Most of us want to travel the world but often lack resources and money. If this is the case. don't worry. You can always try the best travel jobs that we have listed in this article. You can not only travel around the world but can also earn a handsome living.
14 Best Travel Jobs – Make Money Traveling the World
One of the most common regrets for those with nine to five jobs is that their jobs keep them from traveling. But what if you could work and make money while traveling at the same time?
The best travel jobs can provide you exactly that.
More and more people are moving away from their desk jobs to work remotely or for freelancing.
In 2017, freelancers made up a little over 10% of the US workforce, which some argue is far less than the actual percentage. This share could grow as high as 50% in the last half of the 2020s.
What this means is that the dynamics of jobs is changing. The continuous expansion of the gig economy is making it easy to find the best jobs for people who love to travel.
Table of Contents
List of Top Travel Jobs
Traveling jobs can roughly be divided into three categories:
- expats,
- travel industry, and
- digital nomads/freelancers.
Also, the level of income varies greatly from one job to another. With some jobs, you would get to travel but not in a lavish way. Here are some of the best jobs to travel the world:
Flight Attendant
Perhaps one of the oldest jobs that are known for its travel perks is flight attendant. The requirements to become a flight attendant vary by airline, but you do not necessarily need a college degree.
Most flight attendants go through training at first and start out with domestic flights before they can move to international flights. So it would take some time to get to that.
However, it’s one of those jobs that pay for travel and housing.
Although you get to travel, it’s not an easy job. The hours can be quite random, and you may not always get the routes you would like.
Plus, some passengers can be a real pain.
Travel Blog
The word travel is right there in the job description, so it’s basically everything related to traveling. There are so many people who have created a sustainable income through their travel blogs.
What could be better than making money with your passion?
To become a travel blogger, you should have some budget for initiating some travel and creating a website. In the beginning, you could keep it as a side hustle until it’s making enough money for you to leave any other job and pursue it full time.
With a travel blog, you also have to maintain social media presence, as a successful YouTube channel is also a big moneymaker.
You could get sponsorships, paid hotel rooms, tours, and more.
Keep in mind that it can take months before your blog turns up any revenue. You can start a travel blog for only $3.95/month and it comes with a free domain name with Bluehost.
See Related: How to Come Up With a Blog Name
English Teacher
Don’t have any money to travel at all? How about becoming an English teacher?
Many countries host English teaching programs, where you can participate as a volunteer. In exchange, they provide you with food and accommodation.
You can find such opportunities in many countries, especially in Asia, including South Korea, Japan, Thailand, and the Philippines. Some programs also offer digital teaching, for which you pretty much just need a laptop.
Depending on the program, you would not require any formal training. But you should know a thing or two about teaching English because you could be working with kids that do not speak a single word of English.
Nevertheless, it can be quite fun, and also gives you the opportunity to closely explore other cultures.
See Related: 5 Ways to Sell Your Skills Online
Diplomats
This is one of the all-expenses-paid travel jobs as you represent your country abroad. Diplomats have all sorts of jobs that take them from country to country.
You do need some qualifications, including a college degree, preferably in International Relations.
As you climb the ranks, you’ll get even more perks. If you have a family, you can travel with them as well. However, sometimes it might be beyond your control where you end up.
It’s a job at the end of the day, so you would be working more, rather than traveling around and exploring.
Still, it’s a viable career with the possibility to go into politics as well later on.
Freelance Writer
The biggest benefit of being a freelance writer is that you have a lot of flexibility. Since you can work remotely, it does not matter where you are, as long as you have an internet connection and can meet deadlines.
There are a lot of freelance portals where you can find writing jobs. Many of them are exclusively for writers and editors. You don’t necessarily have to be a travel writer, but given that you’re traveling, it might be more fun to do that.
Again, it takes time and effort to build your rapport online as a writer. You obviously need a sustainable and consistent income to keep traveling. You can keep your travel expenses low by using travel hacking techniques to save money along the way.
Determine the hourly rate you need to charge to meet your annual income goals with our free freelance rate calculator.
Cruise Ship Worker
There are thousands of cruise ship companies that are constantly looking for staff for their cruise ships. You work on the ship and get to travel and experience different countries along the way.
In terms of jobs, there’s quite a lot of variety, and you can easily find something that requires your skills.
Cruise ships need technicians, electricians, cooks, cleaners, servers, cashiers, tour guides, managers, etc. You just have to find out which job profile fits you and start looking for one.
Be mindful of the laws and protections for workers on a cruise ship.
Since these ships are on international waters, you may want to look for what the legal implications of that are for you as a worker.
See Related: Best Weekend Jobs to Consider
Scuba Diving Instructor
Scuba diving is one of those adventures many people have on their bucket lists. Imagine doing that as a job? For example, you could learn to scuba dive and become an instructor.
The Professional Association for Diving Instructors (PADI) allows teaching scuba diving if you’ve completed six months of open water diving. The oceans are just so vast, you could do this your entire life.
It’s exhilarating, to say the least, but it can be hard too at times. You can work with hotels and lodges to provide your services to tourists and backpackers.
After a few months, you can find a new place to give scuba lessons and keep moving.
Travel Photographer
The best job that allows you to travel and follow your passion is travel photography. Most travel photographers work as freelancers, but you could find traveling work with agencies as well.
Of course, being an independent photographer gives you more freedom.
You can show the world different places through your lens. You can also sell your original photographs online.
Similarly, social media is a great place to showcase work to find more work. Hotels may hire you to take their pictures and post online.
You can slowly shift to becoming a travel influencer, promoting destinations, hotels, resorts, and even whole countries. All you really need is a high-quality camera to begin.
See Related: How to Make Money Selling Photos of Yourself
Musician
You don’t need to have number-one singles or millions of album copies sold to travel internationally as a musician. Many underground bands and independent artists do gigs in clubs while traveling.
With the internet, it’s easier to find gigs and build an international audience, even if on a smaller scale.
If you’re really just playing for traveling, you could make enough with a few gigs a week to survive where you are. But if you want to travel but also make decent money, you’ll have to work a bit extra to make the right network.
Playing music in different countries can be a truly rewarding experience, one that can transform your music too. You can learn new instruments, collaborate with local artists, and find inspiration in new cultures and places.
YouTuber
Most make-money ideas usually involve YouTube as well, and for good reason. The platform is so diverse, anyone with any sort of niche can join and make decent money. If you love to travel, this could be a way to do that.
The straightforward thing to do would be to make travel videos. But it does not have to be travel videos only.
You can also make informative videos if you know the basics of video editing. Pick a topic or category you absolutely love and make videos about that.
YouTube can also be a source of secondary income. If you have other things going on, for instance, a travel blog, you could combine that with YouTube.
Most travel bloggers rely on YouTube for most of their earnings.
See Related: How to Become a Content Creator
Work Holiday Visa
A work holiday visa allows you to travel to a country to work for a period of time. Usually, countries have an agreement with each other to allow young workers to take jobs that they might have the workforce locally.
Countries like Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Chile, Ireland, France, Czech Republic, and Singapore have active work holiday agreements. There might be age restrictions as such visas are directed toward the young population (usually 18 to 30 years).
As for the jobs, they could be in a variety of industries. Most commonly, it’s in the farming and agricultural fields.
However, that has its own fun as it’s different from city experience you would otherwise have traveled. You get to meet new people and experience different cultures.
See Related: How to Choose the Best Blogging Platform
International Aid Worker
For those who want to travel but also make a difference in the world, an aid worker position could be a suitable fit. It’s not as glamorous as some of the other jobs on this list, but it’s surely impactful.
As an aid worker, you’d be traveling to places with wars, conflict, disease, famine, and poverty.
Your work could be very difficult, but it’s rewarding, both for you and the people you help. However, it’s an all-expenses-paid travel job where you get a salary and other perks as well.
You can find such work with NGOs and international organizations like the Red Cross, Amnesty, and the USAID. The jobs vary in nature, so you would have to find something suitable for your skills.
Travel Marketer
If you’re a pro at digital marketing, you could be working as a marketer for the travel industry. It’s one of the most fascinating travel careers.
You would be working for large hotel chains, resorts, casinos, government tourism departments, tour operators, etc.
Since you’re a travel marketer, you’d have to travel to different countries and cities to meet clients and experience their services first hand. Needless to say, it’s a perks-rich job that basically pays for all your travels.
You have to be crazy good at marketing to excel at this. You can also be a digital marketer for other things while traveling as most of your work would be completely online and on phone.
See Related: Best Weekend Jobs to Make Extra Money
Freelance Developer
Coding may just be one of the most underrated jobs for travel. You do not have to sit in an office to code. You could be coding on a hammock on the beach in Hawaii.
Wouldn’t that be a dream scenario?
Many companies are going for remote developers rather than having in-house staff. That’s creating a lot of freelance opportunities, especially in web and app development. If you’re good at it, you could be making very decent money just writing ten lines of code a day.
Like any other freelance job, you have to work hard to get there. But once you do, you can pack your bags and go off wherever you want to.
However, make sure wherever you go has stable Wifi. Web development is one of the best freelance business ideas out there.
Conclusion
If you know how to make money online, you can easily travel. However, some best travel jobs by their very nature require travel as well. It just comes down to what you’re good at and what’s available to you.
Working while traveling is not always easy. People think it’s a dream come true scenario, but in reality, it can have some cons too. Since you’re working too, your travels are not completely leisure related.
You can strike the right balance by creating a routine and cycle where you work for a few days, then travel. It comes down to how you manage both to create a healthy and successful balance.