I didn’t get where I am today without help, and you won’t either. Here are my favorite/most helpful/most useful resources that helped me create my Anywhereist lifestyle.
Everything on this page is something I use myself, or comes from a company that I’ve worked with and trust to give you great value.
Some of the links on this page are affiliate links. That means, if you click the link and purchase, I’ll earn a small commission. You don’t pay a penny more, but it helps to support our website and newsletter.
I’ve divided the page into two sections. Click the link below to go straight to the section you’re most interested in, or have fun scrolling! And check back as I’ll be adding to this page regularly.
Travel & Life
- 52 Days to Your New Life Overseas
- Panama Relocation Tours, and Jackie’s new guide Living in Panama as an Expat
- Where Can I Live – a website to help you narrow down your choices
Work
Building a Website or Blog
Domain Name Registrar
Namecheap makes registering domains easy and affordable. You can choose among top-level domains like .com, .org and .net, or secondary and country domains.
Hosting
Siteground is my recommendation for shared hosting. They actually give you several features of managed WordPress hosting, but for shared hosting prices.
For complete managed WordPress hosting, I recommend WP Engine. In addition to excellent hosting, they now also give you free access to WordPress themes from StudioPress, one of my two go-to theme designers.
WordPress Themes
StudioPress offers more than just pretty themes. Some of the reasons for choosing them include:
- Built-in SEO Optimization
- All their designs are mobile responsive/mobile friendly and use HTML5
- The best security
- Fast and easy updates
- Easy to customize
- Plenty of layout options
- Unlimited lifetime support and updates
This site is built on a StudioPress theme.
Astra Theme use the freemium model — the basic theme is free, and you can upgrade to a pro version if you choose to.
Astra is really fast, and integrates with these page builders:
- Elementor
- Beaver Builder
- Brizy
- Gutenberg
Here’s my review of Astra Theme.
Education
If you’re new to the world of freelancing or online business, there’s a lot to learn. You might need to educate yourself in a new subject matter area, and you’ll definitely want to learn about the ins and outs of running a business.
Writing and Content Creation
- AWAI (American Writers and Artists, Inc.) Tons of free information as well as courses, books, and programs to help you succeed as a freelance copywriter, like this updated course that teaches you how to be a copywriter for 2019.
- Wealthy Web Writer Membership site that teaches you how to become a better web writer, and to run a successful freelance writing business. I’ve been a member since the group started, and I also write for them on a regular basis. (They’re affiliated with AWAI, above.)
- Copyblogger The source for everything about writing content on the web
- Problogger The grandaddy of all the professional blogging sites.
- 31 Days to Build a Better Blog This is an excellent walk through of the strategies behind building a successful blog. It’s not to teach you the technical aspects of WordPress and the like.
- Make a Living Writing Great site for freelance journalists, article writers and bloggers.
- Headline Hacks I freely admit, I’m a lousy headline writer. Fortunately, there’s help available even for people like me. Here are a couple of recommendations. First, Smart Blogger’s cheat sheet, 52 Headline Hacks. And second, the fabulous headline writing tool from CoSchedule. (I reviewed it in this article.)
Coming Up with a Business Idea
Brian Clark’s 7 Figure Small? Brian’s achieved enormous success with online business. He founded Copyblogger and Unemployable, among others, and he’s put together a course where he’ll teach you to create a solo, 7-figure business. You can start with a six-part free course.
WordPress Building Blocks – My bread-and-butter business where I teach you how to use WordPress.
Apps and Computer Programs
Quicken Home and Business The accounting program I’ve used for years so I can spend less time on accounting and more time on creating.
Trello My go-to manager for my personal and business life. I couldn’t get anything done without it.
Google Drive (including Docs, Sheets, Draw, Slides, etc.). When you use Google Drive, your work is in the cloud so it’s available on all your devices.
GSuite is Google’s solution for email and so much more!
Evernote is your on-the-go notebook for anything and everything.
Canva lets you easily design images for social media and more
Pixabay is one of my favorite places to go for free, royalty free images I can use on my websites or in social media posts.
Technology
Kindle E-Reader I’d be lost without it. When we moved to Panama, we sold almost everything we owned. I sold or gave away several thousand books, keeping only a few (well, maybe 100 or so) that I loved and that were not available digitally. If you’re a reader and you’re going to travel or move abroad, you need one of these!
Dashlane for Online Security I use a password manager to securely store my passwords, and as someone who runs two online businesses, I have lots of passwords! The app I use is Dashlane. It stores my passwords, makes it easy for me to log into password-protected sites, and warns me if I need to change any passwords (like when there’s a big security breach somewhere I have a login). There’s a basic, free version, and a pro upgrade (I use the pro version).
It’s platform agnostic – use it on your computer, tablet, phone, etc., and easy to use.