In most cases, each of us had this desire of quitting our 9 to 5 day job, pack up and start travelling to see and experience the world. Not just in travelling, the only thing that stopped us would probably the same thing that stops most of us to do what we really want to do. And yes, I’m talking about money.
As a citizen of third-world country who is travelling for a long term, I received questions from my friends and people I met along the road on how I finance my travels. Basically, most of these questions focuses on transportation, food and lodging.
I admit, travelling long-term does require funds which is a big challenge but it is not as expensive as most people think, so don’t let these things bother you too much. In my case, I get my travel funds by working on some on line stuff.
While on the road, I met so many people from different parts of the world doing long-term travelling. I also asked them on how they finance their travel and I was surprised that many travellers are very resourceful just to sustain and manage everything while on the road.
Here are some of the answers I got from them:
Volunteer
For most of travellers, the easiest way to work on the road is to volunteer. Most of these volunteer stints do not have monetary compensation, but it offers free accommodation and sometimes food which plays a big part of expenses. Saving some bucks for food and accommodation will considerably reduces your travel costs which you can use for other things.
IT Jobs Abroad
Since we are in a modern world now, working in front of the beach is now possible. I met travellers who have IT careers while they discovering the world. One of them is actually working as IT specialist in his home country. He told me that unlike other jobs in a corporate world, IT people don’t require some of their manpower to report in the office everyday. They just need to be online for a certain number of hours which give them a chance to travel even outside their country. Another one who used to work in an IT field told me that he makes money by building websites for different establishment in the places he visited.
English Teacher
Some of these travellers teach English language. Teaching English is a great option for native English speakers simply because they can teach anywhere even they don’t have the degree to do so. As long as you are a nice person and fluent in English, you can definitely apply for this work. Some of the teachers are doing it on line so it’s a perfect job for most of travellers since they can work anywhere as long as there’s an internet connection.
Saving
As I expected, the usual answer that I heard is “savings”. Most of travelers manage to be on the road because they were able to save money before they travel. For some of those who do not have savings but do have investments, they avail personal loans to travel. But they also pointed out that before availing loans, it is very important to plan and understand the concept and agreement at first.
These are just few of the many ways to finance your travels. Of course, there are a variety of choices available to finance and support one who seeks and needs adventure to be happy.
Photo Credits: Tiger Temple by joaquinuy, Classroom by abdulrahman.stock
