Arthur Nobel – Passionate Traveler and Founder of Flexpat

BY ARTHUR NOBEL

I have always wanted to travel. In primary school, I had this notebook with a cover of the most beautiful Caribbean beach and the bluest water, which met my criteria for heaven on Earth. And yet, until the age of 20, I had barely left Western Europe, let alone the continent.

There was an internship opportunity for me in Kuala Lumpur, and without thinking twice, I packed my bags and set off to Malaysia. Asia opened my eyes for a whole new world – the promise-land, the future.

Back in the good old (and rainy) Netherlands, I landed an internship at Unilever. Although it was a great CV boost, the standard 9-to-5 rhythm and predictable life it was coming with were not giving me peace of mind.

My next work endeavor, Rocket Internet, was my ticket back to Southeast Asia. Home-based in Singapore, traveling to 5 countries in 4 weeks, I was pretty much living the dream. In the end, I wasn’t ready to head back to Europe just yet and embarked on a world trip instead covering Asia, Australia, South America and the US. Perhaps, my most memorable travel moment to date was when I was in Thailand on the way to Phuket. It was there and then when I saw the bluest water in my life (pretty much like the one on the notebook).

My Couchsurfing experience in Iran with my best friend, Jochem, is another legendary moment of the trip. I won’t forget the massive two-meter high cacti in Bolivia either. Great times, terrific memories…

After I returned to the Netherlands to do what people supposedly do: find a job. Since I couldn’t find any job I wanted to even remotely do, I looked into different ideas for own businesses, which kept spinning around the travel concept. I started this peer-to-peer travel agency, which allowed people to book our curated trips. This startup burned and crashed after a while but it sure didn’t discourage me to keep digging further in the same direction.

Next came the idea of finding jobs for backpackers – you know, decent jobs, other than doing the dishes in the back of roadside restaurants. From there on, it was a swift transition from backpackers to remote workers, a phenomenon which was starting to become increasingly popular anyway. The core concept was to provide traveling digital professionals with a steady flow of projects, thereby guaranteeing them the financial stability to sustain their work & travel lifestyle. I started talking to friends, acquaintances and even strangers (on LinkedIn) to check what they thought of it. It turned out that seemingly everybody wanted it but not everybody could have it. I shook hands with my co-founder and dear friend Georgi, with whom we wanted to start a business together for a long time already, and Flexpat was born.

For me, Flexpat is a dream come true – something that helps me balance my travel and work, family and adventure time. I believe that people deserve the chance to do what they love, where they love to be and hope we can make it possible for them.

Ciao,

Arthur

About the Author Arthur Nobel

Having visited 30+ countries, Arthur Nobel is all about discovering the unknown. A natural risk-taker, he pushes his boundaries with snowboarding, wakeboarding, and surfing. Arthur didn’t like any job, so he created his own. With Flexpat he aims to change lives by enabling ever more people to work remotely and explore the world, without risk. Follow the journey of Arthur and his team on Instagram.