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People constantly romanticise remote work, but the reality is significantly less cinematic. Photographer: Anya Berkut | iStock.
Building a life in transit
By Deepak Shukla
People constantly romanticise remote work … the laptop on the beach, the freedom, the flexibility … the idea that you can run a business from anywhere while remaining permanently relaxed and fulfilled. The reality, however, is significantly less cinematic.
I have spent years building businesses while moving between countries, airports, Airbnbs, hotels, trains, and temporary apartments. Sometimes it has been exciting. Sometimes it has been exhausting. Most of the time, it has simply been normal life happening in unfamiliar places. What I did not expect was how much of this lifestyle depends on other people supporting you behind the scenes. Because despite how independence gets marketed online, nobody really builds anything entirely alone.
“Most of the time, it has simply been normal life happening in unfamiliar places.”
When people hear “location independent”, they often imagine unlimited freedom. What they do not picture is taking client calls at odd hours because of time zones or trying to stay focused while dragging luggage through a city you barely know. Or losing productive days because your WiFi collapses in the middle of a launch week.
But there have been times when I really doubted whether all this constant movement was really sustainable. I recall being on campaign and travelling through Italy and realising that I spent more time trying to find a solid internet connection than anything else. Another time, I landed in a new country after almost no sleep and went straight into sales calls because clients do not care that you are jetlagged. The truth is that remote business ownership often removes structure faster than it removes stress. Sure, you gain flexibility, but you lose routine, and routine turns out to matter far more than most people realise.
“The truth is that remote business ownership often removes structure faster than it removes stress.”
One thing I think about more now is how many people made this lifestyle possible without ever really getting recognition for it – the team members who handled issues while I was in transit, friends who let me stay with them between moves. People who checked in when things became chaotic, and family members who did not fully understand what I was building but supported it anyway. At one stage, I was managing growth across multiple businesses while constantly travelling, and honestly, I do not think I appreciated enough how much stability other people were creating around me while I was chasing momentum.
There is a strange tendency in entrepreneurship to frame success as individual achievement. In reality, most sustainable success is collaborative emotional infrastructure. Someone absorbs pressure when your capacity runs low. Someone covers for you when your energy drops. Someone reminds you to slow down before you burn yourself to the ground. That part rarely appears in business content because it is less glamorous than productivity systems or growth hacks, but it is probably the most important part.
“In reality, most sustainable success is collaborative emotional infrastructure.”
Travel changes your relationship with work, and when you spend enough time in different countries, you start noticing how differently people define ‘success’. Some optimise for money. Others optimise for time, family, health, community, or simplicity. It forces uncomfortable questions like “How much work is actually enough?”, “What are you sacrificing to keep growing?”, and “Are you creating a business that enriches your life?”.
Sometimes I have accomplished something that I believed meant so much to me. But then I find myself feeling detached from my accomplishments. Travelling is a way to discover if your goals are really your own, or it reveals things that have been handed down to you from your surroundings. Another aspect that people avoid discussing honestly is the extent to which loneliness exists – even when things appear successful. You can be travelling incessantly, networking regularly, developing businesses, and still feel lonely.
Travel brings excitement, but it can also bring about emotional instability. Relationships become temporary. Routines disappear. You spend large amounts of time alone with your own thoughts. Sometimes that is healthy. Sometimes it is not. There were periods where I became very good at functioning while disconnected from people emotionally. Productive, efficient, moving constantly, but not particularly grounded. And ironically, it was often conversations with long-term friends or people who had known me before business became complicated that brought me back to reality. Not clients, audiences or followers. Just ordinary people reminding me who I was outside of work.
“Not clients, audiences or followers. Just ordinary people reminding me who I was outside of work.”
I still value freedom. I still enjoy movement. I still like the challenge of building things across countries and industries. But my definition of success has changed. I care more about peace now. More about who I am becoming while building businesses, not just what I am building. And probably most importantly, I care more about the people around me who make difficult periods survivable.
Entrepreneurship culture celebrates intensity constantly – hustle, scale and endless optimisation. What it talks about far less is sustainability – the ability to continue building without destroying your relationships, health, or sense of self in the process. That is harder … and far more valuable.
Living from a suitcase teaches us many lessons, but perhaps the most important is this: we have our independence, but interdependence cannot be escaped. Regardless of how driven an individual may be, regardless of their discipline and determination, or even regardless of all the countries in which they may work, everyone’s life will be moulded by those who help them when no one else does. The older we get, the more we realise that success is not in doing things alone but in recognising and respecting those who helped lift and share the burden.
Deepak Shukla writes about business, travel, decision making, and the psychological realities of building companies across different countries and environments.