Long-term travel is a dream for many throughout the world. But travel takes money, and you can only travel for so long without having to go back home to work to make more money to travel. Or… do you?
In this post, we are going to cover the top 5 ways to make money while you are traveling to help you stay on the road for as long as you can:
Create a Travel Blog or Vlog
Imagine yourself flipping up your camera while walking in the streets of Shanghai and talking about your day, then making money on the video you make later. Or maybe setting up in a beach chair in Bali with your laptop and spending the whole day writing about traveling while sipping a Mai Tai. Well if you enjoy writing or filming content, or even both, then creating either a travel blog or a vlog to document your adventures could be a great way to go.
Travel Blogging
If you love writing, then start a blog! Blogging is definitely the lower cost route to go since all you need is a laptop and some good internet connection to start. Set up a website on platforms like WordPress or SquareSpace and get to writing about your adventures.
Check out some of our favorite travel bloggers for some inspiration to get your blog started:
Our Favorite Travel Bloggers
Travel Vlogging
Travel vlogging is the route that we’ve personally chosen to go because we love filming and telling stories on camera. We’ve fallen in love with travel vlogging through watching famous travel couples like Kara and Nate, Flying the Nest, and Endless Adventure share their amazing adventures around the world.
However, travel vlogging can be more costly, more time-intensive, and requires a bit more learning than blogging. For starters, you will need to invest in vlogging equipment to shoot your videos with, like a camera (though many people just use their phones and it turns out just fine), as well as software to help you edit your videos to cut your footage, add music, and text. Next, you will need to learn how to edit videos on platforms like iMovie or Adobe Premiere Pro, which can be a bit of a learning curve.
Making Money from Vlogging & Blogging
Making money from blogging or vlogging certainly does not happen overnight. The majority of your money from blogging or vlogging will come from advertising on either your travel website or on your video platform like YouTube. That means that the more people see your videos, the more you will get paid. However, many platforms require you to hit a specified level of subscribers or monthly viewers to even start getting paid at all.
YouTube, for example, requires you to have 1,000 subscribers on your channel and 4,000 public watch hours to qualify for their YouTube Partners program that allows ads to be shown on your videos. We have been on YouTube for over a year now and still haven’t made a single cent from all of the hours we have put in. But we are SO close to hitting 1,000 subscribers (please subscribe today if you haven’t yet)!
However, your hard work can pay off in a big way. If you focus on putting on really high-quality stuff out there that people like reading or watching, then you will inevitably start getting paid eventually.
And the coolest part about creating a high-quality blog or vlog is that once you are done with it, the video or blog post will sit there and make money for you. The more good blogs or vlogs you make, the more sources of money you create which will all pile up to a bigger and bigger paycheck.
Teach English Abroad
There are programs in countries all around the world that will pay you to teach English. Imagine getting the chance to live in places like South Korea, China, or Vietnam for a year and interacting with locals on a daily basis.
We’ve actually made an entire video on my experience of teaching English for a year in China, so make sure to check that out if you haven’t yet!
While teaching English in another country may not pay you loads of money, the program or school might pay for housing and many other essentials, so any money you make can go towards fun trips in between teaching. Or you could save up your money to take a longer trip after you’re done teaching.
Become a Digital Nomad
There are many companies out there that are looking for roles like freelance writers, freelance designers, and freelance coders that allow you to work when you want, wherever you want.
I (Ben) actually worked as a freelance writer for a while for a video game website. I got paid based on how much I wanted to write, so if I wanted to make more money one month then I would work my butt off. But I could also go a little easier the next month and have more free time.
While freelance writing didn’t pay me a lot of money, it offered a nice little bonus paycheck every month to help keep me going. More specialized skills like coding will offer even better money from freelance jobs
There are many job boards out there specifically for digital nomad type jobs. You can find a list of websites to check out in the description below:
Our Favorite Digital Nomad Job Boards
The nice thing about freelancing is that you can make your own hours. If you want to take a day off, go for it! However, freelancing lacks the many benefits of a salaried job like health insurance or help with retirement savings.
If you don’t want to go the freelance route and would rather have salaried job with benefits, many companies out there are now more flexible than ever when it comes to remote work as a result of COVID-19 forcing many companies to rethink how they operate. If you look hard enough, you may be able to find a salaried job that allows you the flexibility to work from any time zone.
For More Hands-On People: Find a Job in the Country That You Travel To
Rarely will jobs that you find in the countries you travel to make you a lot of money, but it will at least be enough to break even on living expenses. You could work on a farm in New Zealand, help pick fruits in France, work at a hostel for a while on the Mediterranean, be part of a crew on a cruise ship. The possibilities are endless.
Here are some of our favorite job boards for finding jobs in other countries:
Overseas Job Boards for Travelers
Invest in Assets that Earn You Money Passively
If you have a good chunk of money sitting around, then consider investing it in an asset that will pay you a monthly paycheck while you are traveling.
Buying Rental Properties
One option for an asset that will pay you on a monthly basis is buying and owning rental properties. While maintaining rental properties can be a lot of work to set up, they can run like a well-oiled machine if you set up your process for handling renters correctly, like having a property manager to handle any issues with renters and a mechanic that can respond to any problems with the house.
If you would like to dive more into investing in rental properties for passive income, then I would suggest checking out BiggerPockets.com, which has a vast library of knowledge about buying and owning rental properties for you to utilize.
Investing in Websites
Another option for a source of passive income is to buy a website that makes money from ads, from referring people to products on websites like Amazon, or from selling their own items. Choosing the website route for buying an asset is a great option for travelers since you can work on your website wherever you have a good internet connection, unlike a house which can’t move anywhere.
Like houses, websites can either be really easy to just buy and make money from or they can be fixer-uppers that require more work before they making you any money. It all depends how much money you want to invest in them and how much work you’re willing to put in. Check out Empire Flippers for more information on buying websites for passive income.
So those are 5 of the top ways to make money while traveling. Of course, the 5 options we presented in this video are not the only ways that you could possibly make money on the road. We’ve heard of options like house sitting in other countries, nannying or tutoring, and so many other ways that creative travelers have found to make some extra money while traveling. However you choose to make money on the road, we hope that your travels can stretch for as long as your heart wills them to go.
The Map Pinners 