I like to go to exotic tropical islands on occasion 😉
Alright, so the pictures always make these type of island look so much more exotic then they really are but I have no doubt anyone reading this is pining to go to the beach now. This particular beach, Haad Rin, is more of a party beach full of young people. It’s actually probably the most famous party island in the world. Every month the island host’s a Full Moon Party with up to 50,000 people in attendance, all dancing and drinking on the small beach.
I’m pretending to read this map but the truth is that just like on most islands, the only thing to really do is swim, sunbathe, and party. No, we did not really go anywhere and the part of the island we stayed was so small that using a map is insane.
Local island vegetation
We did not stay on Haad Rin during the full moon party but the parties each night grew larger as the full moon approached.
One of many stands selling alcohol. This is the only photo that will make the beach party look somewhat elegant but if I used flash in the photo you would be able to make out signs reading “fuck buckets” advertising buckets of cheap mixed drinks. This is the Cancun of Southeast Asia.
Each night the bar’s will advertise using fire dancers to grab the attention of each beach goer.
Games involving fire are also popular. On the first night we watched as other jumped rope on fire. I turned to my friend and said,
I will do that before I leave.
Sure enough, a few evenings later my stomach churned as I remembered that statement I had made. I felt confident I would do it but feared and talked myself into it more and more as my buddy also urged me to do it. He took my camera, and nudged me forward towards the rope.I waited until he turned it on then crept closer until I calculated the correct timing to run inside the area, and jump rope like a little kid again. I jumped once, again, and suddenly acknowledged I was jumping over a rope on fire. That quick realization was all the motivation I needed to get out, except it was harder to leave than it was to enter. As i quickly moved to the side I tripped on the sand, and fell to the ground rather clumsily. The rope touched ground in milliseconds and I scampered to my feet and out of there just as it touched skin.
My night was complete with this sudden spike of adrenaline. We stayed out late drinking and eventually walked all of two feet back to our hotel.
I awoke the next morning for breakfast in the hotel pool.
And then back to reality, putting in another five hour workday on our hotel room balcony.
Andrew says
Aw come on, 5 hour work days aren’t that bad! Well, honestly…that’s about what I’m doing now and I must admit I still yearn for the day when I’ve got 99% of it outsourced and it’s more like 5 hours a month of work (oversight and admin) than 5 hours a day. But hey, beats the hell out of most people’s work lives, right?
Ohhh yes, I’ve heard about the Full Moon party, and it very much sounds like a cheap Cancun-summer-break-ish type of thing, but I also suspect it’s one of those things, like Mardi Gras, that you really ought to experience once in your life at least, shame you didn’t stay. How hot was it there, I noticed you weren’t wearing a shirt in the last photo?
Cheers,
Andrew
Andrew says
Aw come on, 5 hour work days aren’t that bad! Well, honestly…that’s about what I’m doing now and I must admit I still yearn for the day when I’ve got 99% of it outsourced and it’s more like 5 hours a month of work (oversight and admin) than 5 hours a day. But hey, beats the hell out of most people’s work lives, right?
Ohhh yes, I’ve heard about the Full Moon party, and it very much sounds like a cheap Cancun-summer-break-ish type of thing, but I also suspect it’s one of those things, like Mardi Gras, that you really ought to experience once in your life at least, shame you didn’t stay. How hot was it there, I noticed you weren’t wearing a shirt in the last photo?
Cheers,
Andrew
Chris says
wow those are some amazing pictures
Chris says
wow those are some amazing pictures
Locationless Living says
Thanks Chris. I did not forget about your request for the business related post. I will write that within the next month.
Locationless Living says
Thanks Chris. I did not forget about your request for the business related post. I will write that within the next month.
Locationless Living says
Nope, five hour days are pretty good. It’s normally seven days a week though. It really depends on the workload though as some days only take three hours while others take eight hours. Are you also working a regular job in addition to your blog?
Yeah, I would have liked to go to the actual full moon party. At the time I had already been at the beach for a week and was feeling antsy to get out of there and back to civilization. The first few days at the beach were probably in the 90’s Fahrenheit but the last few days it was cloudy and rained, maybe only in the 70’s.
Locationless Living says
Nope, five hour days are pretty good. It’s normally seven days a week though. It really depends on the workload though as some days only take three hours while others take eight hours. Are you also working a regular job in addition to your blog?
Yeah, I would have liked to go to the actual full moon party. At the time I had already been at the beach for a week and was feeling antsy to get out of there and back to civilization. The first few days at the beach were probably in the 90’s Fahrenheit but the last few days it was cloudy and rained, maybe only in the 70’s.
Andrew says
Did my reply go through? I typed up 3 or 4 paragraphs and I think Disqus just malfunctioned and deleted it.
Andrew says
Did my reply go through? I typed up 3 or 4 paragraphs and I think Disqus just malfunctioned and deleted it.
Locationless Living says
It did not 🙁
Locationless Living says
It did not 🙁
Andrew says
Ok, let’s try this again.
No, I’m a full-time blogger, though the Spanish site my name links to is brand new and thus really not at all ready yet for monetization, I don’t derive any income from it. Right now and for the next few months I’ll be focused on putting up unique, high-quality, useful content for people in order to gain readers and links, once it’s getting some decent traffic then I’ll worry about how to monetize it. I’ve got several other blogs that are providing my income right now.
Cheers,
Andrew
Andrew says
Ok, let’s try this again.
No, I’m a full-time blogger, though the Spanish site my name links to is brand new and thus really not at all ready yet for monetization, I don’t derive any income from it. Right now and for the next few months I’ll be focused on putting up unique, high-quality, useful content for people in order to gain readers and links, once it’s getting some decent traffic then I’ll worry about how to monetize it. I’ve got several other blogs that are providing my income right now.
Cheers,
Andrew
Locationless Living says
Thanks for explaining that. What other kind of sites do you run that you earn money from? Is this Spanish site supposed to eventually be your main earner?
Locationless Living says
Thanks for explaining that. What other kind of sites do you run that you earn money from? Is this Spanish site supposed to eventually be your main earner?
Andrew says
I’ve got a general how-to site and a couple of small sites on gaming that do a few hundred a month–I’m just barely getting a thousand a month total right now, so I don’t yet make enough to start traveling like I’d like to.
I’ve got high hopes for the Spanish site, but it’s going to take a lot more work. I don’t want to have any one main earner, I want to have a whole network of small to medium earners, much more secure that way–if one site gets messed up somehow, you don’t lose a significant portion of your income (you lose your Google rankings, your primary affiliate program or advertiser dries up, etc.).
Cheers,
Andrew
Andrew says
I’ve got a general how-to site and a couple of small sites on gaming that do a few hundred a month–I’m just barely getting a thousand a month total right now, so I don’t yet make enough to start traveling like I’d like to.
I’ve got high hopes for the Spanish site, but it’s going to take a lot more work. I don’t want to have any one main earner, I want to have a whole network of small to medium earners, much more secure that way–if one site gets messed up somehow, you don’t lose a significant portion of your income (you lose your Google rankings, your primary affiliate program or advertiser dries up, etc.).
Cheers,
Andrew
Locationless Living says
Andrew,
I agree with your overall strategy to have many earners to make for others that may struggle along the way. It makes sense to do that in many areas of life. But my advice is that unless you are an SEO guru it would be to focus on one at a time. It should take a lot of effort and a while to develop a real, profitable business. In my experience it’s much more difficult to get a new business going just a little, but much easier to find ways to earn more from an existing business. So basically I think you will be earning a lot more money, and faster if you focus on one business at a time.
Locationless Living says
Andrew,
I agree with your overall strategy to have many earners to make for others that may struggle along the way. It makes sense to do that in many areas of life. But my advice is that unless you are an SEO guru it would be to focus on one at a time. It should take a lot of effort and a while to develop a real, profitable business. In my experience it’s much more difficult to get a new business going just a little, but much easier to find ways to earn more from an existing business. So basically I think you will be earning a lot more money, and faster if you focus on one business at a time.
Andrew says
Well, I certainly agree with your point about how it’s much easier to take a business that’s already profitable and simply make it MORE profitable instead of starting a whole new business, but then again I look at what I’m doing as ONE single business that encompasses multiple websites, though it is a lot easier to take a site that’s already ranking and get it ranked higher than it is to get a site ranked in Google in the first place. Hmm.
There’s definitely a point at which a website hits critical mass and it’s making just about all the money that you’re going to be able to get it to make–you’ve pretty well milked it out for all it can give, you know? At that point you need to just maintain it while you start another one.
Interesting.
Cheers,
Andrew
Andrew says
Well, I certainly agree with your point about how it’s much easier to take a business that’s already profitable and simply make it MORE profitable instead of starting a whole new business, but then again I look at what I’m doing as ONE single business that encompasses multiple websites, though it is a lot easier to take a site that’s already ranking and get it ranked higher than it is to get a site ranked in Google in the first place. Hmm.
There’s definitely a point at which a website hits critical mass and it’s making just about all the money that you’re going to be able to get it to make–you’ve pretty well milked it out for all it can give, you know? At that point you need to just maintain it while you start another one.
Interesting.
Cheers,
Andrew
Locationless Living says
Do your websites feed off each other? Is there a strategy to cross-market them in the future? If that’s not the case I can’t agree that they are ONE single business.
Locationless Living says
Do your websites feed off each other? Is there a strategy to cross-market them in the future? If that’s not the case I can’t agree that they are ONE single business.
Andrew says
Nope, they’re independent of each other and in several completely different markets–I like it that way because the independence increases security (i.e. odds of them all failing are minuscule, ‘security’ means income security).
Andrew says
Nope, they’re independent of each other and in several completely different markets–I like it that way because the independence increases security (i.e. odds of them all failing are minuscule, ‘security’ means income security).
Locationless Living says
This mostly sums up my point of view on that strategy.
“There is absolutely no sense in spending a few hours a week on each of several projects keeping them all inching forward little by little. The trick to both finding focus and making multiple streams of income is to work on one thing at a time, and work on it until it is at the next plateau. If a project is first starting out, do whatever it takes to get it to the point that it has a life of its own. That may mean just getting it to the point that you can share it with potential collaborators or customers, or it may mean getting it to the point that it can start to generate income. Once a project has started earning revenue, let it work for you passively while you work on something else. Think about it – if you’re working on four one-week projects, do you went to finish them all simultaneously at the end of four weeks? Of course not! You want to finish one the first week and let it work for you for three weeks, finish another the second week and let it work for you for two weeks, etc. Doing it this way, you get your projects working for you for six extra weeks vs. the other approach! ”
-http://entrepreneurs.about.com/cs/lifebalance/a/livingparadox_2.htm
Locationless Living says
This mostly sums up my point of view on that strategy.
“There is absolutely no sense in spending a few hours a week on each of several projects keeping them all inching forward little by little. The trick to both finding focus and making multiple streams of income is to work on one thing at a time, and work on it until it is at the next plateau. If a project is first starting out, do whatever it takes to get it to the point that it has a life of its own. That may mean just getting it to the point that you can share it with potential collaborators or customers, or it may mean getting it to the point that it can start to generate income. Once a project has started earning revenue, let it work for you passively while you work on something else. Think about it – if you’re working on four one-week projects, do you went to finish them all simultaneously at the end of four weeks? Of course not! You want to finish one the first week and let it work for you for three weeks, finish another the second week and let it work for you for two weeks, etc. Doing it this way, you get your projects working for you for six extra weeks vs. the other approach! ”
-http://entrepreneurs.about.com/cs/lifebalance/a/livingparadox_2.htm