How to Make Money and Travel
How can I make money and travel at the same time? It’s the question all of us travel enthusiasts ask ourselves. Travelling can be expensive. Costs of accommodation, food and activities stacks up, even when you’re sticking to strict budget.
You can rely on your savings for a while, but if you want to travel long-term then you need to be able to make money at travel at the same time. You may see pictures w of us travel bloggers and influencers with majestic mountains behind us or see them soaking up the sun on the beach. But how do we afford to be travelling?
There are a few options. If you’re happy to have a home base, you can become an expat, live abroad and travel in your holiday time. If you want to move around, you need to seek out a career as a digital nomad. The other option – if you have the time, resources and tenacity to go after it – is to become a travel blogger or influencer.
1. Teach Abroad
Becoming a teacher abroad is both a rewarding career and a way to make money while travelling. And you don’t have to have taught before. Teaching jobs abroad tend to pay a good wage in relation to the cost of living in the country. Our first job abroad was teaching English in Taiwan and we were able to save quite a lot of money whilst teaching abroad.
Teaching jobs often have somewhat flexible work hours and school holidays. This gives you plenty of opportunity to travel in the country where you’re working and neighbouring countries. We travelled all over Taiwan and to the Philippines and Vietnam.
We’re fortunate to be native English speakers and ESL jobs are widely available abroad. If you teach English abroad, you don’t need to be able to speak a second language. But becoming a teacher doesn’t only apply to native English speakers. If you speak Spanish or Portuguese or any other language, you can teach that language. There are online websites where you can tutor over Skype.
Read interviews with other teachers in Taiwan.
2. Work Remotely as a Freelance
Another way to make money and travel is to become a digital nomad. If you have computer skills and a good wifi connection, you can find remote work online. If you have skills such as being able to develop websites, design, write content or even do accounting, then you’ll be able to find work easily.
If you don’t have specific skills in these areas though, don’t worry. There are jobs like virtual assistants and data entry jobs which require organised and efficient people but don’t require specific industry experience.
After Luke and I finished our year-long teaching contract in Taiwan, we became freelance writers. We advertised ourselves as freelance writers and secured a few gigs within a month or so. We used UpWork to find projects to work on. Fiverr is another platform commonly used by freelancers to find work.
Working while house sitting in Costa Rica. This was when we first started out – you can tell from Luke’s scruffy hair!
3. Work Remotely for a Company
Being a digital nomad doesn’t mean you have to be a freelancer. After some time working for a digital marketing agency writing blogs and website copy, we got offered an employment contract. Yay! This was great for us because it meant we could continue to work remotely but we had all the benefits that come with being employed (better job security, taxes sorted for you, pension, paid annual leave).
We’ve been working for the same digital marketing agency now for more than five years and this is our main job. We initially worked only 4 hours a day, but now we work full-time. Yep, what you don’t see on Instagram is the 8 hours a day we spend in front of a laptop screen!
In the digital marketing industry, there are an increasingly number of companies who are now fully online. Let me know in the comments if you’d like any more info on the types of roles within remote working digital marketing agencies and I’ll do my best to help you out.
Working from SunDesk coworking space in Morocco.
4. House Sitting
Another way to lessen your travel expenses and earn money abroad is house sitting. We’ve been house sitting across the world for five years and we absolutely love it. House sitting is where you look after someone’s home and pets while they’re away on their holiday.
It means the homeowner has peace of mind that their home and pets are under your safe watch. And the benefit for you is a comfortable, rent-free place to stay. What we love about it is that you can get out of the touristy areas and live in local neighbourhoods.
Many experience house sitters charge a fee for their services. We’ve mostly house sat for free because we only take sits which are convenient for us. However, it is possible to run your own house sitting business and agree a rate with a home owner depending on their specific needs.
House sitting in Guatemala (we were working online whilst house sitting here).
5. Start a Blog
This isn’t an easy one! Starting a blog involves a massive commitment and a lot of hard work. Being successful as a blogger or influencer is difficult. It’s competitive but also time consuming and involves you needing to have multiple skills.
It also takes a long time to start making any money and the income tends to be very sporadic. I don’t rely on my blog for an income, but I make small amounts here and there thanks to brand partnerships and sponsorships.
On a press trip in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. This one wasn’t paid but all expenses are covered.
Other Ways to Make Money and Travel
These first five ways to make money and travel are how I’ve personally managed to do it. However, there are lots of other ways to earn an income whilst travelling. I’ve met people on the road who do all sorts of things. Here are a few more:
6. Work in a Hostel
Hostels often look for extra staff to clean the rooms, work the front desk, or give guests tours around town. Depending on the situation and your commitment, this is either paid work or work in exchange for free room and board.
7. Sell Products Online
Selling products online is another way to make money and travel. You can do this from anywhere in the world, either with stock in a warehouse or by drop shipping. All you need is a product to sell and a platform to sell it on.
You could shop around the local markets in your destination and sell locally made items or artisan goods. In Thailand, I met an American couple who were drop shipping coconut oil via Amazon to the USA. You can sell via Amazon or set up your own website through a platform like Shopify to sell your items online.
8. Pick Fruit, Veggies, and Flowers
If you’re not afraid to get your hands dirty, then try fruit picking. This is a seasonal type of job and it’s not uncommon for farmers to hire extra hands during harvest season. But be warned this is manual labour and requires a lot of physical work, especially if you want to earn more than the average amount of pay.
9. Become an Au Pair
If you love kids, then becoming an au pair abroad could be the career of your dreams! As an au pair, you get to take care of the kids, you’ll get free room and board, and you’ll also get a paycheck every week! You normally get the weekends off and some holiday time. Many au pairs are also involved in teaching the children a new language.
Don’t Believe It’s Possible to Travel the World and Make Money Doing It?
When you see Instagram pics of us digital nomads travelling around the world, what we’re not showing you are hours we spend glued to our laptop screens working. For the privileged few, they’re able to work less now they’ve reached a certain level of influence.
For the vast majority of us travel bloggers and influencers though, we’re working hard. And I don’t just mean working hard on our blogs and social media. Many of us work in freelance jobs doing work unrelated to our blogs. Most of us long-term travellers, also have multiple different income streams.
Working before sunrise in Morocco so we could finish a full workday and have time to go surfing and exploring. Work hard, travel hard!
I’ve already told you my story of how I manage to travel and make money while doing it. If you have any questions, then ask me in the comments and I’ll be happy to share more about my experience.
