I'm in Ireland today, preparing for Easter Sunday by staying up until the small hours on the computer (of course!). I had a nasty moment on the journey over here when I thought it was possible that I'd forgotten my laptop; then I realized that this would in no way prevent me from being able to do my job. All my essential data is stored on box.net and dropbox, so I can get at it anywhere I have an internet connection. My web development "tools" are for the most part quite basic - I code in Wordpad or Notepad (when I'm using Windows) or gEdit (when I'm using Linux), I use freely downloadable FTP/SSH tools like WinSCP and Putty, and all my communications take place using web-based email or Skype/phone. I can quite easily jump on someone else's computer anywhere in the world, do a couple of hours of good work, and never know the difference from being at home (or in an office somewhere).
This shouldn't really keep surprising me, since it was the whole point of moving to the country and becoming a freelance web developer, but it does. I love being nonlocal. I'm not really making enough money (yet) to be able to take full advantage of it, but I can see some future time when I can just wake up and decide "Why don't we all go to France for a few weeks?" and we just do it, and I can still work just like normal. I'll really feel like a far-fetched plan has come together.
