Make a Living While Traveling
Many legitimate ways to make a living while traveling are available to those who want a career on the go. These jobs can help fund your next domestic or overseas adventure, build business networking connections and allow you to have fun in the process. Before buying an airline ticket or hitting the road in a recreational vehicle, conduct a careful skills assessment. Then carefully research applicable work opportunities, save money and create enough room in your itinerary to enjoy your destination of choice outside of work hours.
Steps
- Assess your job skills and unpaid talents. Begin your travel income research by listing a complete inventory of things you can to do to make money traveling. Having a portable skill is vital to funding your adventures and can be anything from teaching subjects such as English or music, to growing and harvesting crops on an organic farm.
- Decide what you will and won't do to make money traveling. If your most valuable and natural talents are something you no longer enjoy, consider strengthening your skill sets in less familiar areas. Your favorite unpaid hobbies can be something that an organization will pay you to do, such as gardening or teaching music.
- Research legitimate travel work opportunities and logistics. Extended travel websites such as TransitionsAbroad.com and GoAbroad.com are information portals for learning how to find short and long-term overseas jobs and obtaining work Visas for everything from internships in non-profit organizations to information technology work for international companies.
- Consider serving as a volunteer. Most volunteer positions can last a few weeks or several months and often help build connections that can lead to paid work.
- Assist a humanitarian aid group or other non-profit organization. These organizations conduct various projects ranging from building sanitation facilities to providing medical care. Many will pay volunteers' basic living expenses.
- Set a time frame for finding paid work while volunteering and budget enough money to cover costs if your volunteer stipend runs out.
- Work seasonally as a campground host at national parks, campgrounds or resorts. If you prefer to travel by RV, you can often find paid work that provides a small wage and oftentimes a free RV parking space with full hookups.
- Allow yourself at least three months to work at a recreation facility, especially during summer. Many outdoorsy destinations are only open from June through August and ask workers to remain for the entire season.
- Generate income through the Internet. Working online using your current skills is one of the easiest ways to make money on the road domestically but can be expensive while overseas.
- Consider developing a blog related to your specific travels. This can allow you to document your journey while generating income through online advertisers who pay you based on the number of people that click through their ads on your site.
- Research connectivity options for your travel itinerary then consider ways you can set up a virtual office for income-generating opportunities in travel-related information.
- Teach English overseas to non-native speakers. In most cases, a person needs a bachelor's degree from a major university to become an instructor.
- Acquire a Teach English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) degree from an academic institution. Many overseas teaching institutions prefer for teachers to have this certificate before instructing students.
- Prepare to stay in your destination for several months. Teaching English overseas requires a long term commitment of at least a semester and sometimes longer.
- Save as much money as possible to meet income shortfalls. Most people sacrifice some of their current standard of living in order to take extended travel trips. Since the pay scale for many temporary, travel-oriented jobs falls short of a more secure, long-term job, always have extra money saved to cover unexpected expenses and small luxuries you want to enjoy while traveling.
Tips
- Use mobile devices discreetly in foreign countries and keep vital data backups stored separately. Computers and smart phones are often targets of theft, especially in railway stations and crowded areas.
Warnings
- Getting paid to travel is a popular money-making scheme for Internet opportunists. Before spending any money on guidance, research the legitimacy of the advice by asking others in online discussion forums located on websites dedicated to working while traveling, such as LonelyPlanet.com.
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