How I'm Funding Our Nomadic Lifestyle in 2026 & Beyond
A behind the scenes look at the brands, projects and income streams I'm building on the road.
After spending a fantastic day exploring the town of Pelourinho, Salvador yesterday, I started to reflect on how on earth I got here.
Not geographically. That bit’s easy. Flights, buses, multiple ubers. 😊
I mean here here. The bit where our daughter is completely ignoring me as she lives her own life in London (🙄), and my husband & I are fully nomadic.
Last week Rio, today Salvador, tomorrow Chapada Diamantina. Just two people, a couple of carry-ons, and a rough plan that’s started here in Brazil and winds through Colombia, Central America, Mexico, Canada, the Caribbean, potentially Hawaii for Christmas, and whatever comes after that.
It’s completely terrifying and amazingly brilliant in roughly equal measure.
Now, in the interest of full transparency, this isn’t my first rodeo. My husband & I packed up everything we owned & scooped up our then 4 year old, almost 16 years ago to head out into the great unknown. (Inspired, no less, by Tim Ferris and his 4 Hour Workweek).
We didn’t quite reach the echelons of full time nomadism, as we chose the traditional school path for our daughter, but we did live for 14+ years in Phuket, Thailand, and travelled extensively.
Plus, spurred on by Tim’s book, we started building online businesses to fund our lifestyle in 2010, and in 2020 we sold a 7 figure e-commerce business that gave us a comfortable enough cushion to go forth and travel.
But comfortable cushion or not, we don’t have Elon Musk money. Savings don’t last forever, we both love building things, and if technology keeps doing its thing we plan on being on this planet for a good while yet.
So here’s what I’m building right now to follow my passions, fund our travels, grow our long term wealth, and prove that you don’t need a lottery win to live like this.
1. The 50+ Nomad — The Big Picture
Everything I’m doing starts here. The 50+ Nomad is my personal brand, and it’s the thing I’m most passionate about building for the next 20+ years.
My goal is to share my life & experiences on the road as a 50+ nomad. To tell the deeper stories behind the places I visit, and inspire people like us in our 50s & beyond to age disgracefully while we explore the world and ourselves.
I’ll also share my current journey, and the lessons I’ve learned over 16 years, of how I fund my freedom with purpose-based projects and side hustles that keep our minds sharp and our wallets full, so we can do more, see more and give more.
Over time, that will look like a bank of content including articles, books, podcasts, featured pieces in travel publications, interviews with extraordinary people living extraordinary lives in their second act. Speaking. Writing. And a community of adventurers who refuse to believe the best of life is behind them.
That’s my north star. Here’s what’s already in motion.
Substack
This is home base. I love Substack right now. It feels like Facebook circa 2010, back when the internet was friendly, supportive and genuinely collaborative.
As a writer and storyteller, it suits me completely. I get to share my travels, my experiences, and what I’ve learned about building a life on your own terms, without drowning in tech, funnels, SEO and all the other paraphernalia that comes with traditional blogging.
Plus it’s the best tool on the market right now to build a community of email subscribers, which I believe are the lifeblood of an income generating online business.
My plan is to grow my free & my paid subscribers over the coming years, offering deeper insights into my nomadic lifestyle, travel experiences, business growth & more.
Over time, the paid subscription side will become a genuine income stream in its own right.
Books & Digital Products
I’m writing and publishing short, practical books on business, travel and lifestyle. Fun stuff that genuinely helps people chase their own version of this life.
Some of it will land on KDP, some on Audible (audio is wide open right now), and some sold directly to this community. Plus I’ve got a few travel-inspired picture books rattling around in my head that I’d love to bring to life.
I’m also running a small cohort this year of people who want to build their own freedom funding income. I’m just setting it all up on Skool as we speak and have moved all my digital courses over there.
I’ll be testing it with my cohort members and if it goes well will likely open it up as a stand alone community and offer it to paid subscribers. Watch this space! 😊
The Adventure List
This is a new idea my husband and I have been talking about since we started our nomadic adventures, and it’s still taking shape.
The simple version is this. As we travel, we keep discovering extraordinary experiences.
Local guides who bring a place alive.
Small cultural tours you’d never find on the usual booking sites.
Food experiences, unusual expeditions, and adventures that take you a little deeper into a destination.
So I’m thinking of creating a dedicated section here on Substack where I share the very best of them.
I’m not talking about extreme sports or adrenaline junkie trips. These days I prefer adventures that mix curiosity, culture, and comfort. Travel that broadens the mind rather than just ticking boxes.
Think of it as a running list of the most interesting experiences we find around the world, filtered through the lens of travellers who love discovery but also appreciate a good bed at the end of the day.
And who knows, further down the road I may even host a few trips myself. But for now it’s simply about sharing the adventures that make travel feel bigger than a checklist.
2. This Big World — The E-commerce Arm
In January I launched This Big World, an e-commerce brand selling travel products, starting with a set of 50 scratch-off travel challenge cards. Adventure prompts designed to help people squeeze more out of their travels (or their own home town).
This Big World sits under the wider umbrella of what I’m building, but it’s a standalone brand by design. Partly because the products serve a much wider market than just the 50+ crowd (the gift market alone is huge), and partly because I want the option to sell it one day if I choose to.
I’ve done it before and it’s a smart way to build long term wealth.
But make no mistake, the products I create through This Big World will be built with my 50+ Nomad audience in mind. Travel challenge cards, solo or couples adventurer cards, destination and bucket list cards, journals, guides. (I’ve even had some ideas for stylish, secure cross body bags and I have a dream of designing the perfect rolling backpack!)
My long term goal will be to serve my 50+ Nomad community first, and the wider market naturally (even though it’s kind of started the opposite way round - more on this in a deeper post coming soon about starting an ecom biz).
It’s been a slow and steady start so far. 129 packs sold, consistent daily sales, and a load of promo strategies underway as we head towards summer.
The milestone is 100 sales a day by the end of this year. Fairly ambitious, but early signs are encouraging and I know from experience what it takes to get there.
Long term, I see This Big World as a 10+ year brand and an eventual exit. More products, more range, and a physical asset I’m building alongside everything else.
The Money Part
So how does all the above equal freedom funding income?
In a nutshell, multiple streams from the two brands.
From This Big World, the income is straightforward. Product sales. Every pack of travel challenge cards sold on Amazon puts money in the bank. As I expand the product range and scale the marketing, this grows.
And because it’s a standalone brand with physical assets (products, listings, reviews, supplier relationships), it’s also building long term value I could sell one day. It’s the e-commerce model I know inside out.
From The 50+ Nomad, the income builds in layers.
Paid Substack subscriptions are the foundation. A growing base of people paying a monthly or annual fee for deeper content, behind the scenes access, and community. It starts small, but it compounds. A thousand paid subscribers at a modest rate is a very real income.
Books and digital products add to that. A short book on KDP earns royalties every single month. An audiobook on Audible does the same. A digital guide sold directly to my community is almost pure profit. None of these are going to make me rich overnight, but stack a few together and they start to matter. And they keep earning long after you’ve created them.
The Skool community and courses are another layer. Right now I’m testing it with my cohort, but if it works the way I think it will, it becomes a recurring revenue stream in its own right.
The Adventure List could eventually earn through affiliate partnerships with the tours, guides and experiences I recommend, plus maybe even a few curated tours of our own. That’s further down the road, but the model is there.
And then there’s the longer game. As the audience grows and the brand becomes more established, bigger opportunities start to open up. Sponsorships. Brand partnerships. Speaking. Paid features and collaborations.
Please note, this is not a short term, overnight project. This is 10-20 years of consistent content, audience building, community growth, partnerships and more.
But that’s the model. One umbrella. Two brands. Multiple revenue streams. Some earning now, some building for the future. All working together.
You Don’t Need to Be Famous (But You Do Need an Audience)
Here’s the important part that matters most if you’re reading this and wondering whether any of it could work for you too.
There are broadly two ways to make money from what you know and who you are.
One end of the spectrum is the massive audience play. Millions of followers, book deals, brand sponsorships, speaking tours. The content becomes the product and the audience is so large that brands pay handsomely to be in front of it.
The other end is the small but mighty audience. A few thousand loyal, engaged people who trust you, and a suite of products, courses, and paid content that you sell directly to them. No fame required. Just genuine connection and something genuinely useful to offer.
Most people think you have to pick one or the other. I don’t think that’s true.
What I’m building is a mix. Start small. Build a loyal, engaged community. Sell products and experiences directly to people who trust you. And over time, as the audience grows and the brand gets known, the bigger opportunities start to show up.
You don’t need millions of followers to get started. You don’t need to go viral. You don’t need to be an influencer. You just need to start, build trust, and keep showing up, consistently, for as long as it takes.
The beautiful thing is that none of this requires permission.
You don’t need a publisher to write a book.
You don’t need a TV network to start a podcast.
You don’t need a travel company to curate adventures.
You don’t need a retailer to sell a product.
The tools and platforms are all there. The only thing missing is you deciding to do it.
So Where Do You Start?
If you’re sitting there thinking “this sounds great but I wouldn’t know where to begin,” here’s what I’d tell you:
Start with what you know. You’ve lived 50+ years. You have expertise, experiences, stories and opinions that other people would genuinely find valuable. Don’t overthink it. What do people always ask you about? What could you talk about for hours? Start there.
Pick one platform and show up. Substack, YouTube, a podcast, TikTok, whatever suits your style. Don’t try to be everywhere. Just pick one place and start creating. Consistently. Imperfectly. It doesn’t matter. Just start.
Build an audience before you build a product. This is the bit most people get backwards. They create something to sell and then wonder why nobody’s buying. Build the audience first. Give value first. The sales come later, and they come so much easier when people already know and trust you.
Think in layers. You don’t need to launch everything at once. Start with free content. Add a paid tier when you’ve earned it. Create a small digital product when your audience tells you what they need. Add more over time. Every layer builds on the last.
Play the long game. I didn’t build a 7 figure business overnight. I won’t build The 50+ Nomad or This Big World overnight either. But I will build it. Because I show up, I keep going, and I’m playing a game I love playing!
And that’s the secret, really. Find something you care about enough to stick with for years, not weeks. The money follows the commitment.
That's what The 50+ Nomad is for me. A brand that inspires and connects through content, community and shared adventures, with This Big World as the commerce arm selling physical products to a wider market.
Together they create a diversified income that funds our life, grows our savings, and doesn't depend on any single platform, algorithm, or stroke of luck.
And the best part? I’m doing it all from a café in Brazil.
Not bad for a Monday morning.
Want a step by step guide to growing on Substack? Read this post;
I’m delighted to be along for the ride!
Great info Jo, as always! I right there with you--aging disgracefully! 😆