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In the summer, I like to get up early and head out for a walk whilst the rest of the world slumbers on. It's blissfully quiet at that time of day and the mountain scenery is particularly spectacular in the soft light of the morning.
I live on a Spanish island where the pace is relaxed and life is blissfully simple. In summer, I wake up early before the heat of the day sets in and head to the coast for my daily swim followed by a coffee at a beach bar. In winter I switch things around, taking long walks in the afternoons, and working once the light fades.
I've always been fascinated by Spain, with its unhurried pace...warm people...and colorful history. So a year ago I spent several months traveling from the medieval villages of Girona in the northeast, down to the windswept beaches and emerging surf towns of the southwest.
As I tapped away at my battered laptop that morning, sitting outside my beach hut, it came to me that I was living the dream. This was it—and I was doing it! I was living the freelance lifestyle. It was so perfect it was almost a cliché: I had just been for a long walk on the beach, followed by a breakfast of fresh fruit, yogurt, and muesli delivered to my hut, and there I was, dressed in a bikini and a sarong, sitting in a hammock strung between two palm trees, typing away.