IL Magazine: Discover the Best Retirement Haven + 24 More SUBSCRIBE NOW AND SAVE 35% about subscribing to International Living Magazine 
Nearly 10 years ago, I waved goodbye to a corporate career and became a full-time traveling copywriter. Along the way, I've experienced some surprising side effects. If you create your own portable income, chances are you'll experience them too...
All that was missing was the pointy hair... My new boss seemed to have been lifted straight from a Dilbert comic strip. She had a vision for our team...but it didn't make any sense. Her conflicting priorities and sudden inspirations for projects had everyone stressed out and working late.
If you’re in the colonial city of Cuenca, Ecuador on a Wednesday night, pop over to the Inca—Cuenca’s iconic riverfront hamburger joint—and you’ll see me chilling out with my laptop, making a bit of extra money while I wait for the gig to start.
Ever since the internet caught on, people have been figuring out how to use a laptop to connect with money-making opportunities all over the world. As a result, there's now between 3.3 million and 8 million completely untethered workers roaming the globe. I'm thrilled to be one of them.
The colonial city of Cuenca, Ecuador, draws vacationers from all over the world...and it has a tendency to turn visitors into permanent residents. That's what happened to me four years ago. My three-month visit turned into a six-month stay...Then a year passed and I still hadn't left. Cuenca has become home. I've been to some great places in the world and have loved them—places like Spain, Italy, or even Argentina. So why do I stay in Cuenca when there are so many other great places I could be living? Well, there are three big reasons I keep staying (and staying and staying).