There is a way to see the world while making a living. Check out these tips for how to find a career that lets you travel.
You’d love to travel the world, but you must keep a roof over your head and food on the table. While these needs can seem incompatible, the best way to resolve them is to get a job that allows you to travel. This can take many different forms. Here are our tips for finding jobs in the travel industry.
Working Seasonally
This option appeals to younger people in particular. You can work in a field where it’s easy to take a job and leave it. Waiting tables, for example, can pay a lot of money in the short term and then allow you to take off for a few weeks or months. There’s also seasonal work that allows you to engage in activities you love while you work, such as working at a ski resort, as a rafting guide, or in a national park.
Working as a tour guide is just one seasonal career that lets you travel. Photo by Bernie Almanzar on Unsplash
Internationally, working on cruise ships is a popular option. This is not necessarily a lifestyle you can sustain over the long term, but it can be a great way to travel for a few years. It can also help deal with travel fatigue by ensuring you stay in one spot for enough time to feel settled instead of other ways of traveling and working with a more pack-up-and-go lifestyle attached.
Get Your Degree
Eventually, you’ll want to hang up your comfortable wait-staff shoes or jump off the cruise ship and do something a little more stable and less physically taxing. College will open many doors and opportunities for you to see the world. While you may be tempted to hang onto your money and spend it on travel instead of tuition, remember that scholarships for college students can cover the cost of your classes and other living expenses. You can search and apply online.
You can consider online courses when looking for ways to go to school abroad. Photo by Andrew Neel on Unsplash
The Foreign Service
Joining the foreign service is an excellent way to see the world. The hiring process is rigorous and competitive, and you may end up in some out-of-the-way and not entirely secure locations, but you’ll be rotated somewhere different every few years. As a government job, this also offers excellent benefits.
Teaching
Teaching can be another great way to travel and live in different countries. You have a few other options if you choose this route. If you get certified as a teacher back home and get some experience, you can teach in international schools. Another option is teaching English as a second language. This can be easy to break into with little experience, but it doesn’t pay as well in most places as international schools. You should try to get some training first. As an English teacher, you might work in public schools, for a private language academy, or for a company that needs employees who can speak English. A third option is teaching abroad at the university level.
You can teach or tutor while you travel. Photo by Pongtep Chithan via iStock by Getty Images
Traveling for Work
If living abroad sounds like a bigger step than you had in mind, you could always opt for a job that involves a lot of travel. There are jobs in the business world that will have you on the road domestically and internationally for much of the year. Add an extra day or two to your business trips to ensure you see more than the inside of hotels and conference rooms.
When you are ready to travel, check Wander for ideas on our favorite destinations.
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