Travel News

10 Ways We’ve Paid for Our Life of Travel (+How You Can Too!)

drone view of raja ampat islands

It’s hard to believe, but it’s been 15 years (almost to the day at the time of writing this) since Nick and I sold our possessions, quit our jobs, and set off traveling the world. But, how have we been able to afford a life of full-time travel and living abroad? Find out exactly how we do it in this article.

In this post, I’m not going to list ways we’ve managed to save money, downsize, or take on extra work. This is strictly about how we earn an income online, and on the road, and how we get paid to travel.

10 Ways We’ve Paid For Our Life of Travel

Hopefully, this list below gives you some inspiration and ideas for how you too can start to earn money online, while traveling and living abroad.

These days, we make money solely through our websites and digital products, but the money-making ideas on the list below were excellent stepping stones for us, and I highly recommend them!

1. Creating Marketing Videos

drone view of raja ampat islands
A drone’s eye view of the FAM islands in Raja Ampat

Nick’s great at video editing and over the years, he’s become skilled at operating a drone. Because of this, we’ve received offers to film and edit marketing videos for companies, and in exchange, they’ve paid us for the completed video.

Probably the coolest one was for Dive Grenada, a scuba company in Grenada, or the one we did for a hotel while traveling in Raja Ampat (pictured above).

We’ve had a drone since 2014, back when they were bulky, heavy, and glitchy. Our first drone was the DJI Phantom 2 and it was so big that it had its own backpack! Thankfully, we’ve upgraded drones since then.

dji drone with backpackdji drone with backpack
Our first drone was so big it had its own backpack!

If you’re interested in filming and editing, start honing your skills and reach out to local businesses in your niche or area of interest. These days, the new iPhones take excellent cinematic-style videos, GoPro is great for underwater or action footage, and of course, having a drone gets some amazing aerial shots.

2. Teaching English in China

teaching in myanmarteaching in myanmar
Volunteer teaching in our makeshift classroom in rural Myanmar – one of the best weeks of our lives.

This was the first year that we made an income while on the road. It was 2012 and at this point, we had done some volunteer teaching in Laos and Myanmar, but knew of a few people who were making good money teaching in places like South Korea, China and Japan.

We were planning on traveling to China anyway so while we were there we decided to…

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