SXSW ‘Day of the Nomad’ Totally Rocked!

Wow. SXSW was completely awesome, and we’ve been running full steam since returning the to Virgin Islands last Thursday.

We’re just getting around to processing through all the photos to share our experience. This post will concentrate on the Day of the Nomad events, and I’ll follow-up soon with a general SXSW wrap-up.

The Day of the Nomad on Sunday, March 13 was planned to be three parts from 11a – 4pm. However, the night went on until well after midnight.. and it was jam packed with more awesome (yes, we’ll use that word a lot this post) than we could have ever predicted.

Part 1: Technomadism Panel

This first event of the day was our official presentation on Technomadism – Becoming a Technology Enabled Nomad. We started the day off with three scheduling challenges.

First of all, Sunday was Daylight Savings Time – and after a SXSW Saturday evening, remembering to set the clocks and getting up an hour earlier to make a panel, doesn’t make everyone’s priority list. Secondly, our panel was directly up against one given given Tim Ferriss (of 4 Hour Work Week fame) and another with Chris Guillebeau (who we finally got to meet).

Tough competition to be up against, with topics that appeal to a similar audience and presenters with much more draw.

So, we were completely blown away that our room was still fairly full with about 40-50 attendees. That was an excellent sized group to have quality conversations about life on the road. And we had some excellent questions asked – ranging from health insurance, keeping online, travel friendly jobs, family, residency and so much more.

Many of these topics are covered in detail in our Answers to the Common Excuses eBook (still available on a ‘pay as you wish’ basis), which is kinda our textbook for the presentation.

Part 2: Making Money Panel

Up after us, Tynan and Jason Boehle presented on How to Make Money Traveling Around the World, right in the same room. So we were able to utilize the 30 minutes inbetween the presentations for mingling.   With a later time slot and their own draw of fans – their presentation was spilling out into the hallway.

Tynan totally rocked the house and led an awesome Q&A session.  Many of the same questions were asked as in our panel, and the topic definitely diverged from just being about making money.  So it was an awesome continuation of the day, and we were able to chime in to answer some of the logistical questions that we had covered earlier.

Part 3: Nomadic SXSW Meet-Up

Next up was relocating down the street to Casa Chapala, where Carmen of NuNomad had arranged their patio for a nomadic meet-up.  Even before the official start time, the patio was already filling up – and we had to kick folks out at the end.  All and all, I’d estimate we had about 100 folks meander through – which far exceeded my predictions.

But honestly, I didn’t have time to stop and count. There was so much awesome packed into one space, that it was difficult to keep up with everyone.  I know Chris and I were barely able to take a break to sip our margarita in between all of the conversations.

And the people who were there? It was an amazing collection of travel and lifestyle bloggers, and we’re completely besides ourselves that we managed to organize something that attracted so many awesome people.

Here’s the who’s-who’s list of attendees:

• Carmen Bolanas of NuNomad
• Andy Hayes of Sharing Travel Experience



• Kim Mance of Go Galavanting
• Gary Arndt of Everything Everywhere
• Jenny Leonard of Where is Jenny
• Matthew Knepes of Nomadic Matt
• Tynan
• Jason Boehle of Golden Book Traveler
• Mike Hedge of Jumping Book & As the Dust Settles
• Sam Morrow of Zen Nomads
• Philip Cambell of The Living Arc



• Benny Lewis of Fluent in 3 Months
• Nick Laborde of Locationless
• Adam, Courtney & Milli Baker of ManVsDebt & NomadBaby
• Karol Gadja of Ridiculously Extradorinary
• Kali & Christy of Technosyncratic
• Erica of OverYonderLust
• Bryan & Laurie Tighe of Budget Your Trip
• Brian & Maria of Trippin with Stanely



• Anis Salvesen from Tripping
• Zach Hale
• Jeanie Witcraft of Embracing Change
• Briana & Matt Schultz of Operation Tally-Ho
• Barry Pousman of RocketBoom
• Greg Monterrosa with MyLLC
• Jerri Stephenson of Do It While You’re Young
• Jessica Dally
• Mark Walsh of Barefoot Wallets
• Lincoln Adams of Habitation of Justice
• Markus of Living on Impulse

If you attended and you’re not on the list above – please do let us know!  I feel like we should have had a guest book to sign at the event and know that we didn’t get around to meeting even half the folks who came by.

Part 4: The Night Continued

There was another meet-up scheduled after ours, so we moved the nomadic convergence to the front porch – where more conversations continued on.

Ready for food, we then took it to dinner – with a table of awesome. Brett from Amtrekker also joined in, it was fun to converge with him for the third time during our respective travels.

Some of nomads then meandered until midnight – crashing parties and continuing the goodness… but you won’t find those stories revealed here *grin*.

Conclusion:  We were left buzzing with energy from Day of the Nomad, and we’re still pinching ourselves that it really happened.

And with as awesome as all these fellow nomads are, I do have to say that the highlight for me was having my brother Ken (who lives in Austin, where we grew up, and hosted us) join us for the entire day.  Many thanks to him and our long time family friend (and soon to be  nomad) John Schexnaydre for taking so many pics for us while we soaked in the awesome day!