About Arnan

My name is Arnan de Gans. I am from the Netherlands. I'm in my 30s.

I left school when I was 16 and worked as an electrician and security systems technician for a few years. Then went back to school in 2005, got bored and left early again to work Support for an Apple reseller in 2007 before moving on to an Apple Repair shop in 2009. Then I moved on to a data recovery lab in 2011

All the while I had this silly hobby. Web-development. It was fun. And finally in 2012 I started for myself as a freelance developer. I spent a few months on building a more professional website, turning some plugins I made into paid products and I've been a freelance web-developer ever since. Usually I'm working on something WordPress related.

Over the years I'd become increasingly dissatisfied with the European situation and figured I wasn't going to be happy if I stayed for much longer. Worn out by rising costs, poor weather, ignorance, illegal immigrants and many more frustrations I felt that I had to make some drastic changes to my life. After a year of planning I left my plain and unfulfilling life in the Netherlands behind. Since then I've lived in the Philippines and visited Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia – Hoping to find a better place. Currently I'm in Mexico, continuing my search. I haven't quite found it yet.

When leaving the Netherlands I sold pretty much all of my belongings and I've turned into a bit of a minimalist. I don’t have a lot of clutter anymore. Everything I own fits in two bags. I find that this works very well for me. The few possessions I have are much more valuable and are more carefully weighed if I should have them at all. On top of that, my life got more minimalistic as well. I found new things to do and learned to leave behind a lot of things and habits. My life tends to be a bit simpler because of it, but at the same time my traveling lifestyle brought a whole new set of challenges.

Travel & Work

In early 2019 I moved to Mexico as a temporary resident. Over the next few years I hope to explore the country and maybe even stay here permanently. But if not, I'll probably head south for a while. Or go see the Grand Canyon and the Statue of Liberty.

Everywhere where the wifi is good

I work online as something of a Digital Nomad. But I'm not all that Digital. Just being a Nomad is enough for me. I work from various locations, whatever the mood and availability is, the world is my office. Though, to be able concentrate more I prefer the quiet of my own place.
I maintain a growing library of plugins for WordPress and WooCommerce such as AdRotate and AdRotate Pro. Currently I am available as a freelance developer. I know PHP/MySQL/HTML/CSS and a bit of JavaScript. Among other things.

Adventure on wheels

I love exploring on a motorcycle. All my possessions on the back, and just go. Following the road, or path, to the next interesting looking place. Where I'll then probably stay for a while. While there I'll explore everything I want to see and discover. There is no plan other than a general direction and some cities or areas I want to check out. Most of the time planning doesn't go much further than about 1 to 2 months ahead while traveling.

I'm searching for my paradise. It turns out that paradise is a hard thing to find. I've been all over Europe. More recently I've been to South East Asia. Namely the Philippines and Malaysia. Both are good fun for a while. But both countries are not what I'm looking for.
On my travels I am joined by various people from time to time including some girlfriends and my mother, Jeanette.

If you have questions or want to discuss something related to where I've been or what I do feel free to send a message using the social links in the lower left.