Like just about everyone else in the world, I have often dreamed about quitting my job, escaping the daily grind, and traveling full-time. Like most people who have this dream, I still haven’t acted on it. Why? One of the main concerns — for me, and probably for just about everyone else — is making money.
A lot of the advice for long-term travelers says that you should work hard and live simply at home, save up some money, travel for as long as you can, and then head back home and repeat when the money runs out. This is probably a very reasonable approach, but it’s psychologically difficult: you are accepting that, for a while, money will only be going out of the bank account and nothing will be coming in. You’re also relying on the fact that you’ll be able to get a job later.
For me, and, I suspect, for many other people, it would be easier to contemplate long-term travel if there was a way to make at least some money from the road. This would help to mute the “when do I have to go home?” ticking of the Doomsday clock, and also ease some of the “will I ever work again?” anxiety. Also, the discipline and routine of working to some extent might well be a benefit in the less-structured life of full-time travel.
So, my goal is to learn about earning money on the road from those who know how to do it — because they’ve already done it. I’m going to try to talk to people from as many different walks of life as possible, and to investigate a wide variety of fields. I’ll post the results here. In the meantime, I’ll also include some of my travel writing and essays. Hope this is helpful!
Introduction: Why Work from the Road?
Profiles of Full-Time Travelers
What Will You Do?