5 Ways You Can Get Paid to Travel Post-COVID
Get paid to travel post-COVID
Sitting in a hammock that’s gently swaying in the tropical breeze, a laptop on your knees, and a coconut cocktail in one hand, you realise you really are living the dream…
Your dream of getting paid to travel might look a little different; perhaps you’re hiking through snow-capped Alps while you take masterful photographs, or maybe sitting on the balcony with a busy Brazil city bustling beneath you. For most of us those ideas stay in the dream stage and don’t quite make it into reality – at least not yet. If you’re reading this handy Idyoma article, though, you might be feeling like its time to get the inspiration to make a move toward your easy-living travel goals.
It might be easier than you think to earn and travel now, especially post-lockdown and in the aftermath of the global pandemic. Remote working isn’t only more accepted, it’s now a requirement for many sectors and employers, so if you have internet access, a computer and even a little wanderlust, you are good to go!
Grab a pen and notebook and read through this list of the top five ways to get paid to travel.
5 Best Ways to Get Paid to Travel After Lockdown
1. Teach English
2. Remote working
3. Travel Blogging
4. Become a Travel/Tour Guide
5. Virtual Assistant
Teach English
Are you a native English speaker (bonus points if you have higher education in the English language or teaching)? Teaching English online might be an ideal earner while you travel the world, especailly if you can speak another language..
There are a multitude of trusted and registered online platforms dedicated to providing non-English speakers with great language learning resources, including teachers like you! These websites offer signups for both teachers and learners, putting you together in a comfortable and professional online environment. As an online English teacher, you may be in charge of creating, organising and delivering curriculum and lessons. This is sometimes done through integrated instant messaging, and also video calls to make sure you and your students get the most out of your time together.
Some of the top ranking websites for becoming an English teacher to get paid to travel online include TEFL.org which focuses on giving you the proper qualifications and knowledge to be a great online teacher, alcentres, a UK-based organisation also ensures you’re fully prepared before you meet your first learners.
If English isn’t your forte, you can also teach other STEM subjects with the same online functionality and level of experience. There are also real-life teaching opportunities with these types of organisations, so you can teach abroad as well as online remote – the best of both worlds.
Get Paid to Travel While Remote Working
Good news - remote working just got a lot more popular! With new travel and socialisation restrictions coming out every month in the UK, as of April 2020, 46.6% of Brits already in employment have found themselves working from home. This obviously doesn’t work for everyone and is particularly tough for some professions, but this is a good sign for anyone wanting to work remotely.
As more and more companies and small businesses are urged to allow employees to work from home, you may find yourself working remotely. Lots of business has already gone remote as stores have pivoted to ecommerce - why can’t you? You might already be working from home on a permanent basis but if not it’s likely that, if your current job is one that could be completed away from the office, then your boss might be more receptive to the idea.
Logic follows that if you can complete a work task away from the office or headquarters, and all you need is internet, a laptop and some basic supplies, then why not work somewhere other than home and get paid to travel? Staying on top of your workflow independently will also keep stress levels low.
If you can conquer your whole day’s list of administration jobs sitting on your sofa, you can do the same sitting beside the pool in another country, and maybe even find time to finally learn one of these hardest languages to learn.
Travel Blogging
Travel blogging may sound a little too simple and good to be true. There’s a lot that goes into making money from your travel blogs, though. There are several aspects to travel blogging, which all revolve around lifestyle and the content you can create, and then most of all the following you can gather from it.
To start out as a blogger you want to first consider these earning options:
Social media influencing (paid deals on a one-by-one basis)
Brand ambassador (you promote a certain product or brand in your travel content)Affiliate earning (people purchase from larger companies using your link, giving you a portion of the sale price, a great choice for monetising blogs)
Freelance writing (write featured articles for other bloggers or websites, based in your travel experience)
These are all things you will find yourself working on if you choose the travel blogger lifestyle. While it’s clearly an exciting life, it’s good to be realistic about what kind of work you’ll need to do consistently to start earning considerable amounts of money. Options like social media influencer and brand ambassadorship will likely be occasional bonuses, delivering higher pay-outs as you grow your audience.
Finally, another income stream you’ll find more frequently as you blog about your travel are the coveted paid-for promotional deals! This is where large tour companies or smaller hotels and venues pay for you to stay at their location and write a review or article about your experience. Many established travel bloggers receive free flights, luxury accommodation and tours. This is all in return for videos, pictures, and blogs from you, detailing it all and usually recommending it to your audience too. Most of the time there is no separate payment for your content, but the all-expenses-paid trip would be more than satisfactory to most of us!
Become a Travel/Tour Guide and Get Paid to Travel
Becoming a travel/tour guide will require a lot of dedication to experiencing the world, a willingness to be patient with novice travellers, and a real passion for travel itself. If reading that got you excited, this might be the best way for you to earn while you travel.
First it’s important to make the distinction between a travel guide and a tour guide. Usually, if someone is looking to hire a travel guide, they’ll expect you to include flight and accommodation booking in your services. Think of yourself as a small-scale travel operator. In this situation you’d normally prospect good relationships with small businesses in the travel sector to get unbeatable pricing and more unique experiences for your clients.
As a tour guide, you’ll find yourself planning hikes, expeditions, and tour routes for your clients. What exactly you do will depend on your interests and existing knowledge. If you’ve had great experience driving cross-country on safari tours, then driving trips might be your specialty. Alternatively, if you’re a weathered traveller who has earned your stripes on Himalayan peaks already, you could be the one to lead a group expedition up otherwise unnavigable mountainside. Learning a popular language fast will be very useful as a tour guide too.
Working as either a travel operator or tour guide, the experience will be truly rewarding. Aside from the obvious influx of income when you book your first few tours, you’ll get to work alongside locals and industry professionals and essentially get paid to travel the world. You’ll no longer be seen as a customer and will be privy to cultures and traditions that tourists wouldn’t normally get the chance to enjoy. When you’re leading a group, you’ll also experience your surroundings more deeply, even if you’ve visited that particular spot a hundred times before, as you show others the best the world has to offer.
Virtual Assistant
Taking your current job on your travels might not be possible for everyone. But remote working is still a fantastic option for travellers.
You can look at a virtual assistant as any person who offers remote services to another business for an agreed fee. Your exact daily tasks as a virtual assistant may well be administration-focused, with customer care, market research, and calendar management all high on the list of assistant skills in demand, but they could also be specialist such as with video editing or content marketing.
Sites like PeoplePerHour, UpWork and Fiverr are ideal for finding remote work. If being a virtual assistant isn’t your thing, there are heaps of other options to help you pursue your digital nomad lifestyle. Consider freelance writing, as general and niche article writers charge anything from £30-£100 an hour. Technical writers can charge upwards of £150 an hour. If you’ve got a good camera setup you can earn a sustainable source of income from selling your photos on stock image websites, particularly in the travel category. Graphic design is also a high-demand skill, so put those photo editing skills to the test and try out your first client, wherever in the world you are to get paid to travel.
What’s First?
If the idea of earning while you travel is attractive to you, give yourself the best chance to land those perfect projects. When travelling, it’s going to be a lot easier to navigate your surroundings not to mention your international clients if you can speak another language. There are so many online resources to help you learn your chosen language at home, including resources like Idyoma. If English is your first language you’ve got a good chance at finding another speaker if you’re travelling Europe, but if you want to connect with native speakers and clients, there’s nothing like surprising them when you introduce yourself in their language. Just spending an hour a day can help you learn a foreign language. Download the Idyoma app to take the first step and get ahead on your language learning today.
You can download the Idyoma language exchange mobile app for free here: