Ready to take the leap?
“I’m all for sticking everything in storage and moving abroad to cut my expenses, but what I do for a living isn’t portable. What am I going to do for work if I go traveling or move to another country?”
As the author of A Better Life for Half the Price and the person who moderates the private Facebook group that goes with the Committed package , I get a lot of questions about living abroad. Some are from those who are in their golden years and are trying to scrape by on $1,200 a month. Others are 20-somethings trying to become digital nomads who roam the world. In between are families, career changers, and restless souls who are unhappy about how boring and routine their life has become.
It’s hard for me (or anyone else) to answer the question at the top without having a personal consulting session because everyone has very different skills and abilities. Let’s just say it’s 100 times easier to make money from another location now though than it was when I started traveling pre-internet. But don’t count out the oldies but goodies either.
My friends Dave and Deb over at The Planet D quoted me in this article they just put out that has a lot of things to think about. They’ve stuffed a lot of options in there, so I won’t rehash all those here. Surf over to How to Get Paid to Travel the World .
During my very first trip around the world, I got certified to teach English as a second language and went on to do that in Turkey, Korea, and even part-time in New York City. It was a great experience and in Korea we saved $30K in a shade over a year—in late 1990s dollars.
Now I make a living completely online from the websites I run and from book royalties. I currently live in Mexico, but all my income is via the USA and Europe. (Plus a smattering of Amazon sales from the likes of Japan and Australia.) Those are two ends of a spectrum in which many possibilities lie.
Physical Jobs
The original ways people made money while traveling the world or living abroad still exist. You can get a recognized certification to teach English in about a month and then—if you have a college education too—can get a job teaching almost anywhere in the world. Wages will vary greatly though. The top spots are generally the Middle East and East Asia, while in some of in the World’s Cheapest Destinations you’ll be lucky to earn enough to cover your bills.
There are also ever-reliable options like being a scuba dive instructor, tour guide, or ski instructor if you have the right skills or certification.
Many people manage to take what they do now and get a real job in another country. They apply for a transfer or they apply for a new job abroad. This is especially prevalent with those who work for a major international company or those who have an easily transferable skill/certification in finance, education, sales, or IT.
Many expats are entrepreneurs: they open a hotel, a restaurant, a shop, a bar, or a massage therapy business, for example. For those who have a little capital, it’s usually not hard to spot an unfilled need.
At the other end are the jobs almost anyone can do: pick fruit, wait tables, tend bar, make coffee. It’s hard to go long-term with this though and wages are often low.
Virtual Jobs
There are hundreds of books, podcasts, and websites out there on how to set yourself up in a business that will generate online income. This can be anything from blogging to offering a software service to selling physical goods via Amazon. You need to tread carefully as some shysters are glad to sell you a thousand dollar course that only gives you part of what you need. It’s better to follow people for a while and figure out who you can trust. At the top of that group for me are Smart Passive Income , the Suitcase Entrepreneur , Fizzle.co , and Tropical MBA . The latter two offer a built-in community you can pay to join with very active message boards. That’ll give you lots of great advice without hiring someone one-on-one.
This should generate and idea or two : 79 Side Hustle Businesses You Can Start Today .
Buying a Job
If I had a batch of savings I was going to use to go traveling the world, I would take half of it and buy an existing website that’s making money. That way there’s a built-in revenue stream from the start so you’re not depleting your savings month after month as you go. It’s common for people to sell websites at a pretty low price to earnings ratio, like three years or less. That means even if you don’t improve the earnings in any way, you’ll make your money back in that time or less. Then it’s all profit going forward. Try getting a return like that on Wall Street or even with real estate. Plus you eliminate all that time of building and building, waiting for your blog or business to get indexed well in search and start gaining followers. You’re shaving years of effort off by putting up some cash.
There are three main website brokerage sites to check into Latona’s , Empire Flippers , and Flippa.com .
If you really can’t make any of these things happen to enable a move abroad or long-term travel, then you’re either extremely lazy or just destined to be eternally stuck in a rut. If at least one of them looks possible, here’s the guide to extending your runway while you’re ramping up.
