I run a business while traveling the world. I couldn't have afforded to scale it while living in the US.
· Business Insider
Courtesy of Ryan Garrido
- Ryan Garrido runs a dropshipping business while living abroad to reduce costs.
- His savings on daily expenses helped him get his business off the ground.
- He said it's worth it, but accepts that there are tradeoffs to living abroad as a business owner.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Ryan Garrido, the owner of Dropshipping High Ticket, a dropshipping business that he runs while traveling the world. Garrido, 37, started his company while living overseas. The following has been edited for length and clarity.
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I think the definition of an entrepreneur is someone who takes risks. In America, you might be thinking, "OK, I have enough to break even. I can pay my rent, I can pay my bills, I can pay for groceries, my gas, and I'll have $20 left over."
But what business are you going to do with $20?
When you have excess funds, you can take risks, and I think that's the common issue with people living in America. There's no room to take risks because there are no additional funds.
Had I tried to have a business in the States, the cost of living might have kept me from taking the leap. So the fact that I was able to not have my daily costs be such a burden — my cost of living is 10% or 20% of my income at this point in Thailand, it's very minimal — allows me to fully invest in the company, to scale up more advertising, and just to do it in the first place.
You also broaden your horizon dramatically when living abroad because you start to see other cultures and how they do things versus how we do things.
I got into dropshipping while traveling the world
Before I moved abroad, I had a sales job in the US — I was doing B2B sales and door-to-door sales in DC. I was recruiting and had a team of guys that I was managing. Then I discovered meditation and wanted to study it full-time, so I left the country to go study full-time in South Korea.
A friend of mine was traveling all over the world, doing speaking events and posting them on Facebook. I messaged him one day and asked what he was doing. He said he did high-ticket dropshipping, and he had a course. I think it was $1,000 at the time, so I bought his course in 2019 and have been running my store since then.
Dropshipping is a business model where you have a website, and when the customer places an order from you, you go to the manufacturer, give the order details to the manufacturer, and the manufacturer ships directly to the customer.
High-ticket dropshipping is items over $700; expensive stuff like saunas, jacuzzis, hot tubs, the list goes on.
I live abroad because the better cost of living helps me invest in my business
I've been in Thailand since December 2025, so I've only been here for four months. I kind of just pop in and stay in a country for one to three months a year.
I make those decisions probably about a month early. I have no roots, so it's easy to go wherever the wind blows whenever I get an itch.
When you bounce around, Thailand is convenient because all the flights are there, and a lot of people are there.
Garrido has been in Thailand for about four months.primeimages/Getty Images
There are two other major perks in Thailand.
One is the currency exchange. I'm earning in US dollars and spending in Thai Baht, so the buying power locally far surpasses what you could get in America for that same dollar.
The other is just the general cost of living and quality of life.
The cost of living is way less, so you can get more with much less spending.
About 14 years ago, I was living in McLean, Virginia. I had a one-bedroom, and I was spending $1,970 a month in rent.
In Thailand, I pay about $1,700 a month, but I'm staying in a two-bedroom hotel suite, about 800 square feet. Every day they clean, there's a gym here, a pool, and all that good stuff.
Convenience is off the chain here. Whatever you want, you can have it delivered by bike in 20 minutes.
There are pros and cons to starting a business abroad, but it was the right decision for me
It takes everything to run a business. It takes your full mental focus, your ability, your full effort, everything.
I live a pretty good life in Bangkok right now, but if I were in the early stages when you're trying to get funding, in my case, I could go all the way down to spending only $100 a week — I'd still be able to live in a studio and it wouldn't be the end of the world. The first time I came here in 2018, my monthly rent was $400.
So now that I have X amount of money to invest in the business, the huge amount of savings here gives you the ability to take a risk.
Garrido started his business while already overseas.Courtesy of Ryan Garrido
When you start, you have operating costs. Shopify might be $40 a month, you have other software that could be $80 a month, plus you have to invest in advertising. So when you get started, you have to put $500 to $1,000 into advertising to start generating revenue.
So all in, you're looking at about $2,500. I wouldn't have had that available had my rent not been $400. So I had the liquidity available to take that chance.
To be fair, if I were in America, I could utilize banks better. I could have gone to the bank, gotten a loan, or gotten credit cards. It's easier when you're there in person rather than being abroad — any guy off the street could access $100,000 in funding with a reasonable credit score. Average Americans don't know they have access to this amazing credit market that no other country in the world has access to.
When someone wants to be a digital nomad and thinks, "Well, I want to take advantage of this arbitrage opportunity where my cost of living is less, and I could earn dollars and spend them in other currencies," they should do a lot of research. Don't just jump into it. Get all your ducks in a row.
Running a business abroad isn't always easy. Even getting mail can sometimes be an issue. Your business addresses, your personal addresses, where your driver's license needs to be renewed, that kind of thing can all get complicated.
There are pros and cons everywhere. There is no one-size-fits-all. But for me, it's worth it.
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