Jason Moore is the founder of two popular websites and podcasts: Zero to Travel and Location Indie. Heβs an all-round great guy, superb interviewee (and interviewer, by the way) and has a lot to say about the future of travel and where we can all make a difference.
Don’t think it’s ever a bad time to start anything because you have your own unique spin and your own voice.
Jason is passionate about helping people grow businesses online, whether they be travel-related or not. His audience is mostly digital nomads and travel fans. His community is made up of like-minded individuals who all value self-actualisation and freedom over status and money.
π On authenticity in podcasting and blogging
“Real authenticity just kind of happens, right?
It just happens as an expression of your personality.
Just being who you are is a much better way, in the long run, to put yourself out there in terms of business. Because you’re gonna attract the type of people that you want to be working with. Be that a community, customers, clients, or whatever the case is.”
π On writing for SEO and keywords or writing to be authentic.
“Should I write this post this way or that way?” It depends on your motivation, right? If I’m smart about this from a marketing perspective, then I’m going to get more eyes on this, which means my message is going to get out to more people. If you’re looking at it in that way, it makes sense to try to implement some of the marketing strategies because you can impact more people.
But there’s also something to be said about writing a post on the back streets of Amman, Jordan, because that’s going to fulfill you creatively and there’s going to be. Maybe a smaller amount of people will read that, but they’re going to appreciate it. And you’re going to have fun putting it together. So I don’t think there’s one catch-all answer.
Because as a creator, you also have to scratch your own itch and create content, or art, or whatever you want to call it, based on your interests and what you want to do.”
πOn why Jason started the Zero To Travel podcast
“I started the podcast to share travel knowledge with a community of people that were interested in long-term or full-time travel.
And that was it. That was the only intention. There was no business intention.
I started in 2013 when podcasts were a lot less popular. And I just got really excited. I had been talking about that for a long time and somebody in my mastermind group said, ‘ Jason, just stop talking about this thing and do it!’.
I’d always been interested in audio. I love music. I love the audio format. I’ve always been keen on audiobooks and listening to someone like Alan Watts, who’s a philosopher type and he has all these great audio pieces that you can listen to, that he’s given from talks way back in the day.
Podcasting was something I gravitated towards. And then I thought it’s such a great way to share stories from real people and along the way, get actionable tips and advice that can help other people. And it resonated with a certain subset of people pretty quickly, which was fortunate.”
π On starting a community for location independent entrepreneurs
“I didn’t know I was going to start a community for location independent entrepreneurs and digital nomads. And we were going to do the summer camp event, Camp Indie, and all this other stuff. There’s just no way to know these things as you know, right.”
π On life-changing decisions and events
It’s probably one of the handfuls of things I’ve done that I’d say has changed my life the most for the better.
I could say that about my first solo backpacking trip. I can say that about having children, for example. And I can say that about starting the podcast. It really has changed my life in ways that I couldn’t have possibly imagined.”
Keith: Few businesses continue the way they started out. you need to put things out there to find out what people want.
π On meeting his wife
“I met a Norwegian girl when I was staying in a hostel in Brazil many years ago and she checked a lot of boxes right away because she was in a hostel. So I’m like, hey, anybody that’s traveling by themselves through South America and is willing to stay in hostels, has good things going for her”
πOn Norway
“Weather in Norway is ingrained in the culture. It’s everywhere. I think it’s in the makeup of the people. They have an expression here that says, “Det finnes ikke dΓ₯rlig vΓ¦r, bare dΓ₯rlige klΓ¦r”, which means “there’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing”.
When the kids take naps at the daycare they sleep outside. When my kid wants to take a nap, we take them out for a walk, and he sleeps outside. People park their kids out in front of cafes while they’re inside drinking coffee. The kids are outside sleeping.
And all of these things were pretty new to me. But now it’s kind of part of my daily life. So it all seems kind of normal.”
πOn setting up two companies in two different countries
“I had to have two companies set up for a few different boring tax reasons. That was a real pain in the butt to figure out. And the way I figured it out was not by learning tax laws, it was by bringing other people in that know those things. Getting them to help me find the solution. It’s always good to remember that there are other people that can help you out.”
π On creating Location Indie with a friend
“My buddy Travis and are co-founders of Location Indie. We are really passionate about bringing people together that are interested in this lifestyle. We thought it was great to build a community where people could get more accountability.
You have a group of other people that are working on the same path, like-minded people to help you when you feel unmotivated.
But if you don’t want to travel, you can still have a lifestyle based around more freedom with your time and everything like that.
We do all these online community events where we’ll jump in a call. It’s live, and people can hang out and we can set goals together and help each other through some struggles.
We simply try to facilitate productive conversations, goal setting events, and things that we know are proven to keep people’s businesses and lifestyles moving forward towards the directions.”
π On the term “Location Independent Entrepreneur”
“When I heard the term Location Independent, the bells started going off. This is the thing I want to do because I can travel as much as I want, but I can also have a home base if I want. It just made sense to me as a term.”
π On why the lifestyle is not for everyone
“I had a conversation with my buddy Matt who was thinking about starting a community. And in the end, we decided that, after a lot of questions and talking, it wasn’t really the right thing for him.
It wasn’t because he didn’t want to help people, but he helped people in a different way. He likes to work on his own. He wants to go to a coffee shop, put his headphones on, and just kind of be in his own world all day. And a community is about engagement, interacting with other people, bringing people together, finding different ways to connect people.
I think you have to be honest with yourself. If that’s something you enjoy, then you can start taking a look at the next steps: I’m in such-and-such niche, what kind of value could I create in my niche that can bring people together? How can I get them to connect with each other so they can then create value with each other?”
π On learning from other people
“I’ve met so many amazing people through the community. I’ve learned a lot about other people. I’ve learned a lot about myself running a community, and it’s a constant source of inspiration, which is one of the reasons why we started it. Inspiration and education, because we’re learning from each other.”
π On social media
“I realized I’m not really a social media guy. Podcasting is my “social media”. I don’t have any interest in posting everything about, for example, what I ate. I don’t feel like taking my phone out when I’m in the middle of doing something and coming up with some snappy post and posting it. I want to just do the thing, and go home, and I can talk about it later on a podcast.
π On starting a podcast
“You can’t look at it and think, ‘should I start a podcast for my business?’. Because it’s a bigger question than that. And don’t let “competition” psych you out. I always think it’s important to have an abundance mindset.
Even though podcasting is popular and there are many shows coming out every day, there’s still a lot more room than people think.
We help each other out. That’s what’s beautiful about the podcasting community and other communities like the blogging community. People who “get it” understand that a rising tide lifts all boats.”
π On how to know if podcasting is for you
“The only way to get plugged in is to have your own show. Otherwise, you don’t know what’s going to happen unless you go down the journey.
Don’t think it’s ever a bad time to start anything because you have your own unique spin and your own voice.”
Links & More Information
Places mentioned:
Equipment & Gear mentioned:
- Jason uses the ATR 2100 microphone.
- Travelling audio recorders: Tascam DR40
- Keith uses a Shure SM58 Dynamic Cardioid Vocal Microphone (the classic, favoured by musicians the world over) – That connects to the MacBook via a Focusrite Scarlett 4i4 audio interface.
π Podcast edited with Descript
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