Saving money for travel is always a challenge.
But you have an option.
You can make money as you travel and recoup at least some of the cost of the trip.
Yes, there are a number of ways to make money as you travel whether your travel is short term or long term.
Below you'll first find ideas for short-term travelers. All of these can be added to the list below that which has ideas more appropriate for long-term travelers. I hope these tips help everyone travel longer, farther and more often, because that's what Travel Money Tuesdays is all about.
Make Money as You Travel Short-term.
- Rent Your Place While You're Gone. The sharing economy has created many opportunities for people to earn money. Renting you apartment or house on airbnb while you're away could earn you hundreds if not thousands of dollars. TripAdvisor also offers this service with its Vacation Home Rentals as does Roomorama with over 300,000 vacation rentals worldwide. Make sure you have a reliable friend or family member ready to receive your renters and answer any questions or deal with any issues in your absence.
- Produce and sell your own tours online. If you're a planner and like taking video of your travels why not video the tour you've planned for yourself and then sell it on Ever.travel. Ever.travel lets you produce video or audio tours and sell them online. They have helpful guidelines, Ever.travel sets your price and you get 60% of the revenue.
- Get paid for your road trip. This is cool and if it was in Canada I would definitely do it. With Roadie you can be a courier for packages from one part of the US to another. There are local gigs (that's what they call a trip) and long-distance ones. Most local gigs pay from $8 to $20 and long-distance gigs with oversized items can pay up to $400. If I were to do it I'd let the delivery gigs plan my trip. There are various security checks involved for both drivers and clients.
- Rent your car while you're out of town. According to their site, “FlightCar lets people parking at the airport rent their vehicles out to other approved traveling members. Every rental is insured up to $1 million. Members get free parking, a car wash, and get paid if their car is rented out. Approved members renting a FlightCar get the lowest rental rates guaranteed, with free insurance, free extras and no fees. It’s free to join!” In addition to Flightcar, Turo and Getaraound offer similar services.
- Busk. In a safe public square show off your musical talent or perform an exquisite poem by heart… You don't need a large repertoire as people move along all the time.
- Sell cool stuff you find on your travels. Are you a shopper? Are you good at marketing things you love? Find products on your travels that are totally unique and/or inexpensive that you can bring home and sell.
Make Money as You Travel Long-term
- Work at a Hostel. Hostels are often staffed by travelers. Consequently they are often looking for staff. The pay won't be tops but you will get a room as well.
- Sell your talent online. Fiverr.com and Fiver.co.uk are sites where you can sell your services for $5 (or more). It's amazing what people will sell. If you can edit video or do web design you'll do well. But even if you have only one talent, impersonating one celebrity, you'll likely get gigs recording a phone message in that voice. Or, if like one guy, you have a puppet, you could produce a video message with your puppet. It's endless.
- Freelance from the road. Upwork helps you find freelance work – all kinds of freelance work. There's everything from acting as a virtual assistance to doing bookkeeping, customer support, web design and writing. These are freelance jobs you can pick up along the way.
- Tutor or teach English as a second language. Tutoring can be a relatively short-term gig while teaching ESL tends to me more of a commitment. ESL Cafe is a great resource for prospective teachers. Also check out Teacher Traveler, excellent blog for teachers who want to travel.
- Get a part-time or short-term job. Working retail or in a restaurant may be an option for you. Make sure you know whether it's legal and what visa you require to do so. Google “travel and work in _____” to find reliable information like this article on traveling and working in Australia. Working on a farm during harvest season may be another option. Check out Picking Jobs, a site that gives you basic information as well as a listing of picking jobs in 18 countries. If you're in Israel you may want to work on a kibbutz. You won't get paid but you will get room and board.
- Become an Au Pair. Are you good with children. Settle into a community and take care of a family's children for a year or more. Go Au Pair has been matching families with Au Pairs for 28 years. They have listings in 8 countries including the United States.
And why not earn money for a good cause as you walk the world…
You can make money for a favorite charity just by walking around. Charity Miles is an app that taps into an activity monitor on your phone. Before you head out for the day, (whether at home or traveling) use the app to choose your charity, indicate whether you’ll be walking, running or cycling, and then just go. The money Charity Miles collects from their sponsors is distributed to charities based on their app users’ activity and charity choices.