Why I want to be a Perpetual Traveler

In a fuzzy state of excitement, I can't get out of my mind the concept of permanently travelling the world, going from one country to the next, and maybe back again. But why do I want this? I realised just now that I really should explain why.

After all, it's not something too many people would find attractive. Most people want a good husband or wife, a nice house with a white picket fence, the average 2.5 kids, and a dog. They spend their life working 8-12 hours a day, five days a week, mowing the lawns on the weekends and waiting for retirement. That's their life, and that's all they can imagine.

But it's not what I want.

To me, being stuck in one place, slaving day after day to help someone else make money from my labour, with the goal of getting through each year so I can have a few weeks a year of my own, is a concept that makes me absolutely miserable. Imagining that kind of life in my future makes me want to shoot myself. Or think that there's got to be something better than that.

And there is something better than that. At least for me.

I've been travelling all my life, around some of the states and territories of Australia, and even lived for a number of years in another country before coming back to Australia.

Travelling is in my blood. Trying to pretend it isn't is getting more and more difficult. I feel like I need to accept it and embrace it, and turn it into my lifestyle.

With everything in my life, I've created what I want by focusing on it so much that it eventually becomes part of my life in every way. I research it, I see myself living it, I talk about it with everyone I talk to, and I write about it. Eventually what was just a dream becomes a reality. It becomes real.

And that's what's going to happen here.

I'm reading about other Perpetual Travellers (PTs) and the experiences they have, the reasons they chose their lifestyle, and how they go about maintaining it.

I'm contacting some of them and interviewing them about it, so that I can understand exactly what their thinking is as they venture into it and choose to live it.

Why am I researching it instead of just doing it?

Because I want to be prepared. It's part of my nature. I like to know what I'm getting into before I get into it. I like to know what I can expect, so that I can prepare for it.

I'm 46 years old. I've got responsibilities and obligations in my life that most people in their 20's just don't have. I can't just jump on a plane and go somewhere on a whim. I have to understand the consequences of my actions and make preparations accordingly, so that I don't create significant problems for myself down the track.

I also have to create an online business or income stream that can sustain a 'location independent lifestyle', so that I can travel around the world while making money from the internet, regardless of my location.

It's not just me I have to support.

I have to make sure I can support my fiancée as well, and take into account the plans we're making to get married this year, and have children next year (2014). I have to make sure I can support a family while choosing to engage in a lifestyle of travel.

Many people would choose to settle down because that's the easier path. But I'm not one to choose the easier path. I'm one to choose 'the path less travelled'.

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

- The Road Not Taken, by Robert Frost, 1916

It's been the story of my life that I've 'taken the road less travelled by, and that has made all the difference'.

And I think that story shall continue. For a long time yet.

But what about the family?

As I said, many people would choose to settle down and start a family, because it's just easier to settle down. But I can't see why I should not do something, just because it's  more difficult.

I've already got certain ideas in place as to how it can be done.

If you have enough money, or you have money coming in so that you can support yourself during this ongoing process, you can be a permanent tourist. You can travel to a country on a tourist visa, live there for the duration of the visa and then move on to the next country and repeat the process.

If you're never in one place long enough to be a permanent resident, you can also avoid paying income tax on your income, especially if you make a declaration to the government of your home country that you're living permanently in another country (while making sure that this 'other country' is a place you're not exactly living in permanently, so that you avoid paying income tax on your international income).

What about a stable home for the family?

Many people get attached to 'stuff'. They think that if they're living somewhere, with a family, then there's 'stuff' that they need to have.

They buy furniture for the bedrooms, lounge room, dining room and living room. They buy 'stuff' to go with the furniture, like coffee tables and vases and ornaments. They buy appliances for the kitchen, and for the living area, like microwave ovens, mixers, tv's, computers, etc etc.

After a few years of this, they have so much stuff that they dread moving around because of how much they would need to move and how much it would cost. So they remain in the same house for decades. Sometimes even for generations. Because of the stuff in their house and in their life.

You don't need that much stuff. You certainly don't need to carry it around with you when travelling.

There are people that travel the world by house sitting, so that they pay absolutely nothing for rent or accommodation, other than the other living costs associated with travel and food.

There are people that travel the world WITH A FAMILY! Shocking!

How do they do it?

One can only imagine that it would be relatively easy to do. As long as you can buy the necessities of life, for yourself, your partner, and for your children, you don't need to have your own home and 'stuff'.

If you have a baby, you don't need the latest and greatest modern inventions for prams and cots. You can buy them for a few cents or dollars locally. When you move to another country, but a new pram for a dollar. Buy a new cot for a dollar. Buy new nappies or clothes or bags.

It's not difficult. You can make a choice to live with enough essentials for a week or so, knowing that you can always buy more, cheaply, no matter where you are. Obviously there will be a necessity to make sure you're travelling to countries where this is easy to do.

Travelling to Iraq or Afghanistan, for example, would not be a suitable choice.

Any comfort you might want can be gained from living in other people's comfortable homes, while house sitting for example. Comfort can be gained by living in furnished apartments in countries where you're paying only $500 a month for the rent. It can be gained by buying only what you need to consume, and ignoring the 'stuff' that you don't need.

A laptop and smartphone could be considered 'essential stuff', that's portable and essential to remaining connected with important resources. Especially if you need to remain connected to the internet to continue earning your income.

Obviously, with raising small children, you also have to take into consideration the availability of effective health care. If you're a permanent tourist and can afford it, you should certainly be investing in travel insurance and associated health insurance (that's just my opinion, of course). You should make sure you understand what you're covered for, and you should make sure you're in a country that can provide a decent level of health care for your baby / babies / kids / yourselves.

But that's not even important. Most developed or developing countries, within reason, have a level of health care that's able to respond effectively to emergencies, and for any health care that's not an emergency but you want better care, you can always travel back to your home country for it.

I don't believe there's anything completely insurmountable in such a lifestyle choice. It just requires research, understanding, and preparation.

Part of my preparation will necessarily involve developing a sustainable and long-lasting income stream, so that I don't ever have to worry about not being able to afford dealing with emergencies. And I need to have it in place before I start travelling.

With Fanfan being Chinese, I can live there as her spouse (once we get married). I can have two 'home countries', being Australia and China.

With the reciprocal arrangements between Australia and New Zealand, we can also live in New Zealand without needing a Visa of any kind. So that makes three 'home countries'.

For any other country around the world, we can go there on tourist Visas and stay as long as the Visa allows us to, and then move on to the next country.

Once we have children, we'll also be able to occasionally leave them with Fanfan's parents, their grandparents, for weeks or months at a time, while we go travelling around the country or the world, making sure through the wonders of technology (Skype) that we stay in touch with them on a daily basis (where possible).

As we continue to travel when they're old enough to go to school, we'll engage in home schooling, making sure that we provide them with the quality of education that we want to ensure they have. But their most important schooling will be from life, from travel, from experiencing other cultures and people, and appreciating this wide world.

You can probably see I've already put some thought into this.

All I need now is a 'location independent' source of income. I'm working on that.

Be responsible for your passive aggression

Men with debilitating passive aggression in their relationships usually find it's because of their inability to accept responsibility. This makes healing that much more difficult. You can't heal it if you think you're not responsible for it.

The best thing I did to help me 'get over' my PA behaviour was to make a conscious decision to accept responsibility for every emotional incident I was involved in, even if it seemed obvious that I wasn't and couldn't be responsible for it. I had to accept that I WAS responsible for it, even if I didn't know how.

You see, the most common trait of a PA is that they refuse to accept responsibility, always denying their responsibility and finding blame in everything but themselves.

It's usually true that if someone gets angry at you, then something you've done has contributed to them getting angry.

People don't just spontaneously get angry without cause, but those with passive aggression often think they do, because they can't accept their own responsibility towards it. They don't want to be responsible for someone else's anger because that responsibility is what they were punished for when they were a child.

So they unconsciously do what they can to avoid responsibility, which makes the other person angry (girlfriend, wife, workmate, boss, etc). The anger they're confronted with then creates more passive aggressive behaviour as gestures of resentment and revenge.

So I figured the best way to get past all of that was to accept responsibility and do whatever I could to 'fix' whatever failure I was responsible for.

It worked pretty well!  Applying this to my relationship and to my career saw some significantly positive changes.

But it also meant that taking responsibility for myself meant that I had to own what was wrong in my relationship. After some serious consideration I ended up leaving my partner back in 2008, after we'd been together for three years.

The relationship wasn't a good one for either of us. We were wrong for each other, but my passive aggressive nature meant that I was unable to take control of my life and was instead always resentful of the control she had of my life.

PAs (Passive Aggressives) often maintain a victim attitude, and they'll stay in a toxic relationship because they don't know how to take positive control of their life. I decided it was time to stop being a victim.

So I left her, spent three years alone, sorting out my crap, and then started looking for someone else again to be with. I was pretty confident by this time that I knew what I really wanted and needed in a partner.

Passive aggression is something everyone experiences, sometimes often. However, Passive Aggressive Personality Disorder (PAPD) is something a lot more insidious.

To be diagnosed with this disorder, individuals must meet the general criteria of a personality disorder and at least five of the following: procrastination and delay in completing essential tasks -- particularly those that others seek to have completed; unjustified protests that others make unreasonable demands; sulkiness, irritability or argumentativeness when asked to do something that the individual does not want to do; unreasonable criticism or scorn for authority figures; deliberately slow or poor work on unwanted tasks; obstruction of the efforts of others even as these individuals fail to do their share of the work; and avoidance of obligations by claiming to have forgotten them. - The Passive-Aggressive (Negativistic) Personality Disorder (PAPD)

PAPD sufferers are often men, and they're often with women that are somehow the same as their mother. In the process of resenting their mother's controlling influence on their life, they end up being with women who somehow control them as well. Which is what inspires the PA behaviour in return.

Now, if you want to heal a burn on your hand, would you put your hand back in the fire? No, of course not.

So if you want to heal the issues resulting from controlling women in your life, why would you continue to be with women that try to control you? You wouldn't, would you. If you were sensible about it.

So I realised I needed to be with a woman who was easy going, relaxed, calm, and whose personality was not a controlling or dominant one. I realised that my perfect match was someone completely different to the kinds of women I'd been choosing throughout my life.

But I also realised I needed to be in control of the relationship, in a dominant but loving and secure manner, so that my partner never felt the need to control me.

Women feel the need to control their partners because their partners have no concept of responsibility, or deny their responsibility, and the relationship is a mess that the woman tries to fix. But she's angry that it's a mess, and she knows her PA partner is responsible, but she's angry at him because he refuses to accept his responsibility for the mess. And her anger at him just makes him more passive aggressive.

Notice how it comes back to responsibility?

If you want a great relationship with a woman that trusts you to do your part in the relationship, you HAVE to take responsibility for your part in the relationship. You HAVE to give her reason to trust you.

You have to man up and be a man, not some passive aggressive 'teenager' who resents being told what to do because they're not doing it. If you did it (whatever it is) when you know it needs to be done (commonly called 'taking responsibility'), then your partner doesn't need to bitch and moan about how you don't take responsibility, or you're not doing what she expects of you in the relationship.

Taking ownership and responsibility for your life and your relationship just makes a lot of sense. But it requires you to be actively engaging in taking responsibility. And it requires communication with your partner.

You need to be open and honest with her about EVERYTHING! Tell her your feelings, your fears, your anger, your past, your sadness, and your pain. She's in this relationship with you - stop isolating her.

Invite her in. Ask her to help you. Point out to her that you need a safe environment and a safe relationship to help you move past your issues, and if she can work with you on this, you'll be able to give her the love and responsibility that she needs from you.

Let her read the same stuff you're reading, and talk to her about the problems you've had in your past that have helped you feel passive aggression was your solution.

Passive aggression is a defensive mechanism that served you well during those years when you were punished. But you don't have to hold on to it any more.

If your partner can't help you, or is unwilling to help you, then you might have to make some very, very tough decisions. You can't heal your PA behaviour (which is the result of controlling behaviour from your partner) if she's not doing her part to help heal the relationship as well.

She also needs to take ownership of her own controlling behaviour that's contributing to you feeling unsafe and resentful. You bounce off of each other.

She tries to control you because you don't take responsibility. You don't take responsibility because you're resentful that she's trying to control you.

Stop the cycle.

Start taking responsibility first, without waiting for her to stop trying to control you. Expect that she'll still be pressing your emotional triggers, but do your very best to understand she loves you and only wants the best for you and from you. Not because she's selfish or demanding, but because she knows you're better than this.

The less you react with passive aggression and the more you take responsibility for your shit, the less she'll be doing to press your buttons that result in your passive aggression. But you have to be consistent - not just for a week or two, but for the rest of your life.

You're both going to have to heal your individual and unique emotional issues that result in the conflict between the two of you. You're going to need to come up with loving and effective strategies that will help you love each other more, while healing your emotional issues that result in you sabotaging the relationship.

And if one or both of you can't do this, then the relationship is unlikely to continue. There will just be too much pain and anger and unhappiness for it to continue.

Healing starts with a decision. You can make that decision today, or you can say "No, I'm not responsible for that!" and let things continue as normal.

But normal, in this case, is full of so much pain and anger and hopelessness. I know from my own personal experiences. Do you really want that to continue for you?

When you decide to heal, it will involve communicating your needs and desires to your partner. She's the one who can help you - if she can overcome her own anger at your years of negative behaviour.

If she can't - or is unwilling - to help you, then you're going to have to help yourself, and that will require you to make some tough decisions about your role in the relationship and where it's going. Can you find the healing within yourself, alone? If you can, that's fantastic!

But if you can't, because it's impossible to heal the burn while you're still in the fire, then I sympathise with you. But sometimes the best decision you can make for yourself is to move on from a relationship that isn't working for you.

Even if there's kids involved, they're going to have a father who is able to love them the way they need to be loved, without there being anger and passive aggressive behaviour in the household. It's not a good thing for them as they're growing up, and it's certainly not a good thing for you.

I wish you the best! It's a tough road you're on.  I'm here for you to ask questions or get some feedback about whatever you might have on your mind.

Ideas, inspiration and interviews

I'm going to do some interviews on this blog of other people who are already Perpetual Travelers. The purpose is for me to get some ideas and inspiration from these people, and share the inspiration on this blog.

I've put the call out to a few people I'm already following, and will be doing some searching to find some others.

I think that the more insight I gain into how these people have done what they're doing, the more I'm going to learn and be inspired towards doing the same thing myself.

Expect to read these interviews soon!

I may do this practice with other topics as well. I think it would be great to have this blog as something that not only captures my insights and experiences, but also the experiences of others that are doing the same thing as what I'm doing, or what I want to do

Your past has brought you here today

The by-line of this blog is "Everything in your past has succeeded in bringing you here today". It means that the choices you've made in the past and the experiences you've had have led you to this point, right here, right now.

It's nice to have you here. Thanks for coming! But did you know that your path to this blog, to read this post of mine, started many years ago?

You've been travelling a particular path during the course of your life. You've made choices that have resulted in experiences that have helped you become who you are today. They've also helped you get to where you are today.

I've had experiences too. I've made mistakes, had successes, met some wonderful people along the way (while some people I wished I hadn't met!), and learned a lot about myself.

But there's always more questions. Old experiences often create questions in our minds, and so we seek answers, which leads to new experiences.

And the cycle goes on.

I'm here, writing to you, because my own life experiences have led me to this point. And I want to share some of those experiences with you, as well as some of the questions I've had, and the questions I'm going to have in the future.

This blog is my journey. It's my past, my present, and my future - whatever it might be.

But I realised today that even though the theme of this blog is my journey, there's that byline to it that I find very important and significant.

"Everything in your past has succeeded in bringing you here today."

There's a multi-layered message in that byline, and it's a message that I want to impart as often as I can.

So the theme of this blog isn't just about my journey in life, but is also about how my journey in the past has led me to where I am now. And it's about your own journey that might be somewhat similar to mine, which is why you've found this blog

I'm writing for myself, but also for you, to let you know that you're not alone. The problems and experiences that might challenge you are not unique to you. Whatever it was that brought you here is something that I share with you.

We're connected, you and I.

How much do you rely on technology?

As I'm waiting for Telstra to reconnect our internet after one of their technicians accidentally cut some cabling in the neighbourhood, I'm pondering how much we rely on technology these days, and when it disappears, we feel a loss. Or maybe it's just me?

I have a perfectly good desktop computer here that, without the internet, becomes somewhat useless.

Most of our computer activities these days are based on being connected to the internet, so when it disappears, we look at an empty screen and wonder what we can do with ourselves.

Maybe I'll go for a walk after I've finished writing this, and take some photos of the sunset. Then I might share them on Instagram via my mobile connection. At least I still have that.

Even while out enjoying nature, I'm connected to the internet, and can share my activities and my life to the world.

Is it unusual that I enjoy being connected like this?

Maybe it used to be, but I don't think it is any more.

Imagine if all that is gone, and there's no such thing as internet connectivity any more. All the things that we take for granted, we can't do them any more.

No more email, Facebook, Instagram, Skype, online chatting...

Almost too horrible to imagine, isn't it.  :/

But at least I can write. I could read too, but not on my computer, since the Kindle web page needs the internet.

There should be a standalone Kindle application for the desktop, so that you can have your books available for when you have no internet connection. Or maybe there already is such an application, but I just haven't looked for it. [Update: I just checked out my desktop Kindle, a couple days after writing this, and it seems to be 'saving app for offline use'. Nice.]

Am I rambling? I don't think so. I'm throwing out some thoughts about how so much of our life is based on being connected, and how much we take it for granted.

What about you? How much of your life is dependent upon being connected? What would you miss if there was no longer any internet connection for you?

Do you suffer from headaches?

I have a headache as I'm writing this, and I was thinking of what I can blog about when I thought - I know, I'll blog about headaches!

We all get headaches, some of us even get migraines. Lucky for me, I've never got a migraine.  knock wood  They can be pretty debilitating at times.

My headaches usually result from my back issues. The collapsed disc in my lower spine results in a spinal and muscular imbalance which causes muscle tension in the shoulders and neck, with the main effect being extremely tight muscles from the shoulders that go up the back of the neck and into (or connect with) the base of the skull.

This tension in that location results in some amazing tension headaches. And I don't mean good amazing either.

Over the years that I've had these headaces, aligned with the years I've had the back injury / disability, there have often been people who tell me to drink more water. Unfortunately, their tips have never worked for me.

Dehydration can often cause headaches too, and drinking lots of water can usually dispel such headaches. But water doesn't dispel tension headaches resulting from spinal imbalance.

Stretching hasn't helped me much, but it apparently should. I used to do lots of stretching, but I don't any more. This is because I've never noticed a 'cause and effect benefit' from stretching. I've done stretching over the years, morning and night, and it hasn't changed the effects of my disability. I still get tension headaches.

So I've stopped stretching.  Maybe it's simply because I never did enough stretching, I don't know. But too much stretching causes discomfort and pain to my back, and I just have no interest in pushing it to a point that might make it much, much worse. So I just don't do that much of it any more.

You know what works with my headaches? Drugs. Strong drugs. And avoiding work.

When I'm busy at work, I get more tension in my shoulders, which results in more headaches. When I'm not working, there's no tension, and no headaches.

I was VERY surprised over the holidays when I drove 5,000km over two weeks but didn't get any headaches or extreme back pain. That's a LOT of hours in the car, but my back was fine, I had no tension in my shoulders and neck, and I never got a headache while I was on holiday and driving around the country.

Only when I'm working.

Seems like a good reason to give up work, don't you think?

But what about you? Do you get headaches? Do you know why you get them? What do you do to make your headaches go away?

Tips for you to secure a rental property

A friend of mine is looking for a rental property to move in to, and after talking about it with them, I thought it'd be a great idea to write down some of my own tips to being successful with securing a rental property.

What's available

First up, look at the market to see what's available out there for the type of property you're looking at. If you're looking for a 4 bedroom family house, or a 2 bedroom flat, they're going to have very different values in the weekly rent.

What features do you want

Once you know the weekly rental prices, you can then start to look at the features available. The more 'luxuries' that are included in the property, the higher will be the weekly rent. For example, a 3 bedroom house with a dishwasher, heating and airconditioning, outdoor entertainment area, and a double garage will have a much higher weekly rent than a 3 bedroom house without those features.

If you have certain luxuries that you can't live without, you're going to have to pay more for them.

Beating the competition

When you go to an open home inspection (where everyone who's interested can come and look at the property), expect there to be competition. Especially for cheaper places. An open home can have dozens of people all walking around the house at the same time, looking into the cupboards, opening the kitchen drawers, wandering around the yard, or talking to the real estate agent.

It's important that the real estage agent remember you when they're considering who they're going to shortlist to check out references and consider suitability for the property, but that can be impossible when there's dozens of other people there trying to do the same thing.

Organise a private inspection

A good strategy is to find a property in the online real estate / rentals website and contact the real estate agent / property manager a few days before the open home inspection. Let them know that you're really interested in the property but you're unable to go to the open home because you're unfortunately going to be out of town. You'd like to organise an inspection "today or tomorrow" to have a look at it, with the intention that you'd be happy to go ahead with renting the place if you think it's suitable.

Tell them you've already got copies of the application form off of their website which you'll have filled in, along with references for them to call.

A good real estate agent or property manager will be happy to organise this for you. They need a tenant for the place as soon as possible, and it would be better to do it without dozens of people stampeding around the house and gardens. If you like the place and hand over the forms on the spot, you're the only person so far that's applied for the place. Naturally they're going to remember you, especially since you've already got the paperwork for them.

Appearances DO matter

Make sure that you dress nicely and that you turn up in a nice car. It's not necessary to turn up in a luxury car or sports car, but something that says you can afford the rent on the place because you can obviously afford a reasonably nice car. Borrow someone's car, or even hire a car if necessary.

Your appearance and the impression you give them are extremely important. You're selling yourself here. They don't know you, they don't know what kind of person you are. But if you show up looking presentable and in a car that you seem to look after, they'll already get a good feeling that you'll be looking after their property for them.

Also make sure to talk to them when you're inspecting the house. Ask questions about the place, about what they're looking for in a tenant. Be friendly, smile, make a joke or two. Don't just walk in, look around and say nothing, and then hand them the paperwork and leave.

Make a new friend

If it's a property that you'd really like to live in, then you've got to connect with them. You've got to be someone that they'd be happy to live in the property. You've got to be someone they remember, and that they'd recommend to the owner as someone suitable to be a tenant.

If you can follow the above strategy, you're almost guaranteed that you'll secure the property that you want.

If you can't get a private inspection

Of course, you might not be able to get a private inspection, so you can go along to the open home anyway, while doing your best to maintain the above strategy.

Turn up presentable, in a nice car, and introduce yourself to the real estate agent. Tell them you were the one who called, and it's lucky you were able to reschedule your trip out of town because you'd really like this place. Be friendly, smile, and ask them to show you around because you're going to have questions.

Out of all the people at the open home as well, the agent is going to remember you. Have the forms ready to hand over, and let them know you'd be happy to move in straight away. The less time the property is on the market, the better, so they're more likely to give it to you than to someone else who might be as presentable as you, but can't move in for another few weeks.

After all that, you might not like it

All of these strategies are only suitable if you really want the place. If you turn up to the private inspection or the open home and you find that it just doesn't meet all your needs, then don't be afraid to be honest. You don't want to waste their time and have them thinking you want the place if you actually don't.

"Thank you for your time, I really appreciate it, but - it's just not what I'm looking for."

Don't be afraid to let them know why it's not suitable for you if you get along with the agent. They will have other properties, and they might have something that you'll find is a better match for your requirements.

Negotiate for a lower rent

Also, remember that most rental properties on the market are going to be there for no more than a week. They'll be wanting a tenant from their open home inspection and will take anyone they think is suitable. If you find a property that's been on the market for a few weeks, but it's a bit higher priced than what you're prepared to pay, contact them for an inspection and then ask them if they'd be willing to reduce the weekly rent a bit in exchange for a longer-term lease.

For example, you might be looking to live somewhere for a while. Ask them to drop the rent from $500 a week to $480 a week in exchange for a 2 year lease instead of a 1 year lease. Since the property's already been available for a few weeks and costing money without anyone paying rent to compensate for the loss, they'll be more enthusiastic about accepting your request. And having someone in the property for 2 years at a reduced rate is better for them than keeping the property on the market.

Be a good tenant

To help make sure you get a rental that you want, you already need to be a good tenant. References are important, and you really want your current or past property manager or landlord to give you a glowing reference when they're called. That's not going to happen if you've been a bad tenant and haven't paid the rent or you've let the garden grow wild or you've trashed the house.

I hope all the above has been helpful. If you can think of any other tips, strategies or improvements, please make sure you leave a comment below.

And above all - good luck!