also working on my business at the same time, which is also very important to me.

And I’ve been minimizing my stuff over the last year so there isn’t all that much stuff remaining  to get rid off.

So, the dice have been cast. The decision has been made.  I can hardly wait for the new chapter to begin!

Image: Globe – courtesy of Simon Koleznik

I’ve worked with Linux systems for many years so I’m not a newcomer to Linux.

Mostly though these have been server systems and not desktop computers. Like the majority of people, I used Windows for my desktop PC and laptop.

So why the switchover from Windows to Ubuntu?

I’ve never been a big fan of Windows for the desktop. It’s slow, bloated, takes an age to boot up, is high risk when it comes to viruses. And of course, it’s produced by Microsoft, who, as everyone knows is the Anti-Christ of Computing.

It was also a desire to minimize my computer system and desktop. Ubuntu has a really smart graphical user interface, which makes it a pleasure to use. It’s also very simple and straightforward.  Linux systems tend to be complicated and involve you knowing how to use complex shell commands.

Being an IT person I’m well familiar with Linux and Unix shell commands. But for running my business I don’t want to spend my time functioning as a Linux system administrator. I have other more important things to do.

Ubuntu has been a blessing here. It’s completely different to most of the other Linux systems out there. In practice you hardly need to use any shell commands for most things. Ubuntu is Linux for the common man, Linux for the rest of us.

Amongst the other things I like is the really fast boot up time. As well as the information line at the top right hand corner of the screen, which displays things like date, time, network and battery status, Dropbox information, the audio controls, and other stuff.

There’s no menu system to have to navigate like in Windows, just a graphical icon display column called the “launcher”. This makes starting applications really easy.

Installing Ubuntu was amazingly simple, fast and straightforward. Plus, the system is updated and maintained online by the Ubuntu company, with all updates automatically sent to your computer (you just have to confirm that you want them installed).

Ubuntu has a large repository of free open source software for download and installation – which is also child’s play. They also offer a free cloud storage system called Ubuntu One, which provides you with 5 GB of free cloud storage. More storage is available for a fee should you need it.

One of the things Ubuntu doesn’t do and which I need to use is GoToWebinar. For this I have to power up my Windows partition which I’ve kept on my laptop for this eventuality.

All in all, I’m really pleased with Ubuntu. If you’re looking for a system which is simpler and more efficient to use than Windows, but you don’t want to get bogged down in Linux complexity, then I’d recommend taking a look at Ubuntu.

You can try it out using a live CD version first. What’s more, Ubuntu is free for anyone to download. It also has a great support community.

Check out the Ubuntu website at www.ubuntu.com

Image: Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

This last year or so I’ve been on a minimalist journey to simplify and downshift my lifestyle.

This is Part Two.

You can read Part One here: How to Minimize Your Life. Part One: My Journey Into Minimalism

Before then I used to be a real pack-rat.

I then embarked on a personal journey into minimalism. I’ve since got rid of around half of my stuff and the process is still continuing right now.

I’m finding I can live with less and less. And I’m still some way yet from reaching the end of my minimalist journey.

So what have I learned from my minimizing so far?

Here are my ten practical tips on minimizing based on my personal experience…

1. Minimizing is a gradual process. It involves a personal realization of how you relate to your stuff. It takes time to change your attitude to it and to work out what you really need and what you don’t need.

This means you should minimize in stages. Don’t try to dispose of too much stuff in one go; you risk getting rid of things that you actually need if you do.

Also you need to give yourself time to accustomize yourself to your new way of living with less stuff.

2. Eliminate duplicates (and triplicates). A good way to start minimizing is by getting rid of the items that are duplicated. Duplicating things was something I used to have a tendency to do. Two PCs, two bikes, two or more jackets,  far too many towels, bedding, kitchenware and other items. It’s just not necessary.

3. Don’t be a spare parts depot. I used to hold all sorts of stuff in reserve for “just in case”: loads of light bulbs, pots of paint, electric cable extensions, spare bike parts, boxes of computer accessories. Most of this stuff you just don’t need.

Don’t keep things for “just in case” – this is what causes people’s homes to become cluttered up with too much stuff. Chuck out “just in case” as a concept as well!

4. Eliminate “legacy possessions”.  These are items that you keep mainly because you have had them in your possession for so long and have just got used to them. But they don’t serve any useful purpose anymore. This can also include items that you have received as gifts from people years ago, but which are no longer of any use to you (or never even were).

Refusing to dispose of items simply because they were gifts from someone in the past will burden you and prevent you from minimizing effectively. For this reason gift items can be some of the most stubborn objects to bring yourself to get rid of. But you should still ask yourself if you really get any value out of holding onto them. If need be, keep quiet about getting rid of one time gifts, or give the person who gifted you another gift in return.

In one case I actually gave the gift back to the gifter as a gift from me! Not quite politically correct I know, but maybe better than just throwing the item away.

5. Sell what you can, give away what you can’t and dump the rest. eBay is your friend here. Or hold a car boot sale.

It can be surprising to discover how little many things fetch. Which just goes to show how little your “valuable” stuff was really worth. But it varies. Sometimes high, more often times low.

No matter. With each thing that disappears out through the door, your life is made much simpler and easier.  It’s one less thing to take to the dump.  And it’s one more thing that another person is able to gain some use from, rather than it just going to landfill.

But don’t have any misgivings about dumping stuff that doesn’t sell. In my experience if something doesn’t sell on eBay, it’s not worth the time, effort and cost in bothering to relist it. If you can’t give it away, just dump it and be done with it.

This last year or so I’ve been on a minimalist journey to simplify and downshift my lifestyle.

NOTE: I’ve now split this article into two as the original version was a bit too long.

This is Part One.

Part Two can be found here: How To Minimize Your Life. Part Two: Ten Practical Tips for Becoming a Minimalist

My Time as a Pack-Rat

Before then I used to be a real pack-rat. I used to own loads of stuff – especially clothes, books, sports gear, electronic appliances.

About the only thing I never had was a car. But I did own two mountain bikes. And loads of furniture. And the amount of stuff was always increasing.

Some of this stuff was “legacy”. Things I’d had in my possession and which I’d held onto for years. For little reason other than the fact that I’d bought them or that they had been gifts from people in the past.

It was when I was moving out of my apartment and sorting through it all that I started to realize just how much of a mountain of stuff I’d accumulated.  I was becoming owned by my stuff.

Storage – the first mistake!

I got rid of a fair amount of stuff, but I also made the mistake of putting the remainder into storage whilst I went travelling. Later on when all this stuff finally came back out of storage, it was all the more of a shock to be confronted with how much I had.

That was the first mistake: putting things into storage. It’s something I’ll never do again. It just isn’t worth it. So when I began breaking out of my previous career lifestyle, one of the things I did besides quitting my job and moving was to take a closer look at the issue of my stuff. It was clear that more storage was no longer the solution.

My minimizing journey begins!

Instead I decided to start minimizing, This time I got rid of a whole load of clothes, shoes, books, sports and hobby gear. But I still had too much stuff.

Then in the final few months of last year I started my biggest clear-out to date of all. This time I was much more ruthless. Many of my clothes, practically all of my books, all of my remaining CDs, all my DVDs. Plus the hi-fi, DVD player and other items. They all went.

Make your office paperless!

I also decided that my office would go almost completely paperless. After all, why not? We’ve had desktop computers for some 20 years or more now. We have the Internet, we now have cloud computing, we have cheap digital storage. We should already be there.

Before my last move I had an unbelievable 40 A4 box file folders. This was for both business and domestic purposes. At that time I got the figure down to less than 20. That was how many went into storage. Last year I halved the number again. But it was still too many.

So late last year I decided to clear them all out and throw them away. I scanned and shredded the important stuff. The rest I just shredded. As a result I now have just one A4 box file. I hate box files. No one should be using box files anymore in the year 2012.

Most of the stuff that people file away in box files never gets looked at again. So do yourself a favour and shred paperwork straight away. If it’s important scan it first. And then shred it. Even one file is too many for me now. I only have that for the sake of people who still expect to do business in the old style way with printed paper and snail mail letters.

I always used to have a pinboard. In fact I had several pinboards. But this time I decided to dispose of the pinboards as well. They just serve to accumulate junk pieces of paper. If it’s important, then you should scan the item or note it’s contents on your computer, for example in Google Docs. And if it’s not important enough for that, then you shouldn’t be keeping it anyway. So throw it away.

Next I got rid of all the photo albums I had. I gave away photos to family and friends after having scanned them and put them in the cloud and on my USB drive.

Cut the cord!

I also chucked out the landline telecom connection and phone. I went over to VOIP – a proper Internet phone. I’ll never have a landline phone again, not for private nor for business. Even the VOIP phone I’m thinking of replacing with a simple redirect to my smartphone.

I also cut the cable TV cord to my TV. That’s to say, I disconnected the cable TV service from my TV. I only use my TV to watch downloads that I have chosen, not programs that the TV channels send me. As a result I no longer watch any channel TV.

Reduce your storage space!

Having now got rid of so much stuff, I now found myself with a surplus of storage space. When you have less stuff, you need less storage space. And having cupboard and shelf space just attracts stuff. So it was now time to cut back here as well.

I was able to dispose of no fewer than 6 shelf units in my apartment. Each unit had 5 shelves, so that was 30 shelves worth of space in all that I was able to get rid of. I also dispensed with one big chest of drawers or commode and one wardrobe. I have far fewer clothes now, so I decided to sell my other larger wardrobe as well. I’m managing fine without it. I also got rid of a large balcony storage box. There was hardly anything left to put in it!

A number of other larger items of furniture were also disposed of: 2 carpets, a number of rugs, a table and chairs. How many chairs do people need in practice? Unless you are a big family, do you really need 6 chairs around your table? I now have just 2. I also got rid of an office table and swivel chair. I no longer use them, since I have a standing table and stool in my home office. Office sitting isn’t for me.

A lot of kitchen stuff went as well. Like a large multi-functional kitchen mixer that could do all sorts of tasks short of launching a satellite. It seemed a good idea at the time I bought it, something to  spend money on, a bit of a status object perhaps.

But in practice it was a useless overkill piece of kit which I hardly ever used other than to make the occasional milkshake or pancake.  So out it went.

All the clocks also went. No more alarm clocks. I used to have three wristwatches. Now I don’t have any wristwatches any more. Just my smartphone.

One of my two mountain bikes was also disposed of.  Again, this was an old “legacy” item that I couldn’t bring myself to part with since I’d had it for so long and it had cost so much back then. But I really had no need for it anymore. I had a perfectly serviceable newer one which I mostly used instead.

My minimizing future…

So, what will my next steps be in minimizing?

I plan to get rid of the TV completely. I can watch downloads on my laptop or large screen monitor.

And with that the sofa will also go. I no longer have a coffee table. They serve as landing places for clutter. Also coffee tables take up space and it’s all too easy to bash your shins on the edges. No need for them.

I’d like to dispense with the cable TV service completely, but it’s bundled with my broadband. Actually, I’d also like to get rid of the broadband as well and just use wi-fi. But I think that might be a bridge too far at the moment.

Wi-fi coverage isn’t fantastic yet, it’s patchy at best. Urban areas in Western Europe are still a long way from offering comprehensive and affordable wi-fi Internet coverage. So that’s something for later on.

Ive got rid of so much stuff that I’ve amazed myself. I reached what I call my “baseline” at the end of 2011.  This was the point at which I told myself I’d be content with my present level of possessions. But the process isn’t finished. It seems like there’s no stopping me now.  At this rate my whole life will fit onto a single USB stick in another year or so!

How many things?

Having disposed of so much stuff I was curious to discover how much I have. You read about these super-minimalists with 100 things, 50 things or whatever.

I estimate that I’ve so far disposed of around 100 items. So what’s left?

I did a quick rough count-up of my possessions at this moment. It came to about 170 items. I counted groups of things like small clothing items eg socks, underwear, or kitchen items such as cutlery, plates, cups etc as one item.

170 items I guess is not bad. It looks like I’m doing OK in the minimizing stakes!

Right now I’m still minimizing, the process is continuing further. I’m finding I can live with less and less. And I’m still some way yet from reaching the end of my minimalist journey…

So what have I learned from my journey into minimalism? In Part Two I discuss the practical tips I’ve picked up for minimizing… 

Read Part Two: How To Minimize Your Life. Part Two: Ten Practical Tips for Becoming a Minimalist 

Image: Zen – courtesy of konvekse

My name’s Kevin Wells and I’m an English guy currently travelling in Europe.

Up until a few years ago I had a supposedly “respectable”, “professional” career and lifestyle. A graduate from the UK, I worked in IT for a number of companies on the Continent, both large and small over the years.

But I’d now got to the point where I’d had enough of it all and could take no more.

I felt like I was becoming nudged and prodded into a lifestyle that I didn’t want. People trying to get you to “settle down” in some tedious town, to do “conventional” things, to behave in templated ways.  Continue treading the corporate treadmill. Do what they want or what they think of as appropriate.

To that I have only one thing to say.

Bollocks.

I decided I couldn’t take any more of the bull, the hypocrisy, nor the mind-numbing tedium of a so-called “professional” career.

Bullshit recruitment agencies, CV hype, commuting, endless corporate control meetings, hot-air corporate jargon, tedious tasks. Not to mention dead-beat and dead-head colleagues and management and the whole nine to five way of life that they had all resigned themselves to.

I’ve seen it all!

I decided enough was enough.

Actually I’ve never been one to conform to the conventional attitudes of the majority for very long. It’s just that I felt my life was starting to go that way over the last five years or so.

And so it was high time to put the brakes on and call a halt. Thoroughly shake things up before it was too late and stick two fingers up to the lot of them.

Quit the rat race, quit consuming, switch off the mainstream mass media, ignore the peer pressure and go and do what I really wanted.

To start living my life the way I really want to, instead of how others think I should.

It may piss some people off, but my life is now how I want it. Being true to myself. That’s all that matters!

This website is my journal about my own “breaking out” experience and adventure.

I’m now working as a web entrepreneur running my own business. Although the technical side is relative easy for me, since I come from an IT background, the business and marketing aspects are all new territory on which I’m working hard to learn.

It’s a great adventure which is giving me a new zest for living life to the full. Back to being  alive and living again, instead of being half dead as a nine to five zombie drone which I was before along with the rest of them.

I now have freedom and control over my life and work. Plus I’m learning more every day than I have done for years.

I’m also a dedicated enthusiast of helping other people also break out of the nine to five to do much more with their lives.

I believe in doing things differently instead of just accepting the attitudes of the sheep-like herd. I believe in being entrepreneurial. I believe in taking action.

And I’d like to help you do the same.

I hope that BreakingOut.NET will help inspire you and also serve as a practical resource in assisting you in breaking out of the corporate nine-to-five existence and get more out of your life if that’s what you also want to do.

It’s really not that difficult to get out of the rut. The first step is simply to resolve to make the change.

And  once you’ve decided to break out, the rest is easy. It all starts with your own mindset!

I also wish you good luck and success in your own breaking out adventure!

I disconnected my TV from the wall socket. The cable TV wall socket that is.

I’ve been kind of “anti-TV” for some time. I never watch much of it. Mostly I just use my TV screen to watch stuff I’ve downloaded from the net.

I don’t have DVDs anymore either, I got rid of my DVD player and gave away or dumped all my DVDs at the end of last year.

But now I took the final step: I got rid of channel TV completely.

It was the experience of being at a friend’s place last week that finally sealed the decision for me. The TV set was switched on to some commercial channel via satellite and it was seeing the endless stream of rubbish that they send out that shocked me.

Brain-numbing TV commercials, police/detective dramas, “action films”, real estate shows,  veterinary/pet programs (for the owners, not the pets), plus all the other “reality” drivel and endless “talk shows” with some prat or several prats all sitting at a table with an audience of egg-heads looking on behind them (Netherlands TV in particular seems to love this format).

I also hate all the “news” they broadcast. I have no need to watch some twit in a suit and tie sitting there telling me his version of what he thinks, or rather his TV corporation thinks is the “news” of the day.

News by the way that is mostly just a stream of negativity. It’s something that we can do without.  All the analysis of financial, economic, political etc events all over the world is just overkill for most people, and not even relevant to their own real lives. It also creates a distorted vision of countries, regions and peoples.

The quality of TV is better in Europe with stronger public television than in North America, but even here, the standard leaves much to be desired.  All this stuff is basically just brain-wash for the nine-to-five way of life. Living your life through your TV set. I don’t need it and I don’t want it.

Ideally I’d like to cancel my cable TV service altogether and just have the Internet broadband. But I can’t do this as it’s delivered as part of my Internet package. I’ve already switched over to the cheapest tariff on offer. I don’t have a telecom land line phone connection anymore, so the only way I can get Internet is via the cable TV company.

I also think channel TV is a thing of the past. It’s “push” media delivery rather than “pull”. But the world is changing. People, younger people at least, are no longer prepared to just tolerate and soak up whatever the old TV channel corporations see fit to pump into our homes. They prefer to go out and select what they want to watch, and not just accept what a “channel” sends them.

I know it’s possible to say to yourself: only watch TV when you really want to watch something. But in practice it’s not always so easy.

The TV remote is the gadget that makes it harder. It’s too simple to just veg out on the sofa and flick through the channels. You can easily get waylaid by programs that you come across and end up spending more time in front of the box that you originally intended. Only the most strong-willed amongst us can resist this. I have to admit I don’t always find it that easy.

But it occurred to me: I don’t actually need to keep the TV set connected to the cable TV outlet. I can disconnect the cable and remove it. TV comes via cable where I live (apart from if you have satellite, which I don’t) – there’s no antenna transmitted TV anymore. So disconnecting it couldn’t be easier.

So that’s what I did. No more channel TV anymore. From now on my TV screen is only used for watching specifically what I want to watch that I have downloaded – and when I want to watch it. As of now I’m an official “cable-cutter”!

I’ve now gone a full week without any channel TV. I’ll see how it goes. So far I’m confident that I’ll be fine with it. And I keep up with the news via the net in any case, so no problem there.

So the next thing to reconsider is the sofa. Now I’ve effectively got rid of TV channel surfing, there’s less need for the sofa.  I’m thinking about getting rid of that next…

Have you tried cable-cutting and living without channel TV? If so, how do you find it?

If you haven’t, then not give it a try?

I think you might like it!

Image courtesy of Wellwin Kwok

Everyone’s at it – or so it seems. Live the rockstar lifestyle. Become a digital nomad. Find the way to location independence. Learn the secrets of geo-arbitrage. 

The lifestyle design thing seems to have taken off in recent years. Was it Tim Ferriss who popularized the term? I don’t know for sure, but I get the impression he most likely had a lot to do with it.

At any rate a whole army of bloggers are now employing the “lifestyle design” tag in order to promote their websites, information products, eBooks, membership programs and all the rest of it.

I kind of understand where this thing comes from. The desire to cash in on a popular concept that right now is flavor of the month.

OK, maybe that’s a bit cynical. I understand that it’s also a statement in opposition to the conventional nine-to-five way of living.  It seems to be particularly Americans who bang on about “lifestyle design”. Maybe because most “lifestyles” in the USA are so damn rut-ridden and the pressure from corporate America and the economic system there on people to conform is so strong.

Here in Europe there’s less conformity and more room for individualism. Particularly in places like Berlin where I lived for several years. Many people there live very unusual lifestyles, but I’ve never heard any German there going on about “lifestyle design”.

Europe has a far more extensive social welfare system than the US does (with very high taxes to go with it). People also get much more vacation than Americans do. And students don’t tend to graduate with such a big mountain of debt to carry (although this is now changing in some cases, such as in the UK). So maybe there is less of a need there to go in for self conscious “lifestyle design”.

But frankly I’m tired of hearing about “lifestyle design”.

Some of us have been designing our own lifestyles whilst these guys were still in their diapers.

Me for instance. My life to date has been far from conventional. And I’m pretty sure it will remain so as long as I live. For example, I studied at uni via an unconventional path. I moved from England to Germany, started a new career there, then set myself up as self-employed.  I frequently took long vacations in Asia and the Far East as well as Eastern Europe. All cheap cheap places. Plus I then moved on to another country in Europe. And started another new business. And so on..

Never once with a single thought about any “lifestyle design” when I was doing any of it.

Lifestyle design also comes with this “four hour workweek” concept. The idea is that you spend just a small amount of time working – which you ideally do lying in front of your laptop on a beach somewhere (usually in South East Asia), and the rest of your time hanging out with all the cool dudes in Khao San Road or Kuta, Bali or somewhere.

OK, that kind of life might be attractive for a while. Like a week or two. Although I’m sceptical about taking my laptop to the beach and getting sand in the keyboard. The wi-fi reception might not be too optimal either. And I hate human zoos like Khao San which are full of loud obnoxious downmarket Westerners. Does that give meaning to life? Not to me.

To me, sitting on a beach for more than a couple of days or being stuck amongst hordes of loud Westerners who all gravitate to the same place because they think it’s “awesome” to hang out there has never held any attraction. It’s the very last thing I’d want.

I can’t stand hanging around on a beach for more than a few days and apart from when I was 20 and younger I generally dislike backpacker haunts. There’s only so many times you can tolerate hearing “Hotel California”, “Stairway to Heaven” and “American Pie”. All three songs I heard in a row in a guesthouse cafe on Khao San Road the last time I stopped by there briefly before quickly moving on with a shudder a few years ago.

My other point is that if you’re in a dead end 9-5 job which you hate, then the solution is to get out of the job and do something more meaningful to you. For God’s sake, just quit and be done with it!

There are plenty of opportunities nowadays to set up in business, work freelance or work remote via the net. And it’s also possible to arrange your way of living in ways that do not condemn you to a life of stifling conformity.

This by the way has little to do with the Web as such, nor with any “lifestyle design”. It’s something that some people have been doing for years. In some cases even before the Internet was available to the general public.

And cutting your consumerism, living a life of “minimalism” is also nothing new. This too has been a concept that has already existed for a long time now.

As for “Geo-arbitrage”…  People have been travelling to Eastern Europe, India and Asia way way back before that term was even thought of.

I myself moved from super expensive London to cheap Berlin back in the 90s just after the Berlin Wall came down. I got a job in high-paying Western Berlin and took an apartment in newly-opened up Eastern Berlin, the rent for which was back then about 200 DM, something like $80 a month. How’s that for a bit of “Geo-arbitrage”?

Geo-arbitrage sounds like something straight out of the bond-dealing room of one of those crazy investment banks that have been losing billions in recent years. Complex sounding word for something that’s actually very simple.

I think many of us would do well to discount a lot of the “lifestyle design” hype and just get on with living our lives in the ways we really want to. It’s not that difficult and it’s no big deal either.

No need to make out it’s more complicated than it really is. All you need to do is just get on and do it. And hey presto, before you know it, you will have “designed” your own “lifestyle”. Without hardly even realizing it.

John Bardos over at JetSetCitizen.com wrote an excellent post on this subject: Is LifeStyle Design Only for Slackers? 

I’m not opposed to the idea of people getting out of the rigid nine-to-five. I’m just tired of hearing all this overhyped “Awesome Rockstar Lifestyle Design” crap.

By the way, Chris Osborne of MyEggNoodles.com has a similar take on this to me. Plus he put it even better than I could in a short video he made…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UstBnz5Mqk

As Jim Royle from that UK TV comedy “The Royle Family” would probably have put it: “Lifestyle Design my Arse!”

If so, then there’s one customer-friendly and clued-up travel insurance provider that’s well worth taking a look at.

It’s called World Nomads and it operates almost entirely online.

World Nomads was launched in 2002 to provide global travel insurance available online 24/7 for people from over 150 countries. It provides high levels of medical and evacuation cover, 24-hour emergency assistance as well as cover for a wide range of adventure activities.

Their insurance is underwritten by established, secure, specialist travel insurance companies such as Lloyd’s, Mondial Assistance, IHI Bupa International and Millstream Underwriting.

World Nomads Offers You A High Degree of Flexibility

A big plus with World Nomads travel insurance is that you can start and finish your trip in any country. You can also purchase a World Nomads policy even if you’ve already begun your trip. And you can also extend your policy later on into your trip.

World Nomads Handles Everything Online

But the best thing is that, unlike many other insurance companies, World Nomads understand that we’re now living firmly in the Internet age. Everything is handled online from obtaining a quote and purchasing a policy to the claims procedure.

This has the advantage of keeping costs down and keeps administration and paperwork to a minimum – which translates into lower premiums.  No letters to write, no documents to be sent by post or photocopies necessary. World Nomads keeps the whole process very simple – as it should be.

I took out a World Nomads policy myself in 2008/2009 when I went travelling in Europe and Asia. I made a couple of claims for medical bills, nothing serious, but they were dealt with speedily and without fuss. One of the great things about World Nomads is that you can submit your claim entirely online.

You just need to scan the documents relating to your claim – eg doctor’s receipts or police report in the case of loss or theft, and then upload it to World Nomads via the dashboard of your World Nomads account. You can track the status and processing of your claim online at any time. This is a really useful feature when you’re travelling.

If you are insuring expensive electronic items such as laptops, iPod or mobile phone, it’s advisable to retain your receipt of purchase so you can scan this to send to World Nomads in the event of having to make a claim. Better still, create scans of the receipts and store them online before you begin your trip.

You can make a claim whilst you are away travelling or wait until you get home, as you wish.  Note that in common with most other insurers, World Nomads does NOT cover pre-existing medical conditions.  You can purchase a World Nomads policy using credit cards such as Visa, MasterCard and Amex (the precise cards accepted vary from country to country).

I found World Nomads service excellent, well affordable and I was very satisfied. I’ll definitely use them again when I next go travelling.

World Nomads Also Has a Social Conscience

World Nomads believes we should give something back to the communities we visit. With this in mind World Nomads.com created Footprints, an online travel philanthropy program that gives customers the option to make a micro-donation if they wish to a community development project when they purchase a policy.

Footprints has now raised over $650,000, from over 225,000 donations, and has funded 37 projects across the globe via partners such as Oxfam, Save the Children and Water Aid.

Get a Quote from World Nomads Right Now!

To get an immediate travel insurance quote from World Nomads contact them at www.worldnomads.com – or just enter your details below for an immediate quote:

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BetaGroup Belgium was founded in 2008 by entrepreneurs Jean Derély & Candide Kemmler as a small group of friends who met initially on a casual basis. It’s now since grown in just three years to a current membership of over 3000.

The aim of BetaGroup Belgium is, as they say, to connect Entrepreneurs, Software Developers, Digital Marketers, Web Designers, Web Agencies, Advertisers, Publishers, Venture Capitalists and Business Angels with each over by providing a platform and chance to meet each other, present their projects and foster new collaborations within the sector.

Each meetup includes a series of short “elevator pitches” where a company or individual entrepreneur is given 5 minutes to present their project to those present.

On the evening I was there, 7 different entrepreneurs each had 5 minutes to present their ideas. These were all web-based apps or services. Some interesting and imaginative concepts were given a hearing. Perhaps not all of them will be successful, but no matter. The main thing is that they are giving it a go and learning as they progress. I loved the spirit of upbeat enthusiasm and dynamism that was present.

There were over 750 people present on this occasion and the event was fully booked out. The event was held on two floors of a media centre next to the canal, the presentations taking place on the ground floor with large display screens on the wall.

Everyone then moved upstairs to a large hall area with two bars. The noise was deafening, imagine 750 web entrepreneurs all talking at the same time about their startups, you had to shout to be heard.

If you’re interested in web entrepreneurship and the online business sector and you’re living in Belgium then you should join BetaGroup Belgium.

Regular free meetings are held on a monthly basis at the ULB Free Brussels University and are open to everyone in the Web, Software and Mobile communities. There are also various additional meetings and events, some of them on a paid-for basis.

For more info check out the website of BetaGroup Belgium at www.betagroup.be

It’s that time of year again…

I’d like to wish all the readers of BreakingOut.NET a Happy Christmas.

Wherever you’re spending the festive season I wish you Happy Holidays!

Thanks very much for your continued support and interest in the site and our sponsors throughout this last year.

After a well earned break, I’ll be back at the site once again in the New Year.

So in the meantime, Here’s Wishing You All the Very Best!
Kevin

Image courtesy of Jack Berry