About this post: How to travel for a living? How to make money while travelling? How to earn money travel blogging? Jobs involving travel? How to score a travelling job? In this post, I try to sum up answers to all your questions about earning money while travelling – including location independent jobs, freelancing and travel blogging.
Earlier this week, I arrived in my hometown Dehradun, to find a big box waiting for me to open. I was overwhelmed to find a sparkling trophyinside, engraved with my name – a physical testimony to the “Best Indian Travel Blogger” award that I won at the Indian Blogger Awards 2013,held by Indiblogger! A big THANK YOU to everyone for your support, especially those who spared a moment to write a testimonial for this blog.
My inspiration to blog is back with a vengeance, and I’m opening thefloor to questions and topics YOU want me to write about. I promise toshare honest views on travel, places that I’ve been to, and blogging(and life, if you really want my warped perspective). I also hope to open up the discussion to all of you and seek your inputs in thecomments, as well as on Facebook and Twitter.
Please read these FAQs to see topics that have been covered on theblog before, and send me your questions at [emailprotected]with any unanswered questions.
WHAT ARE THE BEST WAYS TO EARN MONEY ON THE GO?
Over the last 2.5 years, I’ve experimented with the following different ways of earning a living on the go. The one thing thatstands out from these experiments is that it takes hard work anddiscipline… unless you’re exceptionally lucky at casinos; I’ve triedand I know I’m not.
1) Keep your corporate job.
I won’t lie to you. A corporate job that let’s you travel is probablythe path of least resistance. Your family will be happy, your bank balance will be happy, and while it does mean sacrificing theflexibility of choosing your dates and destination, you are neverlikely to wake up with a cold sweat in the middle of the nightwondering where your next paycheck will come from (which does happen, by the way). Recently, a friend of mine who graduated from IIMCalcutta, scored a job with a multinational bank that involves himtravelling to different offices for 7 months of the year. With somecareful planning, he can be spending one weekend in Thailand and thenext in Australia. He might not have the time of a slow traveller, buthe certainly will have the financial resources a full time travellernever will. So keep your eyes and ears out, and jump at the chance of awell-paying job that lets you travel.
Read: Things I Wish I Knew Before I Quit My Job to Travel
2) Become a freelancer.
It’s almost fashionable to be a freelancer these days, but I can say with certainty, it’s not for everyone. It takes a strong heart to frequentlyaccept rejections, pick up your pieces all by yourself, and preparefor more rejections. I don’t want to discourage you, but I’ve seenfreelancers fade away within months. The only reason Isurvived my first year as a freelancer was because I managed to scorea yearlong project from a Singapore-based company, that gave me enoughcushioning to slowly learn the ropes in the brutal world of freelancing. As a social media consultant and copywriter, I’m finally finding my feet, learning to say no, and building thediscipline to deliver what (and when) I promise.
By all means, take stock of your talents and skills – writing,coding, whatever it is that you do best and can do on the go – andstart testing your potential to take rejections and work from home ondeadlines. And when you feel like giving up, read about a place thatyou really yearn to travel to. It works for me.
Read: How I Afford My Travels and How You Can Too
3) Take a working holiday.
I know, I know, the damned Indian passport doesn’t allow a workingholiday anywhere in the world. But we have no right to complain until we’ve done a working holiday in India itself. Each state is a world waiting to be discovered, with such diversity of landscapes, lifestyle, culture,festivals and food. So base yourself out of one state at a time, andexplore it to your heart’s content. Offer work of value to a localNGO, write for a regional newspaper, wait tables, do whatever ittakes. You don’t need visas or too much money; give the country achance to surprise you.
Read: The Joy of Slow Travel
4) Work for a travel company.
The last few years have seen a surge of boutique travel companies,especially in India. Many of these startups operate on the go, and ifyou can prove to be an asset to them plus have the discipline ofworking while travelling, it’s a win-win.
But I want to add a caveat here: on a daily basis, we receive emailsfrom people wanting to work for India Untravelled because “they love to travel”. They don’t bother researching the kind of work we do orhow they can fit in to the company and add value. No one’s running a charity, and if your introductory email creates the impression thatyou just want to leverage the company to travel yourself, forget aboutit. Even the role of a tour leader, which does need you to beextremely passionate about travelling, needs you to demonstrate that you’re a people’s person and can pay attention to intricate details.Put yourself in the company’s shoes before you apply.
Read: Every New Beginning Comes from Some Other Beginning’s End
5) Work full time for half the year.
Working on the go feels like hard work? I know people who work hardfor half the year, and travel for the other half with their earnings. Seasonal travel companies and contract positions tend to give you suchfreedom, and while it constrains you to only half a year of travel, it rids that half year of pressures that full time travelling comes with.So if you can land a seasonal job, take my saving tips, and putyourself on work, earn, travel, repeat mode.
Read: 10 Life Lessons from 2 Years of Traveling
6) Dabble into travel writing.
I’ve saved what might be the most obvious option, for the last.Because travel writers are popping up by the minute and unless youreally have something exceptional to offer, it’s a tough game. Icurrently earn less than 20% of my income through travel writing (mostpublications pay peanuts), and among all the freelancing work that Ido, it pays the most untimely.
Read: Tips to Break Into Freelance Travel Writing
[Update September 2015]: Soon, I’ll be writing about how I made the transition from being a freelancer with multiple streams of work to fund my travels, to earning 80% of my income from my travel blog.
Your turn, how do you earnmoney while you travel?
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Shivya Nath
Welcome to my blog, The Shooting Star. I’ve been called a storyteller, writer, photographer, digital nomad, “sustainability influencer,” social entrepreneur, solo traveller, vegan, sustainable tourism consultant and environmentalist. But in my heart, I’m just a girl who believes that travel – if done right – has the power to change us and the world we live in.
