The Basic Story

It all began with a dream in 2013. The Kortmans had 4 kids ages 7 and under. They were homeschooling and doing digital marketing consulting from a laptop.

The question was presented: “What if we could travel like other location independent entrepreneurs?”  “What if?”

That “what if?” became a plan and in 2014 the Kortmans sold their house and visited 30 places in 6 months.

Paul and Becky Kortman a hobby-farming family of 6 from West Michigan did a 180 degree turn from trying to establish a small hobby farm and living off of the land to traveling across 3 continents in 6 months.

When the Kortmans left to travel the world there was a lack of a unified source of information on how to do it. There were no groups or forums or a collection of other people living this lifestyle, ie a nomadic location independent family. When you choose to follow a different path than everyone around you it’s nice to meet up with other people who have chosen similar paths.

That was not possible in 2014.

The idea for the community and platform behind NomadTogether came through conversations with other digital nomads. So on Christmas day 2014 the Kortmans started building what we now know as NomadTogether.

They have started a new online community to support other families who are nomadic. They’ve also developed a coaching platform for families who want to choose the freedoms that come with location independence.

When a family decides to uproot a family and travel the world, those around them typically fall into two main camps:

• Some think the family is crazy and they’d never want to do it themselves, OR
• Some express a desire to do it themselves but don’t have a clue how or don’t believe they can.

Location Independence Enables Lifestyle Goals

Our desire for location independence was based on many life goals, one of them being to work less and spend more time with family. We want to be with our kids more and in order to do that we need to either make more money OR lower our expenses. Certain parts of the world are significantly cheaper to live in and thus to hire house help or business help which in turn assists us in achieving a lifestyle goal (more time with family).

One of our other goals was to help our kids expand their worldview by having real memories of people and places from other cultures. Travel and living overseas has deeply impacted each of us when we were teenagers, we wanted to have that impact on our kids much earlier in their lives.

We hope that the NomadTogether community helps others live a life of freedom. Ideally, we’d love to unite a force of 1,000 families who can help other families make the transition.