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Working a bit while on the road has advantages beyond just the money

There are at least two major strategies for people who’ll be going on a round the world trip. Some people plan on starting with enough money to get to the first destination where they can find a decent job, and then regrouping there for the next leg. Other people prefer to save up as much as they possibly can before they leave, and then not have to worry about working at all. But a third hybrid strategy can have some advantages, and it might not be too difficult to pull off if you plan in advance.

With so many jobs being able to be performed remotely these days, it’s not too difficult for many people to pick up some freelance work that they can do on a laptop from anywhere. If you have any talent as a writer, editor, graphic designer, website builder or anything along those lines, you might consider developing that skill in advance so you can do some work while on the road.

One of the advantages of this sort of thing, especially when traveling solo, is that it can give you a sense of purpose and a bit of structure that you’ll otherwise lack for months at a time. Let’s say you build simple websites and you’ve got your laptop with you. If you get a job that will take you 20 hours or so, and it’s got to be completed within two weeks, you can easily schedule yourself enough 4 or 5-hour blocks to get the thing done on time without sacrificing your sightseeing and partying lifestyle.

If you are good at your chosen skill and you get good clients you could literally pay your way just working a few hours a day. It’s quite easy to bum around Southeast Asia on $30 per day or so, and if you can even earn $15 per hour you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing you are actually paying your way as you go (in those parts of the world) in only a couple hours a day. And if you meet people who are all going to a temple in the morning, it’ll actually make you sound like a badass if you tell them you’ll catch up with them later on because you’ve got some important work to do.

Another advantage of this sort of strategy is that you can take breaks from traveling when you want if you get a lucrative job to work on. Let’s say you are in Buenos Aires and you get an offer for a job that will make you $1,000 and take you 2 weeks working almost full-time. Suddenly you are a working citizen of Buenos Aires for two weeks, and you are going out every evening in a new city as well. If hostels or hotels there are too expensive, you can move out to a cheaper city until the project is done.

Of course, all this makes getting these kinds of jobs a bit easier than it is. Many people have valuable skills that aren’t easily translated onto a laptop in a hotel room. You can try to get jobs locally while you travel, but this is much more of a challenge and worth another post altogether. But if you can work on a laptop and your trip is a year or so away, you might want to try to arrange some clients for when you’ll be gone. If you start early enough and work the craigslist scene (and others like it) you might be able to be able to mix a bit of working with a lot of traveling in a very pleasant and fulfilling way.

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