Keith Lock, a.k.a. the Affiliate Father uses his blogging/affiliate marketing income and freedom to travel to Ecuador with his two young children, Maizey and Garyn.
Working online has its perks and the freedom to travel is certainly one of them. Lock had the intention to combine multiple things that he enjoys and he did just that with his trip to Vilcabamba, Ecuador in South America this holiday season. You see, Lock “promotes other people’s products online and gets commissions” for his efforts. This is affiliate marketing in a nutshell. He enjoys a healthy lifestyle and loves to spend time with his kids. He shares this love on various self-made web sites about natural health and the raw food diet.
What’s better than travelling to the Valley of Longevity with his two children to a raw food retreat? Doing it with the freedom to continue “working” at the same time. He even extended his trip an extra two weeks because there was no job to go back to, or “vacation time” that was running out.
Lock intends to come back alone during the months of February and March to scout out some real estate. “I love doing what I do. I don’t have to be in any specific place to do my work, that is the advantage.”
The Affiliate Father shares his journey and explains how others might do the same on his blog at AffiliateFather.com. His latest post discusses how to save money on communication while travelling to a foreign country by leveraging smart phone technology.
Video: Keith Relaxing on a Park Bench at the Zoo in Vilca Discussing his Gratitude for his Chosen Career
Here is a rough transcript of the video above (published with permission):
We are at the zoo in town. We’re in Vilcabamba right now. The kids are playing and watching the monkeys, giving the monkeys grass and stuff. They are having fun. I don’t know. I kind of like it in town. We just got here yesterday. We’re staying at the Rendezvous and it is pretty cool.
I’ll admit… it was exciting to go to Matt’s. We were in the middle of nowhere on the side of a mountain, all kinds of food growing everywhere. The fruit trees growing there… bananas, avocados, and pomegranates and stuff like that, we can’t actually pick right now. They aren’t quite ready, but they do have greenhouses with cucumbers, carrots, and all that stuff. And there’s a lot of greens that are accessible all the time, which is cool. I like that part of it, but truthfully I never actually took full advantage of it. During the raw food retreat, all the food was prepared for us and everything was taken care of so I didn’t have to.
They have a really cool pool with some water slides. I think I went in once to the pool. In the steam shower, I went once. I didn’t even go in the dry sauna at all. I never did take advantage of all that. I just liked being in the middle of nowhere. It is clean, clean air. It was wonderful. Downtown is cool too. I mean, the air quality is different, but still… look around. It is just beautiful.
Like I said we are at the zoo. It cost 50 cents for all three of us to get in. I am not sure if that’s a quarter per child. I don’t know. I am not sure how it works, but it is nice. I mean, there are a lot of daylight hours here and a lot of beauty. And people are so friendly here.. it seems. I mean, I’m not 100% sure what they are saying, but they say it with a smile anyway. Everybody is just so helpful and everything is affordable and dare I say cheap in a sense, a lot of things. It is great. I don’t want to go back.
There is nothing really to go back to. I will miss a few people, but I won’t miss the cold, the pollution, and I won’t miss any of the expenses. I won’t miss any of that stuff. I can live here just fine. I can… pack a suitcase and bounce from place to place to try out different areas. And not just in Vilcabamba… check out the places all across Ecuador and all across South America for that matter.
And really… lots of people say it is difficult to travel with kids or it must be difficult to travel with kids. It’s really not that bad. Like… to be honest, I have a difficult time bringing them to the mall and this is just like an extended mall trip really, and it is not always hard. Right now, they are sitting in front of the monkey cages and having a blast. I just give them a little bit more freedom and trust them more. I trust their instincts and it is fine. I don’t have to feel like I am always on top of them or am always trying to get them in line or anything like that.
It got to be a little bit too much staying at Matt’s though. I mean… Garyn was throwing everything in the pool. I don’t know. I think we were pissing people off there, but I don’t know. It is not that hard to travel with these kids. For instance, I anticipated that Garyn and Maizey might need to go to the washroom 25 times each on the plane and then when they only went 15 times each, it was actually good. I just prepared for the worse and it came out to be not too bad. It wasn’t really that bad at all.
I mean, it can be nice to travel alone. With the kids it is a whole different ball game, but at the same time I am going to miss the heck out of them for the two months when I come back. I don’t really want to think about that right now because I don’t have to worry about that at the moment, but I can only imagine what their mom is going through and then I will be going through that. I might ultimately move out here. I feel like I need less sleep when I am here and I’m more productive out here. I am eating better and I am breathing better air. It is just nice.
I am way more productive with my work. I only have to work zero to six hours a day or something. A lot of my money is passive. But still a lot isn’t, so I have to work here and there. There are some hours I have to put in and many others that I want to put in because I enjoy it. I want to finish some projects, but I don’t feel like I have to work all the time. There are a lot of people saying to me, “It is not a vacation, because you have to work.” But the truth is I love my job and I don’t look at it like that. I have to continue to work while I am here, that is true. But I mean, I still got the freedom of doing what I want. I can do this all year round really. As long as I have a decent Internet connection and my computer, I am good. It just doesn’t feel like a work/vacation in the general sense. I don’t feel like I need a vacation from my job because my job is great and I love it. I love doing what I do. I don’t have to be in any specific place to do my work, that is the advantage.
I don’t know where this is going to take me next. I want to stick in Vilcabamba until the 14th, my birthday, when I turn 39. I will be staying here with the kids until then for sure. I don’t think I will leave Vilcabamba, except we are going to stay in Quito one night after flying there from Loja. Then we are going to go back to Canada. I am going to be there for a week and sort out my accommodations. I want to get something cheaper, so I don’t have to maintain an expensive apartment over there, an expensive apartment that I am not going to be using.
And then the last week of January I am going to be spending it in Miami at the Empower Network event and then from there I am coming back here for as long as I can. Probably two months, a little shy of two months maybe and then I don’t know what is going to happen at that point. Take it one day at a time I guess. Well, I guess that’s it for now. I will keep you guys updated on what’s going on, what I learned, and what I figured out. Thanks for watching. Peace.
