Lu-Hai Liang

Richelle is a blogger I met in Beijing a few years ago in Chaoyang park.

We connected on WeChat, and on occasion we would meet up and talk about life in Beijing, and our respective writing careers, which are very different.

It was so interesting gaining an insight into what it takes to make money from full-time blogging, and Richelle’s ambitions in this domain.

She was incredibly honest and open about her struggles; authentic in her worries and stresses, and so willing to share answers to whatever inquiring questions I had.

One of the most emphatic things I discovered was just how much work it takes to make it as a professional blogger. But I was also left with a sense of how determined and creative Richelle was, of how she was someone who had perseverance.

Now that Richelle has left Beijing (she is currently in Tanzania with her fiance, who is also a travel blogger and a lovely bearded Aussie) she is living the future she had so wanted when we talked about her plans. The life of a digital nomad, of a traveler, and a full-time blogger.

Richelle is someone who has combined her job with her life in a way that is intertwined. She is a freelancer like me, but we differ in our desires for how a freelance life should be. This is why she is living it the way she is. And that is always a brilliant part of what makes alternative lifestyles so captivating. To look into a pool of possibility and see what could be; of what might be, and what might never be.

It has been a while actually since we had cocktails for her departing drinks in Beijing and she has just written a blog post about the lessons she’s learned in six years of travel blogging. I recommend it highly.