Day – Traveling Mark
Cold Summer Nights in Canadian Wilderness
One of the earliest things I learned when I left to live as a recluse in the Canadian wilderness was that nights out there are extremely cold even in Summer. I did my hermit experience over the warmest months of the year – June, July and August, but while it was nice and warm during the day, night time temperatures dropped below zero. And since I didn’t anticipate freezing temperatures, I neither had clothes, nor other equipment (sleeping bag, tent or stove) to keep me warm at night.
Photo: Just Before Sun Rise, When Temperature Was at Its Lowest, the Lake Started to Turn Into Vapor
The lake I chose for my stay away from civilization was very remote, but – to a point – accessible by car. The nearest paved road to the lake was more than 100km away but invasive logging industry left a passage through the forest which I was able to use to get myself closer. Needless to say, this forestry equipment road was full of obstacles and rough terrain that’s normally only negotiable by heavy machinery with continuous tracks, but being a skilled driver and having been blessed with dry weather, I was able to safely traverse this incredibly challenging stretch of the road all the way to the lake.
The entire journey took me about 5 hours to complete, but I was only about 300 km north of Edmonton as the raven fly. I don’t know whether it was these extra 300 km north or the fact that there is no civilization anywhere near the lake, but as someone who spent countless Summer nights outside while living in Edmonton, I can tell you for sure that while it does get cold at night even in Summer, it doesn’t get below freezing. Not in Summer. But as I learned after my first night out in the wilderness (and each night thereafter), despite daytime temperatures reaching pleasant 29 °C, they were followed by night time drops to -3 °C.
5 hour long drive north of Edmonton and you’ll experience brief Winter every night even during Summer months. I personally think this had more to do with complete remoteness of the wilderness than its placement along the longitude. I have not done any scientific research on it, but high concentration of warm bloodied mammals who radiate body heat into the environment surely contributes to keeping the temperature in urban centers warmer than in the wilderness. And it’s not only body heat – you have heat generating car engines, thousands of computers, stoves used for cooking, machines used in factories, people bathing in hot water – so many things to keep the environment warmer… And on top of it all, you have pollution that keeps the heat trapped.
During my first month in the wilderness, it rained almost every afternoon. July was a little better and come August, there was hardly any rain. Sky was cloudless most of the days with sun baking down on me from wee morning hours until late night. Yet even in August, when daytime temperatures were in their 30’s, as soon as the sun was gone, the gauge started dropping rapidly and got to freezing just before the dawn.
Luckily, I had everything I needed to keep the fire going and there was plenty of dry firewood around, plus night only lasts a few hours a day this time of year so even though ill equipped, I kept myself warm-ish by utilizing natural resources. Regardless, it was a lesson I learned the hard way – remote Canadian wilderness can be very cold even in Summer months. Especially at night.
In order to survive, I had to swap night with the day. I got most of my sleep during the day when it was warm and I didn’t have to spend time feeding the fire and when the sun went down, I kept myself entertained by staring at the stars. It’s mind boggling how many of them there are and how clearly they can be seen when you’re away from city lights and pollution.
First night was hands down the worst but I got right down to building a primitive shelter that would tightly wrap around the bed of dry leaves the following day. I kept improving on my natural tent every day, but night time temperature drops were just so severe, I quickly realized that the only way to stay warm at night would be by building a shelter big enough to have a fire inside. If such shelter was well isolated, the fire would keep the interior warm even during freezing nights. One would still need to feed the fire, but pay back in feeling warm over night would be well worth it.
Author MarkPosted on April 21, 2013 September 12, 2015 Categories Canada, WildernessTags Alone in the Wilderness, Canada, Cold, Day, Edmonton, Hermit, Hermit Experience, Lake, Night, Recluse, Remoteness, Stars, Sun, Temperature, WildernessLeave a comment on Cold Summer Nights in Canadian Wilderness	
Where to Buy a Mountain Bike in Siem Reap?
After my failed attempt to buy a bicycle with help from a Tuk Tuk driver, I knew I was gonna have to take some risk and rely more upon myself in dealing with shops where English is not spoken. The question of “where to buy a mountain bike in Siem Reap” became more pressing as did the question of how to buy it without excessive overpaying (aka getting ripped off) just because I’m a foreigner in Cambodia. In all this melee, I’ve managed to get help from people on Couch Surfing.
It became apparent that National Road 6 is the place to go shopping for bicycles. That’s exactly the place where I was taken by a Tuk Tuk driver the day prior and had been over quoted. The hints I have received clearly suggested that there are more bicycle selling shops on National Road #6, they are just further down east. And that’s where I went.
I strolled down National Road 6 in Siem Reap, passed by the bicycle shop I went to day prior and just a bit further there was another. As it goes with National Road 6 – the shops are primarily geared towards locals so nobody, absolutely nobody speaks English and if a tourist shows up, everyone starts the smell big cash-in as that’s what Cambodians see tourists as (walking bag of money, or walking ATM machine if you will).
Realizing my options were limited, I popped in next bicycle shop and started looking at available mountain bikes and attempted to use sign language to ask about price. Everything was far more reasonable that the day prior and even though I knew I was gonna pay way more than a local would for the same piece of bike wreck, I was OK with it as prices quoted seemed to be in a more reasonable level than yesterday.
The bikes were obviously second hand (aka stolen), no names, all made in China. One way or another, I was gonna end up with a piece of junk, but this was Cambodia, I could go with the junkyard items or pay Tuk Tuks to drive me everywhere. The latter didn’t seem like a good option so bike it was gonna have to be regardless of how awful a piece of scrap metal I would get.
I tried a couple, each seemed as though it was gonna break apart upon third use but I eventually settled with imitated mountain bike that was probably stolen from a guy in Japan as it had a Japanese name painted on it. It had gears and looked a bit like a mountain bike which was a step up from most other bikes which look like they belonged in the 70’s. Pedals seemed to click in an awful way, making unpleasant rattling noise and trembled as used, but it was the best I could get for $38. Yeah, that’s what I paid for my primary means of transportation in Cambodia. Mighty $38.
Picture of My Bad-Ass Mountain Bike I Took in Angkor Wat Area
It was all worth it. I noticed the difference right upon my first ride from the bike shop back to the guesthouse. I rode past several Tuk Tuk drivers who all just stared at me. Bike eliminate a lot of annoyance from Tuk Tuk drivers and other touts who are everywhere, never leaving you alone from the day you set foot in Cambodia till the time to leave. It was awesome not being harassed by them just because I was on a bike, the only tricky part was extreme heat which made bike riding a bid challenging, but that (nature) I could deal with. Vastly encouraged, I drove my bike everywhere.
Author MarkPosted on November 30, 2009 November 30, 2009 Categories CambodiaTags Bicycle, Bike, Bike Shop, Cambodia, Day, Mountain Bike, National Road 6, Shop, Siem Reap, Tuk Tuk, Tuk Tuk Driver1 Comment on Where to Buy a Mountain Bike in Siem Reap?	
Car Rental Reservations – Advantage of Booking in Advance
When I checked the car rental prices for a decent automobile in the Dominican Republic when I started looking for cheap plane tickets to embark on my worldwide travel, the prices were more than reasonable. I just wanted to get a hint on what to expect as far as prices for different classes of vehicles are concerned, but made no reservations. I did not have the plane ticket purchased yet and deemed it important to have the plane ticket first so I know the exact day and time of arrival in my destination. Without the plane ticket I wouldn’t know which date to book my car rental for so I merely checked prices and left it to deal with it after I have had my flight arrangements taken care of – BAD IDEA!
I went to check the Avis website the following day since plane ticket prices increased significantly overnight and I could not believe my eyes. Car rental prices, even with Avis coupon grew almost twice fold. If I made a reservation today, instead of the day before, I would pay more for Kia Rio than I would have for Suzuki Grand Vitara yesterday. In other words, had I made a reservation yesterday, I would pay less money and have myself a nice SUV, whereas today I would have to pay more but would get a small passenger car which is three classes down from SUV. SUV rental prices grew way beyond reasonable and were out of question.
If I was frustrated with unprecedented growth of plane ticket prices overnight, unexpected growth of car rental prices made it even worse. And then I realized what kind of stupid idea it was not making a reservation in advance, even though I didn’t have the exact day and time or arrival. See, unlike with plane tickets, car rental companies are very flexible with their reservations and making any changes to it, including cancellations is easy and costs you nothing (at least when dealing with companies like Avis). That means that one should make a reservation on the spot when they see a good price, because even if your dates change, you will be able to easily modify it. And if you are unable to make the trip, you can cancel the reservation and the life will go on. There are no cancellation fees.
Don’t be like me. If you see a good price for car rentals, make a reservation. If you put it off till tomorrow to think about it overnight or to find out exact dates – by the time you have returned to their website, the price could be different and you will have missed the opportunity to have a car rented on the cheap. You have nothing to lose if you book well in advance. Not doing it may result in overpaying later.
The way it works with car rental companies (for the most part), is that you don’t pay your rental fees until you have returned the car. Your credit card will not be charged until after the rental period (this is also in case you cause damage to the rented unit so they can charge you full amount, including the amount to cover for damage you have caused). As such, if you make a reservation online, they will just take your credentials (Avis doesn’t even collect credit card number, just name, email and phone number) and the car is booked for you. You come, pick it up, drive it, and when you are returning it, the representative will inspect it and you sign the papers so they can charge you what you have agreed upon when you were making reservation.
There is really no reason to hesitate with reservations. The fact that you can easily modify or cancel your reservation for no extra fee makes for the biggest advantage of booking your car in advance. I’ve learned my lesson here so from this point on, each time I was planning a trip to a country where I might be interested in car rentals, I’d check for the best prices and if I saw one I liked, I’d make reservations on the spot. Because if I changed my mind or something changes in my plans, I could easily pull back from it or modify it as needed, including change of countries. Take advantage of early booking because there really is nothing to lose. But do verify the fine print. I know for sure it works this way with Avis, but I’m not familiar with terms of service of every car rental company out there.
Author MarkPosted on August 29, 2009 February 11, 2010 Categories Pre DepartureTags Avis, Car, Car Rental, Car Rental Company, Car Rental Prices, Car Rental Reservations, Day, Dominican Republic, Plane Ticket, ReservationLeave a comment on Car Rental Reservations – Advantage of Booking in Advance	
9 out of 10 people don’t like where they are in their lives at this moment, or would put themselves in someone else’s place if they could. Are you one of them? If you are – don’t worry. For one, you’re not the only one who’s desperate for a change and secondly, if you knew of the hardships others are going through, you would likely want to keep the lifestyle you currently have, regardless of how much you think it stinks. Many people desire a change and they should. Life is meant to be abundant and enjoyable. However, lamenting will not deliver change you desire. It will only make matters worse. Change requires action. Action on your part. You be the change you want to see in yourself. Be the change you want your life to fall into. Be the change you’ve been dreaming off and it will come to be. For there is no greater power in the universe than the power of yourself. Help yourself and the powers of the universe will re-arrange to help you too. The change starts with you.
Change begins with clearly defined goals. Unless you know exactly and undisputedly what you want, how can you expect to get it? If your life right now doesn’t seem fulfilling, take a minute for yourself and go through your goals. Take a note that you are the master of your own life. Whatever has happened in your life so far is in the past. The past is the time that’s gone forever. A new day has started and it could be the best day of your life if you let it. Don’t hold back, don’t fear change and don’t be afraid to take risks. Better life is just around the corner. Believe in miracles. No matter how good or bad current situation may seem, it will change. It always changes. Change is a constant. You can start your change by getting rid of everything that isn’t useful, cheerful or pleasing. Don’t waste your time succumbing to envy. Let THEM envy you the lifestyle you are embarking on.
This is about what you love in life so don’t take “NO” for an answer. The seduction of money and prosperity may be difficult to overcome, but not impossible. Ask the right questions to get the right answers and know it is not the money you want. It is the lifestyle you were falsely lead to believe could only be had if you had a lot of money. If you dig into it a little bit deeper, you’ll easily learn that the cost of lifestyle you covet is oftentimes lower than the cost of your current lifestyle, the lifestyle you are trying to change. To be laying in a hammock on a private island, clipping your fingernails off while cool ocean breeze washes off the sweat after an endless walk along a tranquil beach doesn’t require you to be a millionaire. You can have the lifestyle you desire by changing your focus from making money to ensuring positive cash flow.
Society today conditions its members to spending. Why do people who are in debt continue buying? So much useless junk in their houses already yet they keep spending. And those are not isolated incidents – I used to be one of them myself. And that’s why I can relate. Advertising, media, soap operas – all the biggest junk of modern cultures condition you to buying new gadgets you don’t really need, but are brainwashed to believe it is the way of the world so you follow. Set yourself free from conditional spending, set yourself free from possessions that are not essential for your day to day life and breathe the free air again.
Designer clothes, expensive homes or flashy cars are not signs of wealth. They are merely a sign of a great deal of money spent. Don’t feed your ego. No one on their death bed wishes they had spent more time showing off with expensive gadgets. Furthermore – feeding one’s ego is a losing fight. No matter how much of your hard earned money you spend to get the biggest rig on the road, one day you will stumble across someone whose ego made him buy an even bigger a toy. The satisfaction you experience after acquisition of ego fueled merchandise doesn’t last long. It will just increase the demands laid upon your spending by your own ego. There is so much of it out there, that no matter how much you keep buying, you will always want something else. This is a sure fire way to becoming a rat racing champion.
Change your life by being the change you want to see. You have all you need to do it, you just need courage to put it in motion. We’ve all made mistakes in the past, learn from them and use them to your advantage. Never dwell on them. Past is gone and it’s not coming back. Enjoy the present and look forward to the future. Today is the best day of your life. Stand up high and see yourself for a magnificent being that you are. You deserve the change for the better and it will come your way if you let it. Everyone who got where they are had to begin where they were. Every hour you save for yourself, to spend it the way you enjoy, is like an hour added to your life. So grab at it and become its leader for life is like a dogsled. Unless you are a leading dog, the scenery never changes (quote by Lewis Grizzard). The clock is ticking. Are you gonna watch it tick away or use it to your benefit?
Author MarkPosted on August 28, 2009 January 6, 2010 Categories Early RetirementTags Be The Change, Change, Day, Ego, How Much, Life, Money, Spending, Time, YourselfLeave a comment on Be the Change You Want to See	
You’ve heard me mention Positive Cash Flow number of times during previous lectures on Early Retirement. Positive Cash Flow is the key to retiring young. As someone who understands the value of time, it became clear to me early on that the goal is not to score big financially. Aiming for a big payday puts everything into way distant a future. To retire rich, you may be faced with decades of tight lifestyle before hitting jackpot, but to retire early, you may need as little as positive cash flow of $50 a day. The former will keep you stuck in the office until you’re too old to enjoy yourself to the fullest, the latter could send you on your way to endless adventure in a few months.
My Positive Cashflow
I got my positive cash flow out of the websites I’ve been running for years. I set up my personal photography website back in 2003. In 2004 I added ten more websites to my portfolio but they were each more of a hobby, rather than a business venture. I had a little bit of income through promotion of affiliate networks, but it only amounted to about $50 a month. As years went by, I learned a thing or two about SEO (Search Engine Optimization), learned a little bit of web programming and by 2006 I already had a network of 20 sites running.
I’ve been working on them diligently every day and come 2007, the popularity of some of them grew to a point that a server upgrade was needed. I was still only making pennies a day even after investing a lot of work into them on daily basis. I was doing it because I enjoyed it. There was a little bit of money, but hardly anything to reasonably compensate for the work put into it. Continuous growth resulted in complete necessity to switch to a fully dedicated server in 2008. I was getting a lot of traffic but kept failing in monetizing on my sites. The cash flow was vastly negative at this time as my monthly cost for the server was $199 yet income from my sites was only in the $100 neighborhood.
As the traffic kept growing, I was forced to upgrade my server once more in the beginning of 2009. This time my traffic amounted to half million unique readers a month and that required more powerful server with more available bandwidth. Monthly cost just went up another $100 draining $299 out of my pocket each month for just webhosting itself. Negative cash flow ruled, but I kept financing it out of the money I was making at my government job.
My life was awful. I spent whole day in the office, then when I got back home I worked on my websites. Yet cash flow remained negative. At that time I started to travel again and the phase of my spiritual awakening was initiated. I started to question the premise of going to work until retirement and bit by bit, these pieces of scrabble that combine into a complete picture as presented here in my blog, which opens you up to the life of enjoyment and abundance came together and made me see things I was brainwashed to ignore. I realized that I’d wasted too much of my precious time as a corporate slave and started to work my way to early retirement. There was one and a half month lag between full awakening and my departure.
I used most of that time securing myself with positive cash flow. I knew the websites with lots of traffic were there. After years of putting so much work into them I was faced with the biggest challenge of my life. I’ve realized that 20% of my websites make 80% of all the money. The rest either didn’t make any money, or only very little but together amounted to very high server costs. The idea of getting rid of those websites was extremely difficult to swallow. I put years of work into them and believed that they were on their best way to make it big. If I only stuck with them for a bit longer, I could really hit the pot of gold and become financially secured. But that was exactly the issue – there was a possibility of it happening one day in the future. And as I have come to realize, focusing on future instead of this moment makes you waste your precious time. You don’t live, you enslave yourself because you believe that one day in the future you will get the reward.
I understood it clearly. Happiness is a journey, not a destination and this 20/80 principle is something that accompanies everyone throughout their lives. I worked really hard to get those websites to grow and become popular and now I was playing with an idea of dumping them. I had an option to stick with them, continue doing what I’m doing and look forward to one day in the future when someone with lots of money notices my sites and offers me several figures just like that. Or I could just let them go, quit waiting for something I hope will come, render all the work I put towards them over the years useless, but gain positive cash flow that could set me out on a journey of a lifetime within a matter of weeks.
Since you are reading the blog about Early Retirement with entries from my adventures around the world, you know what came next. With biggest sites gone, my server and bandwidth costs decreased significantly and my negative cash flow changed into a positive cash flow literally overnight. But that’s not all – those biggest sites that were eating most bandwidth and bringing least money were also biggest eaters of my time as maintenance of such busy sites required a lot of dedication. By freeing myself from the clutches of busy but negatively performing sites (in terms of cash flow), I gained more time to focus on sites that previously made 80% of the money.
Within days, I was able to end my $100 negative cash flow and turn it into a $300 positive cash flow. One and a half month later, I quit my work and sat on the plane to South East Asia. During initial weeks of my early retirement I lived frugally but not cheaply and I put some work towards my money making sites, increasing positive cash flow to $1,000 a month. And I just went with it from that point on.
The only trouble was, that my life instantly turned from this miserable rat race in the office to an exciting adventure that never ended and I was enjoying myself every day to the fullest. Early Retirement rocks. But because of that, I’ve been only putting a few hours a week towards growth of my online business so my positive cash flow has not increased significantly since I’ve reached the $1,000 a month net income. My monthly Early Retirement costs fluctuated between $600 and $700 so the cash flow remained positive even after all of my expenses. And this is all I could need. I’m having the best time of my life. I’m enjoying myself every day. If I did not go for it, I’d be in the office right now, doing what my boss tells me, fixing other people’s problems. Then when the paycheck comes, I’d go and spend it on something because that’s what consumerism we are brainwashed into by the media is all about. We enslave ourselves by dedicating the best days of our lives to working for corporations and end up spending our compensation on material things we don’t actually need to be happy.
I don’t own that much right now and I’m way happier than when I owned all the crap in the world. I have my laptop, my digital camera, few things to wear and a whole world to explore. Would I be better off if I continued focusing on retiring rich when I’m 65? No way. I’m perfectly healthy right now, I’m enjoying myself while I still can. The whole world lies before my feet and I explore it unhindered every day.
My goal is to increase my positive cash flow within the next 6 months so I have enough back up and I would also like to diversify the activities so I have some positive cash flow from different sources. Retiring rich puts the lifestyle you desire in indefinite future. Retiring early enables you to get the lifestyle you desire as soon as your positive cash flow reaches the level that meets or exceeds your comfort level.
The quest for cash is a fool’s errand. Rich people can become poor on any given day and all you have worked for will be gone, but once you have the positive cash flow happening, you don’t concern yourself with whether you’re rich or poor. But that still doesn’t matter, because if you build up the positive cash flow and use it to retire early, you will have lead rich and fulfilling life full of amazing moments to share with your friends and family. Don’t save your life’s enjoyment for the end of your journey on Earth. When you are on your death bed, you will wish you had spent less time with your boss in the office and more time with those who matter to you. The life is now. Instead of giving yourself reasons why you can’t, give yourself reasons why you can and make it happen. Go with confidence in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined.
“The minute you choose to do what your really want to do, it’s a different kind of life.”
Author MarkPosted on August 28, 2009 January 6, 2010 Categories Early RetirementTags Cash, Cash Flow, Cashflow, Day, Early Retirement, Life, Money, Negative Cash Flow, Positive Cash Flow, Server, Websites, Work2 Comments on Positive Cash Flow	