10 things I now know about Berlin

Arriving on the dot, as always

1: Not sure if you’re in East Berlin or West Berlin? Can you see tram tracks? If yes, you’re in East Berlin: trams were abolished in West Berlin after reunification, and they invested heavily in underground transport instead. 2: If you don’t speak German, don’t sweat it: most everyday words sound close to English, or are English, or are familiar because both countries have nicked them from a third language. So if you enjoy drinking Kaffee or Tee and eating Kebab Im Brot with Salat while using the Internet…yeah, you…

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On digital nomadism and feeling free

FYI digital nomads don't necessarily HAVE to look so darn philosophical while drinking a coffee

For the first time, we’re in Berlin as digital nomads rather than tourists. And sheesh (or doner – there’s lots of doner kebab here) does it feel different from our previous trips to the city. In the old tourist days, we wanted to stay in hotels that were close to Yelp-recommended restaurants (or Lonely Planet, if we’re going properly “back in the day”). We wanted to be near both decent public transport and at least some of the interesting-looking tourist attractions. We couldn’t really give two hoots about what the hotels themselves…

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Think it’s hard to start travelling? Try stopping

We were recently back in London for a few weeks catching up with friends and family. Many of them seem baffled by our choice of lifestyle (or still think we’re on some kind of delayed gap year), but some are fascinated and keep bombarding us with questions about how we did it. Their perception seems to be that shifting to a life of travel is really hard. And while I’d have given you a different answer when I was trying to buy beachwear in London in December…it really isn’t. The…

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How to provide a client-facing service as a digital nomad (and save yourself from insanity)

This you won't be attending, whatever the date... and they need to know upfront

When we first launched our company Mortified Cow, we SUCKED when it came to knowing how to successfully provide a client-facing service while travelling the world. Even though we’d read a heap of stuff from people in the same position, and even though we thought we’d preempted lots of potential problems, in reality we were underprepared and more than a little bit dim. Launching a new business is hard enough, and while there are so many benefits to being a digital nomad (compared to providing a client-facing service while based…

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Are you a loser, or just clueless? Pick your corporate escape route

As soon as I quit my job, I suddenly found myself telling everyone else I knew that they should do the same. OK, that might be partly because I didn’t want to be alone in taking a risk. But it’s also because as soon as I left the corporate world, I saw two gigantic problems that affect everyone in it – even if you really love what you do. Firstly, it’s almost impossible to be paid in line with the value you create. That’s not only disheartening, but because no…

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