This column, “Escape Artist,” is a series about folks who have escaped. More importantly, this biweekly column is for those thinking about trading in their 9-to-5, leg-shackled-to-the-desk existences in order to grab life at the roots and forge their own way. The brave outliers featured in these collection of interviews are the digital nomads, the online entrepreneurs, and the lifestyle trendsetters, who decided it was time to say to hell with the humdrum and go elbow deep to grab life by the roots.
Food writer Jodi Ettenberg runs Legal Nomads, a travel blog that tells the stories of place through food. It won a Lowell Thomas Award for best travel blog in 2015. Ettenberg began traveling full-time in 2008 and has been featured in The New York Times, National Geographic, CNN and BBC Travel. Prior to founding Legal Nomads and writing The Food Traveler’s Handbook, Ettenberg worked as a lawyer in New York for five years. In 2016, she’s creating a database of translation cards for gluten-free foods in Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, China, Italy and Portugal.
Paste Travel The “escape the 9-to-5” mentality seems to be exploding. What are you seeing?
Jodi Ettenberg I don’t like to frame it as an “escape” so much as a decision to be more in control of your work, schedule and time. There are downsides, as with any choices in life. I think anyone leaving the 9-to-5 and expecting that shift to fix their life’s problems might be in for a rough surprise.
However, what appeals to many who are shifting into more self-starting positions is the ability to make their own hours and work from wherever they want, at home or around the world. For me, that’s the biggest draw. Thanks to the technology that frees some people of the requirement to stay in a specific place to do their work, it is more common to create a work environment that is outside the norm.
PT What sparked this for you in 2008?
JE I saw a documentary about the trans-Siberian trains when I was younger and decided I wanted to travel to Siberia myself and experience them firsthand. When I took my job as a lawyer in New York, I thought I would save up money to travel for a year, and in 2008 I had saved enough to be comfortable setting out for that trip. It was not my plan, but my website turned into a platform for a whole new business.
PT How does a life of travel compare to your previous life as a lawyer?
JE They are quite different. I think there are two sets of comparisons: one has to do with mentality, and one has to do with the physicality of work.
From a mindset perspective, it’s a big change because my current lifestyle is much more uncertain. Coming from a lockstep profession, it is probably the hardest adjustment. I work for myself, and in building out a business based on writing, speaking and photography, I do not have a guaranteed paycheck or a raise to expect in the future. The lack of certainty has been the challenge. That said, it’s the same challenge for anyone building a business, whether at home or abroad. I accept that the choices I’ve made push me into a more uncertain place, but I am grateful that I have the privilege to make them in the first place.
