Andrew Henderson - Nomad Capitalist: How to Reclaim Your Freedom with Offshore Bank Accounts, Dual Citizenship, Foreign Companies, and Overseas Investments

Dateline: Las Vegas, United States

There was only one reason I had chosen to return to the United States that cold January evening. After a year basking in the warmth of the tropics, it wasnt so that US Airways could destroy my brand new luggage (as they had), or so that I could gamble on the Strip (as I had many times before). It wasnt even for the fluffy cotton candy that graced our dinner table that evening.

No, I was in Las Vegas as a messenger.

My mission? To deliver a wake-up call.

I stood in front of a packed conference room full of guests and declared that there was no reason for them to continue living, banking, doing business, or even being a citizen of a country that no longer served them.

They had more options.

I knew this because I had spent years observing and taking advantage of disparities in the way things are done around the world. I had worked to benefit from everything other countries have to offer, from higher interest rates to nicer women. The past year abroad was simply an intensification of those efforts.

Barely a year before the conference, I had sold my last US-based business in order to go from frequent traveler to full-time nomad. Tired of paying 40% or more of my income in taxes and shopping at the same Trader Joes, I was ready to totally transform the way I lived and did business.

Finally free, my mission was to find all the gaps in the system. I would go beyond Tim Ferrisss version of geoarbitrage using cheap production and labor in one part of the world and selling to high-paying customers in the West and delve deeper into the global economy to leverage everything it had to offer. I would visit the worlds emerging hot spots, places that few were talking about, and discover the opportunities that still fewer could even imagine. In doing so, I would create the conditions for my ultimate personal freedom and economic prosperity.

And that is exactly what I did.

I spent all of 2013 traversing East and Southeast Asia, deliberately planning each stop in countries like Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia to fully understand where the opportunities existed in those countries, the worlds new frontiers in an Asian century. I met with a cabinet member in the Philippines, the CEO of Vietnams largest western bank in Saigon, a private equity fund manager in Cambodia, and countless startups, expat entrepreneurs, and nomads staking their claims and making their fortunes in the worlds final frontiers.

Along the way, I shared my experiences and insights with a growing audience of readers, but I knew I could do more to help them. After a year of non-stop travel and research, I returned to the United States to reveal the opportunities I had discovered abroad in person. It was a simple message about how they could keep more of their money and live a better life, but the crux of the whole conference was for them to form their own game plan for everything offshore, ranging from foreign bank accounts to second passports.

For the hundred or so folks who had paid $2,000 each to attend, it was a chance to learn the secrets of the universe as it were; a new way to live and make money that few knew about or imagined could even be legal. For me, it felt like Napoleons return to Paris; the story of a man exiled, yet emboldened to come back one last time.

That was because it would be among my last times in the United States. I had made the conscious decision one you can make, too, if you so desire that the grass was greener in the Malaysias, Serbias, and Mexicos of the world than where I grew up. Times had changed and the United States that was once lauded as the best place to be born was no longer so.

Bearing the theme Fight or Flight, the conference was designed to help the audience members who knew little about these greener pastures decide exactly what they needed to do to survive and thrive in this changing world. Would they stay where things were familiar but in decay, or go where the grass was indeed greener?

For most people, front page stories of chaos in the rest of the world are cause enough to stay home; but not for my guests, nor for me. We realized that the real world is far different than the sensational headlines designed to incite fear and keep people from bettering their lives.

Despite being more aware of the changing world than most, my guests were naturally still confused about what they should do. Should they move overseas? Open an offshore bank account? Get a second passport? Bury gold inside an ammo can in their backyard and mark the spot with an X? They had come to my conference to find out.

Amidst the speeches and breakout sessions designed to broaden guests mindsets to the world of opportunity just waiting for them, a small group of VIPs and I took to experiencing Las Vegas as Nomad Capitalists in a private dining room with a balcony overlooking the city. The menu was a whats what of hipster fare only found in the Land of the Free, culminating with a dessert of cotton candy and Oreos. Only in Sin City would a $150-a-plate joint serve up circus food for dessert.

After dinner, as several of the event speakers and I sat sipping cocktails and conversing about our travels (I disagree! Rwanda is better in the summer!), a conference manager came through the restaurant advising everyone that the last shuttle back to our hotel was leaving.

When the manager earnestly advised a libertarian raconteur not to miss the final shuttle, the man looked up from what must have been (conservatively) his sixth or seventh rum and Coke and remarked quite matter-of-factly, Shuttles are for slaves.

His declaration took a while to sink in... Shuttles are for slaves.

What exactly did he mean?

As our conference continued throughout the weekend, however, I realized just how telling my friends remarks truly were. We had all joined together to learn how to escape the fate of becoming slaves to the system. We were tired of the government telling us what to do and how much to pay. We felt uncomfortable in a country that called itself the land of the free but did not do much to qualify for the claim. We were watching others pass us by as their businesses and wealth grew faster.