Any Ideas for Earning Money back home while doing long-term travel?
 

Hi all, I was looking for ideas on how to earn money ($1000/month) from my home country (USA) while I did long-term travel. I know IT/TEFL are usually the big ones but what are some other ideas?

EXAMPLE: Let's say I wanted to live/travel long term to Guatemala or Thailand. I could live comfortably on $1000/month. There has to be a way to earn money while away, have it deposited into my bank or Paypal. What ideas are there for this sort of thing?

Obviously, it doesn't have to make a huge amount of money compared to 1st world standards. What are your thoughts, are there threads that cover this?

Thanks,
Darren

Re: Any Ideas for Earning Money back home while doing long-term travel?
 

Thanks for asking Darren.

I am actually doing the whole nomadic traveling for the next 2 years too. Plan to travel through Thailand and Vietnam over the next few months.

Anyways... $1000 is not too hard to earn online if you have any simple "freelance" skill.

- Write one article a day for $40.
- Find excel and other spreadsheet based tasks on freelance websites. Charge $10 an hour and work for 4 hours a day.

Of course you will earn more if you have skills like designing or coding. But otherwise, there are hundreds of tasks that will get you $10 per hour online.

Making money from overseas...
 

Hi Darren,

Ankesh gives you good advice!

What you can do and how much you can make depends on what skills you have...

So, it really depends...

However, it's definitely doable!

What I would do is to start establishing your income before you leave...

For example, let's say you planned to make money doing freelance writing. Start it now... through different channels. See how much you can actually make.

If you have your income streams established before you go, you're less likely to get yourself in trouble during your trip...

It's also often easier to work out any unexpected "wrinkles" before you leave, rather than after...!

Without knowing your various skills, though, it's not easy to be more specific. Ideally, if you have an in-demand skill which not many others have, you'll be better off. The more common your skill is, or the less in-demand it is, the harder it could be to earn good money...

You also might be able to earn money while you travel from buying and selling. Maybe you can buy things locally in the overseas country, and sell it on eBay.

Many people don't realise, having a PayPal account is not something everyone in every country can easily get. So having a way to get paid by US customers can give you an advantage over the locals when selling products from a foreign country...

For example, I had a quick look, and it looks like PayPal is only available in Guatemala if you can withdraw to a US bank account.

So, while you can accept payment through PayPal, most locals in Guatemala can't do that. That means it's easier for you to sell products from Guatemala to US customers, than it is for the locals there...

(It may not seem fair, but it's just the way it is... So it's good to know about it.)

You can look up the details for any country from the following link...

https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/websc...f52f70a3ed57ec

Best wishes (and please let us know more when you go!)

- Dien

Re: Making money from overseas...
 

Another idea...

Instead of selling products, you can sell services...

A couple of months ago I visited Gambia - a small country in Africa.

There, I met a guy who painted portraits. He was good - and he charged very little for his skills!

I figured, I could make money from this (if I had the time, which I didn't at the time)...

He had no way to sell his portrait-painting skills overseas. On the other hand, I am able to do that (through online marketing, plus because I have a PayPal account, that is, an easy way to get paid by US or European buyers)...

I could have people email photos, and he turns them into portraits. They pay me, I pay his fee out of it, and take a part of it as my commission.

It's win/win!

There are many countries where you could set something like this up... Where you can help the locals get work, and also make some money for yourself as well, as the "marketing guy" / "middle man"...

Best wishes,

Dien

Take along a business...OR,
 

A few years ago I went to New Mexico to help out a guy with a 200 acre ranch, doing some chores for him to pay my way. The first day we killed a rattlesnake, and a nest of black widow spiders. After that, it was a piece of cake. So, you could offer to work a few hours a day for your room and board, or in the case of an AirBnB, maybe do a review for them, for a few days.

Also, when I went to San Diego I cleaned headlights. Don't know if you could do this in other countries, but they do have cars and lots of motor bikes.

Get a sponsor from a local TRAVEL agent, in exchange for pictures or a blog of your visits, maybe emphasize the little known, non-tourist gems you find.

As Dien mentioned, look for local products you could send home, when I was in Taiwan, I bought several cases of Tiger Balm and wish I would have bought scores more.

When I was in Thailand, I found some very nice and cheap wooden trinkets, which I sent to a few of my girlfriends. With the Internet, you could find the local story behind these products, like finding a local legend about fertility and all things of great sex; lots of American guys will shell out good money if they think it will help them get lucky.

When I was in Korea, I was able to get several varieties of Kimchi, a Korean food favorite. I think you could easily host a blog, with an emphasis on three things...

Pics (especially Royalty Free {membership?})
Dining and local recipes
Experiences and destinations for travelers.

A decent camera, some online free photo editing...and you could probably make your living money by taking pics.

You might find rooms in off the path hotels who might exchange rooms for some publicity.

I think in today's world, I'd have to have a blog set up before I left.

Of course, if you got your hands on some Kanye or Jordon sneakers from over there, you easily get your grand a month on ebay. Some yeezys are going for thousands of dollars. Perhaps you'll meet an 11 year old kid working in a Nike factory and you could trade her some trinkets for a pair of shoes, (it is what American's do with Natives, trinket them to death).

Good luck in your journey.

Gordon

Re: Any Ideas for Earning Money back home while doing long-term travel?
 

Ankesh, this sounds interesting...could you elaborate a little more on it, regarding specifics? What sort of Excel tasks, and which freelance websites, for example? Are you referring to sites such as Freelancer.com and Upwork? How could you look for the Excel tasks, and in what categories?

Re: Making money from overseas...
 

QUOTE EDITED FOR CONTEXT

Dien,

That is it, I have pretty limited skills. However, I could learn and hone some skills if I knew what is location independent. I am pretty good at acting/theatre, but that is about it it. I can do some common things that aren't really special.

I do have my business at home but I can't see how I could be away and have it run. There is just not enough storage and profit margin. It is a physical product.

HOWEVER, I am interested in skills that I can focus on and develop that would be feasible to accomplish remotely. IT/coding/etc., takes quite a bit of time to be proficient at so I am looking past that.

I love some of your other ideas!

Re: Making money from overseas...
 

"Through online marketing" is thrown out pretty casually there. That alone is a huge obstacle. Online Marketing is a full time job and you need to have instincts and skills. Are you talking SEO stuff?

Re: Making money from overseas...
 

Hi Darren,

Well... It depends...!

If you can get someone to provide services cheaply enough, you could even just promote the service on Fiverr, and make money from that...

Fiverr's services are marketed as being for "$5" - but in reality, you can charge higher. What most people do is promote a very basic service for $5, but any "enhancements" or a more "full service" is a higher price...

For example, for drawn or painted portraits... A quick line drawing could be promoted for $5, but anything more (e.g. using color) could cost more...

Now, you might ask - why won't they just promote their own service themselves on "Fiverr"...

The answer is, not everyone is good at promoting themselves. Not being able to write good English is a barrier. If you can't get paid by Americans or Europeans (e.g. if PayPal won't work for you in your country), that's another barrier. In some places, internet access is quite poor...

That's why "it depends"... Since it depends on the local conditions...!

It'd be easier to do this some places compared to others...

However, if you can write good promotional copy, this is something you can even do in the USA, UK, Canada, etc. There are a lot of people with good skills - who can't write to save their lives. Most promotions are still done via writing (e.g. descriptions on Fiverr)... So, if you're good at that, you can leverage that into an advantage...

I think learning how to write copy (that sells) is a very valuable skill!

Many otherwise talented people can't do that...

When you travel to a country where most people don't speak English, it can become even more valuable...!

Best wishes,

Dien

Re: Any Ideas for Earning Money back home while doing long-term travel?
 

Great thought-provoking thread here. Very beneficial. Thanks to all who posted, including the OP!