Happy Indepence Day!

I had to scroll through old photos to remember the last time I spent Independence Day in the U.S.

It was July 4, 2017.
I threw a barbecue on my New York rooftop.
A little bold, considering I lived in a five-story walk-up built in 1890. The grill was tiny, the chairs were borrowed, and we hauled everything up five flights. But it didn’t matter. The sky lit up with fireworks and possibility, and for a moment, it felt like freedom.

Seven years later, my version of independence looks very different.

There’s no rooftop now—no fixed address.
Just me, a suitcase, and a sense of home that shifts with every border I cross.

And lately, I’ve been asking myself: is the U.S. still the land of independence? The place where you can become anything, reinvent everything?

Or is that spirit alive in something else now—in a new kind of world we’re building together?

Because there are 35 million of us living location-independent lives. People working remotely, living globally, and choosing freedom over familiarity. We’re not chasing the old dream. We’re writing new ones.

We’re the new pioneers.
And like any frontier, it’s not always easy.

We trade comfort for movement.
Community for constant reinvention.
Stability for a chance to live on our own terms.

We explain our lives to strangers and governments and banks. We deal with the logistics—taxes, SIM cards, and time zones. We answer awkward questions about where we “live.” And dating? It’s complicated.

But still—we keep going.

Because this life, for all its challenges, gives us something rare:
The freedom to choose.
To change.
To create something entirely our own.

So wherever you are today—on a Brooklyn rooftop or a beach in Bali—I hope you take a moment to celebrate not just the country you come from, but the life you’ve chosen.

Because July 4 isn’t just about where we were born.
It’s about what we’re building.
And the freedom it takes to build it.

Happy Independence Day.