So for the past 3 years, I have been Travelling as a digital nomad guitarist! I am from England and towards the end of 2019 I had an overwhelming urge to get the fuck out of England, my native country of 40-something years! It had been a turbulent year with my father passing in the early part of that year and towards the end of the year it just hit me, if I don’t travel now, maybe I never will?!? I had been taking 3-week sojourns to Chiang Mai and Australia in the preceding 10 or so years and I definitely had a feeling of love for those places and the incumbent weather there so it wasn’t a hard sell but of course, making the jump from holiday to living abroad seemed a bit daunting! Having lived in England for all my life and built up a relatively steady business there it would basically be like starting over, so of course there is a kind of trepidation, will it work out? Will I enjoy those places living there as opposed to merely holidaying there once or twice a year?!

Well, it was a question I decided to answer by jumping into the deep end! I started off in Saigon, I had met some English folks on a holiday in Phuket a year or two earlier, and they had told me they were living there and that it was a cool place with great opportunities in my line of work. I enjoy playing acoustic shows, just banging out covers like Beatles, Kinks, Pink Floyd, and Chili’s… oh, and a few one-hit wonders to boot! They knew a few of the bar owners and told me I’d pretty much already have shows lined up when I arrived! So I decided that sounded like a plan, to actually go there knowing I had regular work sounded like a good place to start! I had around £15,000 in savings and that can keep you going for a while in Asia but it’s not as cheap as it once was! I was playing regular shows on average 2 gigs per week- sometimes earning 2 million…. sometimes 3 million!.. DONG that is! 3 million is around 100 quid or maybe 115 dollars, so it wasn’t a bad wage for 2 or maybe 3×45 minute sets! So I was off to a half-decent start as a Digital nomad! The teaching thing didn’t really cross my mind at the time, I have taught quite a bit over my career as a guitarist but never online, and I wasn’t about to start, that is, until…….COVID!

I’d only been in NAM for a month or so when the first rumblings of this thing, apparently from china, not a million miles away, started filtering through! At first, they closed the schools, and then it kinda died down for a bit, but then boom, as we all know, in march of 2020, merely 3 months after I’d left U.k., the shit hit the fan! All the flights got grounded, all the bars closed and we were in lockdown! It lasted several months, I actually had booked a flight to Chiang Mai as I wasn’t really feeling it in Saigon, but knew I had a soft spot for Chiang Mai, but the flights all got canceled about a week later! I ended up moving to a play called Quy Nhon in Vietnam and stayed for a couple of months before flying to Mexico! why Mexico? I had always had a fascination with this county and never got the chance to go, but with their relaxed attitude towards covid and immigration, it seemed a great way to escape the over-the-top reactions in Asia, and for that matter the rest of the world. A year or so ago maybe I couldn’t have said that with as much confidence, but as things have transpired I am now more inclined to call the whole thing the Plandemic, but that’s another story! I had a wonderful 18 months in Mexico, writing and producing 3 songs with music videos! Check out my song Mexico here-https://youtu.be/Cc30uL5TCmE As you can see from the Pic above it was quite a hoot!

So it was a very creative fun time and all the while I was building up my online teaching business at rockstarguitarschool.co.uk

I, of course, had the privilege of playing for one of the most influential rock bands going! Diamond Head was a wonderful part of my journey as a guitarist, and now that I was travelling as a digital nomad, it was great to reflect on my time with them and also a great ingredient in my success as an online guitar teacher! Using some of the great video clips that are on youtube etc from my time has been a true treasure for helping to get more students on board, it kinda sets me apart from the rest in a way! There are plenty of people teaching online these days and from what I have heard 90% aren’t doing a great job, but I guess it’s totally understandable in a day n age where everyone is trying to make a living online, hustlin’…LITERALLY! The fact that Diamond Head are still going now is amazing, they just completed a tour with Saxon at the end of last year!

So as of Feb. 2023, I am at the destination I intended to come to in March 2020! Chiang Mai is an awesome city in the north of Thailand, I have been here many times in the past 10 years! It’s a vibrant place with lots to see and do and the weather is great! Sometime this year I’ll be off to Bali, I have never been and my friend Justin says there is a great gig scene there so really looking forward to that!! NEW ADVENTURES- NEW HORIZONS! 😀

So all in all am I glad I followed my urge to get the hell out of England in late 2019?! Hell Yea, I can now go anywhere I choose in this awesome world as long as there is a solid wifi connection, which is most places these days! So what’s stopping you?! The only thing stopping you is the story you tell yourself in your head… “I’m not good enough” ” it’s not possible/doable” “I can’t play well enough to perform or teach” Well….. I’m here to tell you that it’s totally possible! So flip that internal dialogue into a positive affirmation of your dreams! Life is too short to be stuck in the county where you were born doing that crappy 9 to 5 that you don’t like whatsoever! Music can bring to you a better life! As long as you dedicate yourself to it, it can bring many rewards and oftentimes when you work in music it doesn’t really feel like work! It’s very gratifying to know you are making a positive difference in someone’s life~!

If you would like to reach out to me anytime I’m always ready and available to help you on your path to being a Digital Nomad Guitarist! email robertoguitar75@protonmail.com now 😉