Making Money on the Road
I see this question asked a lot as younger people are interested in traveling but are not retired yet; how in the world can a person afford to travel all of the time?
Traveling full time is not for everyone but if are interested in leaving the sticks and bricks behind and live full time in a camper or RV, it does have to be affordable unless you have an endless money supply put back somewhere.
A few things we considered:
Becoming debt free: Paul was going to quit his 60K job and we needed to make sure we could really afford that
How much do we really want to work on the road: we want to explore new areas and see things, we do not want to be stuck working all of the time; so finding that balance was important to us. When you are moving from place to place it cost money so being willing to slow down and spend some time (months) in different areas was going to be necessary. It is easy to be in vacation mode but impossible to be on vacation all the time.
Online Jobs
This is the first category of jobs that I see a lot of people looking for. There are some legitimate online jobs that pay real money, however, I feel it's the most difficult type to find. Although, there is probably an increase in the number and type of online jobs out there, so many people are looking for them and in my opinion just get snatched up quickly; at least the good ones do. They don't come around as often as some of the other opportunities either. Who doesn't want to be able to work online all of the time, even those who don't travel would love to be able to stay home, work and make good money.
Remote careers:
Some people already have a remote career and work from home already so it is easy for these people to transition to full-time travel while keeping their current job. This happens to be my case. Also, it is important to know that most of these people have worked many years in an office, with a company, not at home before ever being able to work full time online. I spent 13 years in the traditional classroom, then another 4 in an office before transitioning to 100% Work From Home. Bottom line: it doesn't happen overnight and rarely your first career.Online Virtual Assitance and Other jobs like that:
These are the type of jobs you hear people having, easy peasy online jobs, no degree required, no brick and mortar experience required and to many the dream jobs to find while traveling full time.I have never had any luck finding these jobs and I have looked. Not that I wanted to leave my job for them, looking to supplement income with these type of jobs. I did find one legitimate company and sounded like really good extra income but I did not pass the initial screening because I did not have a grounded ethernet internet connection. My internet is wireless and to work for them, you had to have an actual internet line. I know there are many other type online jobs out there, but there are also so many scams and such that it is hard to filter through them all. For every one solid online job, there are at least 10 scams/ or a waste of time ones.
Just Google Legit Virtual Assistant jobs; or real work from home jobs and you can find lists after lists that get you nowhere. Most of the time these jobs pay little and you are not going to make the money you would in a traditional career. If you are able to find any of these type jobs usually you have to spend a lot of hours and end up making very little for that time. It takes a lot of time just finding these, to begin with. I don't have any specific websites or leads to help in this area either because I haven't been able to find them and do not have the time to spend searching.
Anyone out there working with these type of jobs feel free to share the websites to get directly to them, there has to be a reason why they aren't shared; only the lists that bring you to more lists and more lists and never get anywhere.
I know Amazon and other companies hire work from home people but it also takes searching to find those.
Teach English to Chinese Students Online:
This is legit and I know many people who do this. You do have to have a bachelor degree. You do have to work some weird hours, usually super early in the morning. You do have to sell yourself and be entertaining and engaging because if you are not, you won't get bookings.
I know people who get plenty of bookings and make lots of extra money doing so and are happy, perky people at 3 am; I am not one of those people; if you are, go for it and have fun, it is real money.
If you know of anyone already doing this, hit them up for a code because they get money for recruiting.
https://www.vipkidteachers.com/
To note: it works like this; once hired, you put in what hours you are available to work and the families overseas have the option of seeing every teacher that is available and when they are available. They will pick a teacher or time that works for them and you teach the short session, I think 20-30 min tops. If they like you they will schedule more time with you, trying to keep the same teacher as long as they are happy with the teacher. Some people have been doing this for years and have good ratings and experience, it is like searching for hotels, you read the reviews, you read the information and see if it's a good fit and if so you get repeat business. I can't tell you how competitive it is; I just know of a lot of people who do this and love it. I am not sure you can make a full-time income with it. but I know it is a great supplemental income.
If you are already a certified teacher there are some online schools that you can try and work for; you will have read about their requirements, some like for you to live in-state but there are opportunities out there for certified teachers.
The one growing is: https://www.proxlearn.com/careers
Which brings us to our next category:
Posting your own Online Services
I am seeing this becoming more and popular; for example, you offer tutoring services, there are job boards where you can put your services out there and people hire you. It's like care.com and the one for pet care; except these are remote services. I feel the results are probably similar to these other sites; you may be able to pick up gigs here and there and maybe good supplemental income but probably will not make a career out of them.
Selling products online:
I know a lot of people who did too, sell essential oils, cookware, cleaning products, lots of options and some people enjoy selling things. I personally don't and will never because my social circle is way too small and I don't like asking people to buy things. Again, I think this serves as a great supplemental income for some people.YouTube:
Some people do make good money with YouTube, some people make a little bit of money with YouTube so you are interested in making videos, do some research on how to make money with YouTube and learn all about it. I know the basics, get so many subscribers and start earning money with it. YouTube does better than blogging in my opinion and people would rather watch a video than read about it.Seasonal Jobs
To me, these are the easiest and most reliable type of jobs to find while traveling. They can be in National Parks, Amusement Parks, campgrounds, Water Parks, and more.
So I give up my career to go do these "teenager jobs" It sounds horrible I know and some of these jobs are annoying but they are seasonal and provide an income; at least during the season.
Most of these type of jobs are super easy to get because they need lots of people during the season they are opened. It takes a lot of people to help run places while hundreds and thousands of people come to play and explore these parks during the season.
Some of the jobs include:
Restaurant workers
Ride operators
Retail
Security
Maintenance
Lodging (Front Desk and Housekeeping)
Other behind the scene jobs
Some places even provide housing (dorm type or RV site) and meals
The great thing about these type jobs is that they are everywhere, so pick where you want to go and search for openings in that area. It is also a good idea to apply early so you can get what you want.
Workamping
Workamping jobs are seasonal but they are specific for RV'ers and include all of the above but you can also camphost. This is where you are set up in a campground and you help keep the campground clean, help take care of the guests and the cabins if they have any. These vary a lot depending on the campground.
There are some companies that hire camp hosts: KOA is one and Xanterra works with the National Parks to hire people as well.
You can agree to a season, or time frame agreed upon so it is a great way to be able to travel and work some. Some will hire full time and some part-time so you can have the flexibility and not kill yourself working all of the time.
Summary of our first year on the road and Working
Janiece: An online teacher, works 40+ hours a week dedicated to the career and students. My work requires the internet which I use the Verizon mifi jet pack and phone hot spots when necessary. The pre-paid unlimited plan provides truly unlimited internet. This plan was discontinued in May 2019 but I am grandfathered in and as long as I do not let it lapse I will be able to continue enjoying this plan.
I usually stay busy in the summer but in 2018 I did help out at Adventureland in Iowa since I was not teaching summer school.
Other than that, I did not participate in any workamping or seasonal jobs on the road.
Paul's Experiences on the road:
- Adventureland in Iowa June-September 2018
- Dollywood in Pigeon Forge TN October-December 2018
- Off Workamping from January-May 2019
We used this time to visit family, take a vacation trip to Disney World and to take our time getting to Montana, stopping and seeing several National Parks and spending time in New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming before finally getting to Montana
- Glacier National Park, MT: June 1-September 15 2019
- Beet harvest, Sidney MT: September 25- October? Should be about two weeks
- Off Workamping October-December
- Camp Host: Goliad State Park, Goliad TX: January - March 2020
Will complete a blog on this later
We do have anything planned out past March 2020 but will look for cooler places at that time and probably will not stay south; we like to go to cooler climates in the summer and warmer climates in the winter.
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