Jeremy left his home when he was 18, with everything he owned in a single backpack and began blogging across the world.
It was hell when he dropped out of college as he had no one to believe in him. His own ‘mom’ called him a disgrace. But he understood that she only wanted what “was best for him” like any other parent according to her worldview and past experiences.
“Doing what I did was hard to my family and friends. I come from a family of highly educated people. My mom is a Principal of a school and my uncle has a Ph.D. in mathematics. Being an accountant in my family would be a big deal! Here are the occupations of cousins based on age. Engineer, Doctor, Engineer, Lawyer, Engineer, Engineer, Engineer, and Jeremy Noronha travel blogger?! What!!!”
♦ Where are you originally from?
⇔ I was born and raised in Assolna a village near Margao. I studied in Loyola, Rosary’s and then I ended up in Goa Engineering College, Ponda.
♦ What made you leave Engineering and do something as crazy as going against your family?
⇔ I hated each day of class and wasn’t learning anything that would help me in the real world. I made decisions on my own to build myself a life where I would get to do what I want to do. A life where my work would bring meaning to my life.
Here we have Jeremy Noronha breaking the stereotypes of life and 9-5 jobs. Truly an inspiration: that’s what your kids would say.
Who wouldn’t want to live a life on their own terms? Well, at least most of it! Living on your own terms and getting paid for it as well. Wait, doesn’t that seem like a movie or a dream? Being an engineering student and having hobbies that don’t connect with it at all is crazy.
Jeremy says, “I always loved travelling and realized that I was making a terrible mistake by studying engineering. Building a life where I do what I want to do is amazing. It truly brings meaning to my life. I don’t need a vacation because I love what I do. Now every single day is a vacation for me.
♦ So how did all of this begin and from where?
⇔ At the start of January 2016, I took a solo trip to India for half a month. Later I embarked upon another week long trip to Hampi at the start of February 2016. I always had entrepreneurial tendencies while growing up. And I knew I was going to start something on my own and would always find a way no matter the hurdle. I would never be in a situation where I hated what I did or in a job I didn’t like.
♦ How did you prepare yourself before deciding to finally begin the life you wanted to live?
⇔ One of the things I really enjoyed was reading and writing. I was always inclined towards online businesses as they provided the freedom to live anywhere in the world. Also, they’re very cheap to start with. I was a college student so I didn’t have any savings (unsurprisingly) to start a massive business. After collecting the money that I got for Christmas and my birthday, I invested about 50$ into starting my blog at Think Travel Lift Grow.
And the journey begins…
He left Goa, India when he was 18 years old in April 2016 after dropping out of engineering and he barely had 200$ in his bank account. He began his travels in Nepal and to make ends meet he used to try building websites for cafes, hotels, etc, after learning to build websites while starting his blog.
“I decided to go cafe to cafe and ask them if they needed a website! And by the end of the day, I had a client, but I also realized why everyone had an excuse for why they couldn’t do something in life.”
“Every time I entered a cafe it was awkward, and awkward was the best scenario. The most common answers were rude or condescending.”
Jeremy didn’t stop there…
More the cafes he went to, the more awkward situations he put himself in. The more condescending comments, the more he got made fun of, the less he let anything bother him.
After spending 3 months in Nepal and doing amazing things like trekking up the Throng La Pass which was at 5416m, he made his way to Bhutan. His trip was cut short as there were landslides in Bhutan and ended up in Northern India. After camping and trekking in the wild for a month, he made it to Dharamsala, lived there for over a month and even managed to attend a teaching and meet the Dalai Lama.
After Dharamsala, he made his way to Manali and met some cool people there. He went along with them into Spiti Valley where he spent a couple of days touring.
Working while travelling and getting paid for it…
“In the backdrop of all the travelling, I was working heavily on my blog, growing it on social media, forums and on search engines and through affiliate marketing, it started making enough money to pay for my expenses. By September 2016, as my blog started making enough money, I didn’t have to freelance and build websites anymore.”
Jeremy has been to over a hundred places including Manali, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, Cambodia and Angkor Wat, Laos and Thailand in the future.
Future plans…
“My ‘plan’ now is to live in all of South East Asia over the next 3 years because for me, this isn’t travelling anymore but rather a way of life. I’m still 19, that’s really young. Therefore, I have all the time in the world and the entire world for my time here. I live in different parts of the world and I think I find my comfort zone is living in 6-8 countries in a year.”
“Thanks to my blog I can travel for the rest my life if I want to. In addition, I’m also starting another online business.”
Don’t you think you’re being a bit selfish here? Leaving behind your family and friends and doing things only for yourself?
“Most kids don’t think a lot about the parent-child relationship. Furthermore, let me tell you one thing, if you listen to your parents and do everything they tell you, you’ll hate your life when you grow up, you will blame your parents for the way your life turned out to be. That’s not your parent’s fault! That’s your fault for listening to them. Your parents are just trying to do what’s best for you to the best of their knowledge and experience.”
“My parents didn’t support any of this when I started but after a couple of months, they came to terms with it and now we have the best relationship we ever had. I would rather have my mom call me stupid for 4 months than hating my mom when I’m grown up for why my life is sad.”
“Of course, they said dropping out of college was a stupid thing to do and I understand why they did, they come from a mindset of having a job and security etc. That’s not the mindset I live with.”
“Most people like using their parents as an excuse for why they can’t do something. I don’t believe that if you do what you love and get great at it, your parents will obviously love you. Even if they don’t understand what you do, as it is in my case.”
“Everyone that I told my idea to, called me crazy! People don’t realize the opportunities this Internet “thing” has created as yet.”
People say, “These kids are just wasting their time liking memes.”
“I can be sitting on a beach and making more money doing what I love than at a job I hate. The opportunities are endless but we are afraid to try new things because we are afraid of what other people think and we are afraid of failing.”
Life lessons Jeremy has learnt so far…
♦Caring less of what other people think of him♦
♦Failure being the best teacher♦
♦Learning how to live life on your own terms♦
And many more…
