There’s no doubt that regular travellers will have suffered significantly since the emergence of the coronavirus pandemic, with international borders either closed or at the mercy of sustained restrictions.
However, the same borders are now beginning to open up, and while some restrictions remain in place, some of the world’s most far-flung and exotic locations are taking tentative steps towards normality and welcoming tourists once again.
With the recent unstoppable rise in remote working, many keen travellers with particularly itchy feet are hatching plans to head abroad, see the world, and make some extra money while doing so. If you’re keen to do the same, here are 6 potential alternative income streams for travellers.
THE BENEFITS OF EARNING AND TRAVELLING
Ultimately, it can be hard to plan for international trips, especially if you like to enjoy extended visits abroad or relatively unstructured excursions.
The reason for this is simple; most travellers operate on a restricted budget that may not be able to sustain those truly epic trips abroad. If you’ve got your heart set on a truly ambitious travelling experience, then making moves to make a little money on the side can facilitate a trip even more spectacular in scope.
One of the best ways to achieve this objective is, ideally, by creating viable, passive streams of income that enable you to earn cash without compromising your overall travelling experience.
Something that can be done via a laptop, then, or a transient role adaptable to your chosen destination, is perfect.
With that in mind, here are 6 potential alternative income streams for travellers.
TRAVEL PHOTOGRAPHY
As the National Geographic writes “when traveling, you’re likely to encounter all sorts of situations and subjects”. This unrefutable fact makes you ideally placed to become a travel photographer.
Photography is, after all, a job that requires you to travel in order to create content. But who will you sell your snaps to? According to Wanderlust, “big online stock libraries are always looking for fresh images, and want to offer as much as variety as possible”. Start by selling your photos on these stock sites, and perhaps this will open up your work to a wider audience. One can dream, right?
Read: 5 IDEAL travel tips for amateur photographers
BECOME A TRAVEL VLOGGER
In case you’ve been living under a large, undocumented rock in recent years, the term ‘vlogging’ is a mashup of the ‘video’ and ‘blogging’. Like blogging, vlogging is a creative way to connect with an audience, and it has seen a huge rise in exposure as video-sharing platforms become more ubiquitous.
Some people start travel vlogging as a hobby or a way to keep far flung family members up-to-date. But others have found that their pursuits can generate enough income to become their full-time profession. Those in the latter category make unique, captivating content which draws viewers in quickly and don’t let them go until the video ends.
Should your YouTube channel or travel vlog have enough viewers, you can actually monetise your popularity via a thing called drop shipping, by offering custom merchandise to your followers, such as T-shirts, custom printed hoodies, sweaters, mugs or posters showcasing your travel photos or catchphrases.
Doable on the go without any geographical attachment, you could, for example, sell personalised apparel designs and let others handle the production, inventory management, and logistics. When an order is placed, the print-on-demand service prints the design on the product and ships it directly to the customer. You don’t have to worry about inventory, printing or shipping, and you earn from the price difference between the cost of production and your selling price.
MONETISE A PERSONAL SKILL IN THE GIG ECONOMY
The so-called gig economy remains a significant and fast-growing entity, and one that employs approximately 4.4% of the UK population.
This equates to around 2.8 million people. While the gig economy traditionally calls to mind Deliveroo drivers and Amazon deliverers, in reality, it is dominated by digital roles such as social media marketing, web design and copywriting.
These jobs are in particularly high demand in the modern age, as the world moves the vast majority of their business (and pleasure) into the online sphere.
RENT OUT YOUR EMPTY SPACE
If you have space available in the home that you’ll be leaving empty while you travel, then you can also monetise it by listing that space for use on sites such as AirBnB. This enables you to create a genuinely passive stream of income, and one that can be sustained for the duration of your trip.
Of course, some caveats do apply; it’s extremely unlikely you’ll be able to sublet a room should you be renting your property. And if you’re a homeowner, you’ll likely need to employ someone to take care of the checking in/out, cleaning and maintenance of your property while you’re not in the country. Dedicated Airbnb management services might be your best bet if you’re using that platform, whilst there are more generic property management services available, too, if you’re not.
Read: 8 IDEAL tips for preparing your house for AirBnb guests
TEACH ENGLISH
If you’re reading this, you likely speak English with a fair degree of fluency. Sometimes that’s all you need for a rewarding career abroad. Or, if you’re looking for something less committal and more transient, teaching English as a second language can help you with that, too.
Of course, it’s not as simple as rocking up to a school and doing your A,B,Cs. You’ll need training and qualifications before you can stand up in front of a class and explain the past perfect continuous tense with confidence.
Some companies require you have TEFL, CELTA or equivalent certification, but it should be noted that some organisations will actually pay for you to take the required courses once you’re installed in your new location.
Whether you plan to travel widely or live in one place for a set period, teaching English is a great way to make decent money while seeing a new country. Depending on where you go, you may need to get a qualification like a TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language), so you should look into this first.
VIRTUAL ASSISTANT
The past 18 months have seen businesses large and small move the majority of their operations online. As a result, many companies have been motivated to hire virtual assistants to help them stay organised and not fall behind on administrative tasks. A virtual assistant is not much different from a traditional office assistant, except for the fact that they do most of their job remotely, from a distance. You get where we’re going with this one, right?
Tasks virtual assistants may have to complete include managing social media accounts, responding to emails, creating, organizing and sharing business-related documents and scheduling meetings or trips. They are simply not stationed in the same building as their company or manager…in other words, it could be you, from a beach in Barbados, ducking and diving in your boss’ Google Calendar.
There are even dedicated Virtual Assistant platforms that offer short, one off tasks to complete, rather than a more immersive role. Check out Fancy Hands for this. Or, if you’re keen to focus only on Social Media VA roles, then 99 Dollar Social might be your guy.
Should you be looking for Virtual Assistant hiring platforms that cover all degrees of time commitment and experience level, then check out Zirtual and Virtalent.
Good luck, and we’ll see you on the beach, sandy laptop in hand?