I would say you have to have a sort of an open mindset and be prepared to work in environments that possibly make you a tad bit uncomfortable.

Technology and business transformation are not simply about making businesses more efficient. They can also enable us to work differently and create more flexible lifestyles. In this episode of the Accounting Apps Podcast, I’m recording from a capsule hotel at Gatwick Airport after spending a month in England, and sharing some of the practical lessons I picked up while working and travelling abroad.

Digital nomading can sound wonderfully straightforward when you have a laptop and cloud technology, but the reality involves Wi-Fi, time zones, phone connectivity, banking, transport and plenty of unexpected situations. Some things worked beautifully. Others required a little improvisation. Here are some of the experiences and lessons that stood out.

• Reliable Wi-Fi and co-working can transform your productivity. After struggling with connectivity at my mum’s house, I spent a couple of days at a co-working space in Cheltenham. For £25 a day, I had fast Wi-Fi, a sit-stand desk, an additional monitor, good lighting, air conditioning, coffee and even cake. More importantly, I could get through a significant amount of focused work.
• Technology makes international travel easier, but test what you depend on. International roaming through amaysim made staying connected relatively straightforward, while a Wise card provided another option for spending overseas. However, I also discovered that an Australian prescription app I expected to access was geo-blocked once I arrived in England. Being able to find prescription information through my health records helped me eventually organise an emergency supply through a Boots pharmacy.
• Working internationally means actively managing time zones and communication. Staying in England while working with people in Australia and New Zealand occasionally meant starting meetings at 4:30 in the morning. At the same time, being in the UK created opportunities to meet people face-to-face, attend industry events and record a podcast in the local time zone.
• Make room for real-world connections. I attended London Zero Con and Richard Sargent’s event in Bristol, where I met people I had known online for years, including Xero co-founder Gary Turner, whom I had been talking with online for around 14 years. I also found value in simply speaking with locals, asking for recommendations and connecting with people in co-working spaces.
• Digital nomading requires flexibility and a willingness to work differently. I stayed in pod and capsule hotels, travelled extensively by train, rented a car on my own for the first time and recorded this podcast from a tiny hotel room at Gatwick. Not every environment was comfortable or predictable, but having the right technology and being willing to adapt meant I could continue working while extending my time overseas.

Digital nomading does not mean everything works perfectly wherever you open your laptop. There will be unreliable Wi-Fi, confusing transport, unfamiliar systems and unexpected detours. But technology gives us considerably more flexibility to navigate those challenges and continue working.

For me, doing a few hours of work in the morning meant I could spend an extended period in England, spend time with my mum, connect with people in the accounting technology community and still keep things moving professionally. Sometimes the best approach is not waiting until you are back at your desk with the perfect setup. Charge your technology, find a workable space, stay open to the experience and make it work where you are.

Check my business travel checklist here: https://www.heathersmithsmallbusiness.com/2018/05/20/essential-apps-for-conference-attendees-plus-a-business-travel-packing-check-list/

Heather Smith

Hello, my name is Heather Smith. You’re listening to the Accounting Apps podcast, and today I am speaking to you from the Yotel Hotel at Gatwick Airport, which is a capsule hotel.

Heather Smith

I am at the end of spending a month here in England, and I thought it might be interesting for me to talk to you about digital nomadding, and obviously England’s a Western country, and the different nuances depending on where you are, but I thought I could touch on a few things that might be of interest to you, because I think a lot of times when I’m talking about technology, as well as one side, there’s business transformation, but the other side is hopefully it’s in enabling a more flexible lifestyle, and that’s certainly what I try to explore.

Heather Smith

I’m speaking to you from the Yotel Y O T E L Hotel, and it is a capsule hotel. That means it’s pretty small. It literally has a bed, a table, and what it calls a rainwater shower. And I’ll put a video up on TikTok and link it to you in the show notes. I can stand in this hotel, and there’s lots of hooks and lots of smart things to make the best of a very small space. But as some people have said in the reviews, you can’t open a suitcase in the room. Now I have been able to open a suitcase in the room, but I’ve been doing that on the bed. And while I have spent time here in England, I also stayed in a pod hotel, which you actually crawl into, and it is I don’t know maybe twice as big as what you imagine a coffin to be, and both have been interesting opportunities. I’m doing it for because they’re cheap. Okay, they’re cheap, but clean, safe, like able to do things that I otherwise wouldn’t have been able to do.

Heather Smith

I think the pod hotel. I think I hurt my hips trying to get in and out of the hotel because I literally you’re crawling out of it. So I need to figure out a better way to to crawl out, of crawl out of the door to get out of it, and the pod hotel had communal bathroom areas, so that that is the area where you did get to stand up in. But yeah, hey, that was a bit of a diversion.

Heather Smith

So, what are the few things that I just wanted to talk on? And as you know, if you listen to me, that I do travel a lot. So, probably these are sort of some more advanced things that I talk about. I do have a travel checklist on my website, which I’ll link in the notes. But when I am overseas, I start off everything by saying I’m Australian and ba ba ba ba. So, for example, travelling on the train today, goodness, the train ticket. I bought the train ticket ahead of travel, and as sometimes happens, the actual train ticket I bought for the time for cancelled the night before, and I downloaded the tickets into my wallet. So I caught the earlier train and I said, “Hey, I’m Australian, and I don’t understand what I was supposed to do here, but I just got on the earlier train, and when you’re abroad, everyone loves Australians and New Zealanders, so it’s kind of a really easy way to hopefully influence the situation positively. And you know, in that situation, look, I think it saves it saves me in lots and lots of situations, and I sometimes go on these press junkets with people, and they would vent about the issues they’re having, and I’ve like I can solve that for you. Just start with I’m an Australian. And they came back. They’ve come back to me and said that that has actually really helped. So there, there’s a tip for you. Okay.

Heather Smith

So ahead of coming over, I searched for all events that could potentially be relevant for me, and I did sort of one of the main reasons for coming over was attending London Xerocon. So that was all booked in ahead of time, but what I was also excited about was Richard Sargent organised this annual event called Boca Bristol, the fintech account tech Don’t call it a meetup event. I may also coincide with Richard’s birthday, and I did buy him caramello koalas, a big bag of caramello koalas for his birthday, but they, it was so hot, it was so hot they all melted. So hopefully they survived a little bit. But that was in Bristol, so I got to catch the train out to Bristol.

Heather Smith

I always try and do a bit of travel, touristy travel. So caught the train out a few hours early, walked around the main city area, sort of spotted a few of the sights. There’s pirate ships, lots of ships and canal boats, and then went to the event and gosh met some people that I’ve known for a decade in real life, so that was really exciting. What a great opportunity! Met Gary Turner from Xero, one of the co-founders of Xero, for the very first time, and we, Gary and I, have been talking for about 14 years online. So that was just really, really special. So very grateful for Richard for organising that. But also that’s just being aware, looking out for these things ahead of travelling.

Heather Smith

Another sort of tip I have is make friends with strangers, ask them for local advice. Like I spent sort of I was mainly situated in Cheltenham, and I knew the names of like three of the bus drivers by the time I left, and like walking along, I’ll just go and chat with people and say, hey, you know, where’s a good coffee in this town? So so sort of moving up from the Google Maps and just chatting with people to get their local advice on things, and obviously that’s a little bit touristy, but still adds to the ambiance of what you are doing.

Heather Smith

Another tip I have is explore the co-working options. I was struggling with the Wi-Fi in an elderly relative. Well, in my mother’s house, my elderly mother’s house, and so booked a few days in. I think it was called the workplace in Cheltenham, and I kind of looked at it online, and it was 25 pounds a day, and I kind of juggled up. Oh gosh, goodness, is it worth it for 25 pounds a day? But I went along, and I was so pleased that I did. I only went for two days of the the month I was here, but I was able to get through a lot of work, and it was just it was almost set up. The setup was wonderful. I had a sit stand desk. I had the the the ambiance. The air condition was fine. I had good lighting. I was able to plug into an extra monitor. Unexpected benefits was they had really good coffee on site that was free. So goodness, Britain charges a lot for coffee. So I had two coffees there. That was at least five six quid worth of coffee, if not more. So that sort of directly came off the cost of the 25 daily 25 quid daily cost.

Heather Smith

The Wi-Fi was much faster and much stronger than what I was accessing in in my my mum’s house, and it was actually nice to be able to just sort of talk to people just just briefly, just have have have little casual chats with people there, and they had a notice board of all the people Who were members of the co-working space, and I sort of scanned it for people that were of interest to me, and that was interesting as well. And I kind of spotted some people who I went and checked out their website and picked up a few tips from their website, and I connected with all the exciting accountants of Cheltenham. Funnily enough, I was already connected with a few of them, but I didn’t see them there. Yes. So, oh, and they had free cake every day. So, definitely, I was aware of it for quite a while before doing it. But I definitely explore that option, yeah.

Heather Smith

When I travel abroad, I based in Australia. I always use Amazon, A M A Y S I M, and I use that as my phone in Australia. I don’t know what you call it. My sim, my sim, my phone contract in Australia, and I, you just pay. You can. There’s a. It has a package. You pay like $50, and that gets me international roaming. So I, you, you turn it on before you leave Australia, and as soon as you arrive in the country, it just activates and it just works, and so easy, like so easy.

Heather Smith

I find I’m not recommending telephone plans to you. You should explore your own telephone plans. I’m with the Institute Certified Bookkeepers, and we use a. They have a whole partnership benefits platform, which is phenomenal. Like if you want to save money, that is phenomenal. And one of them they had there, and I don’t know whether it’s still there, but but was Amaysim. So I was able to join up via the ICB, got $50 cash back for joining up. The price was, I moved from Telstra to Amaysim and I think I was saving like $1,000 a year. It’s so much cheaper, and easy to use. Able to add some top ups while here. Now, one of the things I didn’t understand was I kind of bought I bought the telephone part of it, and calls. I bought the ability to make calls, and I couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t able to make calls. And I actually had to search what the problem was. But on my dial pad, I had to dial a plus before, so I think it’s plus 44 and whatever the number was. So it kind of treats that I’m still in Australia. And to do that, you have to hold the you have to hold the zero down for a second or two, and then the plus symbol comes up. Yes, that was funny for me. I was like, “What is going on? But I think they also say, in your contacts, put the plus symbol there, and it will automatically dial it. I didn’t realise that.

Heather Smith

Now I knew I was coming here for an extended period of time, and I brought all my medication here. But one of them I ran out of, which I was a bit annoyed with myself for doing that, and so. But I thought, and I had checked this before I left. I thought, oh, I’ll just grab my prescription, take it along, and show them. Now, so two things there. First of all, make sure you take enough medication with you. Okay, that was that was a stupid thing on my behalf. Secondly, the prescription. We have this great app in Australia. You just go in, click, and can see your prescription there. It was geo blocked, so I had checked before I left. Boom, prescription oon my phone, but I got overseas, and it’s like, yeah, you’re geo-blocked.

Heather Smith

Then went into an LLM and was like, how can I find this? How can I find this information? And I was able to log into my health records, which I had no idea that I could do that, and find all of my past appointments, all of my past results and all of my past prescriptions, so I was able to print out both my results, my prescriptions, and then when you go to the chemist, I went to the Boots chemist, and sort of they’re like, we can’t take a prescription. I was like, okay, but what we can do is give you emergency, a travel emergency script for a very small amount of time, and they just gave me enough to see me out while I was here, and they’ll only do that on certain types of medication.

Heather Smith

But look, that was worth knowing about, and it took me a lot of faffing around to get it sorted, but so pleased when I did, and they were able to sort me. I had gone in the day previously and just said, “Can you give me a script for this? And they’re like, “Kind of no, but but then the following day, I had all my paperwork with me. Oh, and I’d gone into the LLM and explored how can I do this? How can I do this? And they did have one system where you can go online and order it online, but I just went in and had it, so I was really, really, really pleased with that. Yeah.

Heather Smith

So one of the things also I think if you are travelling overseas. You might be wondering about banking, and I set up. Did I already have? I already had a Wise account. I’m not recommending a particular currency account for you. In the past, I’ve had a now wallets account. I currently have a Wise account, but what I did set up was Wise card, and they sent me the card, and I put money on it. And I’m still trying to understand exactly how it works because I felt I put money on it, and I have been able to use it here. I the the exchange rates still confuse me, so I’m not an expert in that. But I was trying with that.

Heather Smith

In terms of client communication, I did have to get up sometimes at 430 in the morning to have a few New Zealand meetings. So you know that that’s okay. You get to spend the day with your mum and go out for a morning tea and stuff like that. So she lives in England and I’m in Australia. So if getting up a few mornings, early mornings, that that’s that’s not a big deal for me, and I normally get up early anyway. But you do have to navigate time zones when you’re in another time zone.

Heather Smith

But I also took advantage of, as I said before, meeting people in real life, but meeting people in in their own time zone, so that was good. I recorded a podcast with Digi Tools in a Cruel World, and that was in my time. Well, that was in their time zone, the UK time zone. But we also called in this gentleman from Utah joined us, so that was great, and that was really cool. Except I did it at my mum’s house, and the Wi-Fi wasn’t particularly strong, so so we had challenges around that. So I tried, but we we did have challenges around that. Yeah.

Heather Smith

So what else was there to say? I think that you have to be, if you are going to be a digital nomad, and and explore that. And you know, I think that a decade ago, there was very limited people doing work from home, and I think you know, sort of, and I was sitting there quite naturally doing that, and I kind of sit in the space quite naturally doing digital nomadding, but I would encourage, if it’s for you and if you’re trying to explore it, I would say sort of you have to have a sort of an open mindset and be prepared to work in environments that possibly make you a tad bit uncomfortable. So, like I’m, I thought, I thought it was perfect for me to jump in into my and record this just before I go and check in to my flight for leaving England, leaving Blighty. So and sitting here in my capsule hotel, but I’ve kind of got all of the tools on me that I can actually do this. Everything’s charged up and ready, and I think the audio is pretty good in here. There is a air conditioning unit, but it’s kind of in the shower area, so you can’t hear it.

Heather Smith

Yes, you kind of. It’s it’s so easy to think. I’ll just save that. I’ll make a note of it, and I’ll get back home. I’ll get back to my office, and I’ll do that. And and that’s exactly what I thought. I thought, oh, I could make the podcast on digital nomadding in England when I get back home. And I thought, well, if I do it here, it probably has a bit more ambiance to it, has a bit more texture to it, and if you’re on a holiday, of course I’m not suggesting you should work, but for me, doing a few hours in the morning every day for for for many days means that I can actually extend my time abroad. Yeah.

Heather Smith

So what would I have done differently? Would have taken more medication. Was just one medication. Taken been completely on top of my medication and taking more medication was just a silly mistake of mine. Oh, and the other thing I did was, for the very very first time. So I did a lot of train travel, and I downloaded the apps, and I joined up for the apps, and registered, and did that. And registering means that I can at least track any business expenses there, so that’s a good thing.

Heather Smith

But the other thing I do, which I’ve never done before, and I think I think I’m 57 years old, was I rented a car all on my own, which I was a little bit nervous about, but I rented it, and the car was wonderful. It was a Citroen Aircross, and the guy. It was Enterprise car rentals, and there was this guy called Zach. It was very helpful, and even though it was a Citron, it made me feel like the Spice Girls in the Olympics. You know, when they get in those little Mini Coopers, and they go dun dun dun dun dun, and and and they all stand on them. That the car looked like that one of those cars, so I was quite excited about it. It didn’t really, but yeah, did it was black, and then it had a special funny roof to it, and the navigation system was fine, and I navigated, and I was able to get around. So yeah, you know, I was, I was pretty nervous about that, and just sort of calmly worked myself through it, and got it, and and it all worked out fine.

Heather Smith

And it opened up an aspect of my time here that otherwise it would have been really challenging for me to do. It would have meant huge amount of extra time travelling this there and the other to try and get achieve what I wanted to do and I was actually able to do a lot more things because of it and I even and I put it up on LinkedIn I went on a diversion I had the map up and then a road closed and so then they sent me on a diversion, and literally the road was like half a metre wide that they sent me on for like oh I don’t know for a very long period of time like 20 minutes. I’m on this road, and and oh the roads are so narrow here in England, but I came across this farm shop and it was completely vending machines. It was a complete vending machine farm shop, and my mum really liked lamb chops, and she was complaining how that England doesn’t have lamb chops like she misses from Australia, and I got them, and I and and and I got them from the vending shop, and they were frozen, so you sort of you paid, and then it was just like if you were getting a can of Coke, it opened up, and then you had lamb chops in like a vacuum pack. And I brought them home. Mum was really happy about them. She was very excited about those. Yeah. So that’s it, a few of my tips and experiences from digital nomadding in England.

Heather Smith

Hope you found that useful. And I am signing off from the Yotel Hotel at Gatwick Airport, which is quite the odd, odd airport. I don’t exactly understand what’s going on here, and I am about to go and check in for my flight. So I will speak to you again when I am in Australia. Thank you so much for listening. As always, can I encourage you to hit subscribe if you found the episode useful? Share it with a friend, and please jump in and join the Accounting Apps Facebook community to continue these conversations and the newsletter. Find the newsletter at accountingapps.io to keep up with all the news and technology releases in the accounting technology world. Thank you for your time.