millionaire living in Bali

1,076,955 rupiahs – and that’s just what I spent on 9 drinks one afternoon at the pool!

About one week ago, my girlfriend Emily and I returned from a relaxing 2-week break on the stunningly beautiful island of Bali.

Being back on the ground in Indonesia reminded me how much I really love traveling to places like Bali, Cambodia, and Laos, with very high exchange rates to the US Dollar. Who doesn’t love to look at the ATM screen and see balances in the several millions?

According to today’s exchange rates, if you trade in 1 US Dollar you’ll get 4,005 Cambodian riel. That means that if you have $250 in the bank, you’re a millionaire in Cambodia.

In Laos, your dollar is worth 8,030 kip, so for every $125 you’ve got a million in local currency.

It’s 9,174 to the dollar if you’re buying Indonesian rupiahs, so it only takes $109 to be a Balinese millionaire.

And amazingly, in Vietnam you’ll get 20,833 dong to the dollar, so if you’ve got $48 pocket change, you’re a millionaire.

Of course economics, exchange rates, and cost-of-living are things that are constantly in flux, changing all the time, but for now Asia is where it’s at. The biggest corporations all flock here to keep their expenses down, and smart individuals are doing the same. There’s nothing immoral about going where the deck is stacked in your favor, seeking work and a thriving lifestyle where you have the best chances. So why shouldn’t you?

I’m not a millionaire in the typical sense of the word—in US Dollars. But in Thailand, I’d say I’ve lived like a king for the past few years, at a fraction of the cost I’d need to lead a similar lifestyle in San Francisco, New York, London, or anywhere in the West.

So many people I talk to think that a permanent travel lifestyle would cost a tremendous amount of money and that it’s out of reach for them—but it doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg. Learn how Steve Kamb got his round-the-world tickets traveling 35,000 miles, visiting four continents, nine countries and 15 cities for just $418. Or read how Nora Dunn, one of our faculty members at Digital Nomad Academy, has been traveling full-time around the world for less than $14,000 annually for several years.

Money and toys and possessions are all fun and good, but I think in the West we have developed a serious societal disease—in the middle class at least, a majority of people mistakenly accept the fallacy that those things are an end rather than a means to an end.

What you do while you’re on this earth, how much enjoyment you get out of it, who you are, and the impact you make (on the world, on the people around you…whatever scale you want to operate on) matter far, far more than the things you own, and the material shit you collect.

“You’re not your job. You’re not how much money you have in the bank. You’re not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet. You’re not your fucking khakis.”

–Tyler Durden, Fight Club

They have you chasing all the wrong things, wasting your time working a job so you can pay for shit you don’t need, while they call all the shots.

We’re still a small minority, but I see more and more people “waking up” and realizing there is another way to live. I think the biggest thing I’ve learned living abroad is that you don’t have to play by anybody else’s rules, and you don’t have to do things the same way everybody else around you does them.

I boarded a plane in San Francisco on November 25, 2008, with a one-way ticket to Bangkok and a crazy idea to come out to Asia to bootstrap my web development business while I enjoyed a much lower cost-of-living than back home in California. I’ve now lived in several different locations around Thailand and traveled to at least seven other nearby countries here in the region on a regular basis for over three years. Actually, I’ve been living abroad and traveling for exactly 1,121 days now!

I’ve learned a tremendous amount in those 3+ years. A lot about myself, a lot about business, about the world, about other societies and cultures, I’ve met hundreds (if not thousands) of interesting people along the way…

The biggest benefit I’ve had on my side throughout all this time “offshore” has been my ability to leverage geo-abritrage in my business—working remotely with clients overseas (in the US, Canada, Australia, UK, France, Singapore, South America, and more) where I can bring in strong currencies, while I spend in Asian currencies where my money goes much further, and I get to take advantage of a much lower cost of living in Southeast Asia.

My advice to anybody who wants to live the high life for less is you must come to Asia.

Tim Ferris said in The 4-Hour Workweek, it’s not that we really want to be millionaires, it’s that we want to have experiences we think only millions can buy.

While we were in Bali, we split an amazing 2-bedroom villa with private pool and gardens with our friends Chris and Hannah, definitely a four-star, truly luxurious experience that far surpassed most accommodations I’ve ever stayed in, for only about $150 a night.

luxury private pool villa

Emily and I had a spacious, serene villa and retreat oasis all to ourselves for a few days—an interior designer’s dream, every detail crafted with care, a true sanctuary hidden away from the noisy chaos of real life around us, where we enjoyed the quiet, stunning views of wildlife, rice paddies and forests up in the mountains of Ubud.

designer accommodations Bali

Ubud rice paddies

We had a brilliant two-story family villa in Seminyak for a week with the parents, spent the afternoons catching up with friends, soaking up the sun in private pools…

Bali luxury retreat

We enjoyed cocktails, beers, and sangria at the swim-up pool bar at the Potato Head Beach Club, voted as one of Bali’s top restaurants and bars, and the kind of ultra-posh hotspot that would easily cost several hundreds of dollars (or possibly into the thousands) if you wanted to be a baller in Miami, Los Angeles, or even Ibiza.

Potato Head beach club

Bali ballers Potato Head beach club

We lazed on comfy bean-bag chairs of Bali’s beautiful beaches, taking in breathtaking sunsets that lit up the twilight sky with brilliant reds, yellows, and golds.

Seminyak beach bar

Bali beach sunset

Definitely a million-dollar sunset.

I see more and more guys (and gals, and couples) selling all their possessions and choosing to travel and move abroad to experience a different kind of life. More people are “waking up” to the realization that it’s not about how much crap you accumulate or what your net worth is on paper, but life is more about how much varied experience you accumulate, how much fun you have along the way, and how happy you are.

Check out how my buddy Mark and his friends went island hopping in Palawan on their own boat with crew, eating a delicious crab feast on their own private beach, and how he felt like a millionaire, all for just 35 bucks (flight included)!

Dan Andrews, another collaborator of mine at DNA, has built an incredibly successful business here in Asia—he has a huge 4-bedroom house in the heart of Bali’s happening Seminyak area, with their own pool, and maids and gardeners, all for only about $1500 per month, where he brings interns out to live and work with him on the Tropical MBA (which I just think is the coolest fucking thing BTW), living a fantastic lifestyle, hustling and building a great business like nobody else I know, all while they have a great time too!

Krabi luxury townhouse

Back home here in Krabi, Thailand, my girlfriend and I have an immense, modern 3-story, 3-bedroom townhouse on the quiet outskirts of town that overlooks breathtaking limestone mountains and lush green jungles for just $575 per month. And that’s splurging for us, in a big way, so that I have a spacious office where I can be productive and so we can easily host a big happy family during the holidays.

I’d say that the value you get for your money is incredible here in Asia. If I’d been living back home for the last three years, I probably would be going out on the weekends with friends, but living on ramen noodles and sharing a small apartment with roommates to get by.

Instead, we get to have a wonderful, fulfilling lifestyle, live in abundance, travel frequently, spend a tremendous amount of time with friends and family, all while we keep our costs down substantially. That means we get to do a lot more of what we love here than we might somewhere else.

Making a move somewhere like Asia or South America might be a way you can also spend more of your very limited, precious time making memories you’ll cherish, having new experiences, and building something (preferably something of your own—a business, a charity cause, a legacy, what-have-you). You only live once, so don’t waste it.