Background

I’ve been a location independent entrepreneur since 2016. I started Sovereign Landing because I needed this to exist, and there was nothing like this on the market. The existing “directionally similar(ish)” services were either too broad and expensive (concierge services for the luxury market) or too narrow/misaligned (traditional relocation services).

There was basically no service for us inbetween – people who weren’t exactly vacationing, and also not planning to stay a year or more.

Moving from country to country

I first moved from one country to another in 2007 (Finland to Ireland), and that first time was very stressful. It was a “semi-permanent” move: I was moving to a regular 9-5 job and planning to stay indefinitely, but probably not forever.

I remember the stress of landing into a new country, staying in a crappy hostel on a minimal budget while trying to find something longer-term QUICKLY. It didn’t take long to find a place, one that was ok but not really optimal. I thought I’d stay there a while and then find something better after I get settled into the new job etc.

However, life comes with a certain inherent friction, and as the apartment hunt process is a bit of a hassle, and then moving is even bigger hassle, I sort of got stuck in that suboptimal place until I eventually left Ireland.

Since then I’ve moved from one country to the next more times than I care to count. It didn’t get any easier in these following years – more often than not, moving was a hugely complicated and stressful process. Then again, the human mind gets over that initial pain after it’s been solved (finding a good place to stay) and quickly forgets about it.

Finding yet another place to stay in Tbilisi in February 2024

When I landed in Tbilisi in February 2024, I thought I’d just find a rental place for about 5 months and settle in. Should be easy, right? Except that it once again took weeks of time, loads of mental energy, and way too much of sitting in traffic jams going to see yet another place that wasn’t gonna work for me. This “simple” process just completely destroyed my productivity for about a month.

This is one of the biggest problems with the nomadic / location independent lifestyle in general. The idea of living in multiple countries is something that people want to do, but after they find out about how exhausting the moving can be, many just decide to settle down somewhere. For many, it can be a “legitimate” decision driven by changing needs and wants.

Then again, I think too often it is something that people “drift into” out of sheer exhaustion caused by just the thought of having to go through all that moving hassle again. It’s friction winning over optimal lifestyle.

Staying mobile

I’ve been in both camps. I’ve been ready to settle in more or less permanently a few times, but those plans backfired during – and because of – the covid madness. Now I find that with the world being the way it is (unstable), I want to be light on my feet and not get too stuck in any one place.

There just isn’t any “one perfect country”, and even if there were, outside events or changing situations can force (or heavily incentivise) you to move again. I’m now of the opinion that it’s best to just embrace this and not grow roots too deep in any one place. I know many people feel differently, and that’s ok – this lifestyle isn’t for everyone, nor does it need to be.

So, with this problem of being both exhausted by moving, and at the same time not wanting to stay in one place either, I was obviously in a bit of a pickle. I was working on launching a different business when I came to Tbilisi, but this experience made me re-arrange my priorities.

Hiring Nina and getting the idea for Sovereign Landing

I hired Nina to help me after I had already arrived in Tbilisi, and even though she did provide a stellar service, all I could think about was how much easier things would have been if I had hired her before arriving… and if I could have viewed the apartments by video first!

I also knew I wasn’t the only one struggling with moving between countries. Working with Nina got me thinking that with a slight calibration of her apartment hunting process, together we could provide a hugely valuable service to a lot of people. I put my previous business idea on hold and made solving these nomadic issues my priority #1, and that was the beginning of Sovereign Landing!