This came as no surprise to me. Most people think that they either don’t have enough money to travel, or they are afraid of losing their job if they do, or they have a decent amount of initial savings but don’t know how to keep making money while they’re traveling.

I get it. I was there too.

I’ll never forget quitting my job at a corporate law firm at the young age of 22 with dreams of traveling the world. Most of my coworkers thought it was a silly, far-fetched, and impossible idea. One coworker said to me, “So what, are you a trust fund baby or something?”

Far from it. When I landed in New Zealand, I had about $1000 in my bank account and nothing but a working holiday visa to get a job once I got there as my safety net.

And that worked for me for two years, first in New Zealand and then in Australia. I’d settle down in one city, work a while, travel, settle down again, work a while… and I was happy with that at the time.

After I had been on the road for two or three years, I went back to the US to regroup.

I didn’t want to be stuck in one location while I worked and tried to save as much money as possible for my next adventure. I wanted more freedom than that.

So over the course of six months, I clicked on pretty much every “work at home” link I found. I dedicated hours of every day to finding legitimate virtual job opportunities.

I went through a lot of scams. At times, I even worked for less than minimum wage just to figure the whole thing out.

view from my pool on the 10th floor - photo by Joel Duncan

Fast forward to today  - I’ve been working online since 2010. I make a very nice income and don’t even work that often.

I don’t want you to have to go through what I did. I want to teach you how you can find real jobs online and work from wherever you want.

That’s why I, along with my partner Dwayne, created the Virtual Employee Genius video course.

Virtual Employee Genius is the complete guide to finding work online. In this video course, we teach you:

• Where to find real jobs online
• How to stand out above the competition
• How to identify employers that pay well
• How to keep clients coming back
• How to make money from basic skills that you already have
• Exclusive interviews with me that reveal ALL of my tips for making real money online
• And we even teach you a few skills that you can use to make money online

Sign Up Today!

I can’t wait to see you guys on the inside! Connect with us on Facebook and Twitter too.

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While I was studying photography at a local school here, I loved going on little excursions, taking photos, and loading them up on my computer to see what I produced.

Maybe it’s because I’ve been so into my work, or because I haven’t been traveling much, that I’ve been uninspired.

So when we went on an impromptu trip to Jardin, one of my favorite pueblos in Colombia, I packed my camera and focused on one subject in particular – stray dogs.

I was lucky enough to find this little guy right before we left.

 Love the soulful eyes of this dog.

 I found Lupita after taking the metrocable to the top of the mountain. What a natural!

 Street dogs

A bonus picture – these kids were having a blast riding this horse around the park.

Reader Question: What’s your favorite animal to take pictures of?

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In a poll on my Facebook page, I recently posed the question:

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After five and a half years of traveling and living overseas, I’ve had enough.

I’ve been hiding it for a long time. But I don’t want to hide anymore.

Traveling sucks.

I have decided to move back to the United States.

I’m looking forward to shopping at Wal-mart, eating at McDonald’s, and spending hours in front of the television watching reality TV.

But don’t worry, I’m going to blog about it.

My new blog can be found at jasminewillneverwanderagain.com.

From those of you from a non-fooling culture, this post was a big fat lie. I’m not actually moving back to the US (though I am guilty of watching reality TV sometimes). Check out more about April Fools’ Day on Wikipedia.

[I'd also like to apologize for the obnoxious collage in this post.]

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When I first met Joel, he was struggling to become known as a photographer in the city.

It took me about four months to land my first paying gig.

I have witnessed Joel work for months not just taking photos, but networking, knocking on doors, scheduling meetings, sending emails, and trying to catch his first break.

Finally, I am pleased to announce that Joel is seeing the fruits of his labor. This Thursday, March 7th, he is headlining an art exhibition at the Charlee, one of the most elite hotels in the city.

Joel’s work at the Charlee

Photo by Dwayne M Golden, Jr

When I asked Joel about making the decision to pursue photography as a career, he had this to say:

Everything starts with a decision.

There are quite a few factors that contributed to my decision to be a professional photographer. For starters my sister Mandy is a very talented portrait photographer who gave me my first camera and inspired me to delve deeper into the art. Secondly I wanted to be an artist until my late teens but I got caught up with trying to get a university degree that could help me to get a nice comfortable job. Thirdly, I wanted to do something that I was happy with and proud of on a daily basis.

I think that in general we just need to decide what we want to do, be, or have and go after it. That’s basically what I did with photography. I decided that I loved photography and if someone were to pay me to wake up and take beautiful photos of people and places I would never really have to work a day in my life. What pushed me to decide to move from a hobby photographer to a professional photographer is my philosophy on life – If you are going to do something, do it well or don’t do it at all.

I figure that I have only one chance here on earth, so I better do something that I love doing and hopefully do it well enough to leave my mark.

Joel, me and Dwayne after the last Charlee exhibition

As a foreign photographer, there are particular obstacles that Joel had to overcome.

I think that the biggest challenge I have faced as a foreigner is that I didn’t have a local network of friends or clients. I had to start from the very beginning.

Here in Medellin trust isn’t something that is easily given away, you have to earn it, especially as a foreigner.

But being a foreigner isn’t all bad. Joel prides himself on being able to connect Colombians with beautiful destinations they may not have visited yet.

People in Medellin are very curious about life outside of Colombia. They love seeing images from places that they have heard about or fantasize about traveling to one day.

His words of advice for photographers trying to break into their local market:

Decide – make a decision about whether you want to be a hobby photographer or you want to make a life out of it. If you think you are passionate enough about the art form, then do your best to be the best. Sure, some people are naturally talented and have ‘the eye’, but in the end only hard work and practice will help you to improve and reach the next level. If it were easy, everyone would be doing it. There are many people who say that they want to be photographers, but only a few are willing to put in the necessary work, so decide and work hard.

If you’re in town, come join us Thursday night at 7 p.m. at the Charlee Hotel, located in Parque Lleras near Juan Valdez.

You can check out Joel’s latest photos on his website and his Facebook page. You can also check out pics from a fun photo shoot I did with him last year.

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