"You cannot motivate the best people with money. Money is just a way to keep score. The best people in any field are motivated by passion." - Eric S. Raymond
If you are self employed, an independent contractor, or work for a company with an entirely virtual workforce, you might be able to travel the world while you work. Some call this lifestyle being a digital nomad, due to the fact that internet access enables these people to simultaneously travel and earn a living.
It’s gotten easier than ever to do this thanks to explosion in resources that cater to this lifestyle — namely, travel companies that specifically cater to people who want to work on the go; job portals that cater to freelancers and roving temp workers; payment and insurance apps that are geared toward digital nomads; and online communities where working travelers can find one another and learn about the aforementioned other resources.
If you’re open to learning more about how to earn a living while traveling, read on for a list of the aforementioned resources, starting with a section on sites for finding temporary work around the globe. Then there’s a section of travel companies and communities for those who want to work on the go. Finally, the last section offers up a couple of insurance providers that have coverage suited for digital nomads.
Work Anywhere
A growing number of industries have jobs that can be done while you travel around the globe — the possibilities range from odd jobs to temporary assignments to longer-term telecommuting work. Listings of all of these opportunities appear on the following websites.
Teach English as a second language to students located around the world using a mobile app; no experience is necessary and the pay is about $10.20 per hour.
List your services for hire, set your own prices, and you’re on your way to finding work on this site. Note, however, that abundant competition in many fields may require you to start out with lower rates until you get customer reviews to prop you up.
Work in exchange for free room and board — and sometimes extra cash. Look on the Help Exchange website to find listings of farms, ranches, hostels and even ships that trade accommodations for a few hours of your time per day.
Find jobs at hostels around the world including work exchange arrangements, where you can get a free stay in exchange for putting in a few hours a day.
This language instruction site lets you set your own pay rate and your own schedule. You can work anywhere in the world and choose from 100 different languages to teach.
This company positions itself as a low-to-no-cost alternative to PayPal, saving you up to 71 percent on cross-currency transactions. Signing up on this site enables you to do business with a wider assortment of counterparties on sites like AirBnB, Fiverr, Upwork and Wish.
Peddle your services no matter where in the U.S. you’re traveling; this site requires you to buy credits to bid on possible gigs, but you get a few credits for free when you start.
Get paid up to $22 an hour teaching English as a second language to an online classroom; although the site says you can choose your own hours, the selection might be dictated by where the clients reside.
This directory of short-term subletting opportunities — also known as home-sharing — has become the go-to for finding cheap accommodations anywhere in the world. You can use this site both to monetize your home while you travel — assuming you have a friend who can help you accommodate the short-term subletters in your home — and to find places to stay while you travel.
Here you can meet people in other parts of the world with a view toward crashing on each other’s couches without having to pay for accommodations. A premium version of this site costs $60 and verifies your identity to make you more trustworthy to others; this in turn enables you to make more meaningful connections on the site.
This startup may give you a case of sticker shock compared to other options until you compare it with the equivalent amount of time in big city apartment rent — plus expenses and touring. Pay $27,000 for a year of travel, about half that much for six months, and a quarter of the original amount for three months.
Like the name suggests, this travel arrangement comes with a bit of community, and the prices are much more modest than Remote Year. Pay a one-time membership fee of $300 — of which $100 gets credited toward any travel you book — and then pay $800 to $1,800 per month you travel, depending on how often you want to travel during a year and whether you want a private or shared room.
Global Insurance Plans
Nothing spoils a trip like accidents — so make sure you’re covered for all possibilities before you set off to be a digital nomad. Look into insurance plans that work in the parts of the world you’re heading to, while covering things that could arise while you travel — from unanticipated cancellations to loss of luggage and healthcare. Below are a couple of options that combine all of these types of coverage.
This company sells travel and health insurance that you can use in over 130 countries. Plans include up to $10,000 in coverage for unexpected cancellation of your trip; up to $100,000 for emergency medical and dental; up to $100,000 for evacuation and repatriation to your home country; and up to $3,000 for lost or stolen luggage and equipment.
This site lest you get competing quotes from multiple travel insurance providers — about a dozen of them are on there — so you can pick the plan that best suits your needs.
Are Digital Nomads Mainstream?
The fact that so many different resources have come about for digital nomads suggests that the practice of working and traveling at the same time has become practically mainstream.
The abundance of home-share and house-sitting exchanges in particular make it easier than ever for people to get moving without having to make many compromises. And the ample choices for work and community also make things easier than ever.
Readers, have you contemplated the digital nomad lifestyle — or practiced it at any point in time? And have you worked with any of the resources mentioned here? Please tell us about your experiences in the comments section beneath this post.
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Passive income has widespread appeal – everyone likes the idea of getting a lot of money without having to work for it. However, the reality of passive income is very different. Successful passive income models typically involve large upfront investments of cash or time. Making passive income online is no exception. Successful online passive income models typically revolve developing automated systems which allow transactions, cash flow and growth without requiring a real time presence. Making these systems happen, however, typically involve 80 to 100 hour work weeks in the beginning as well as periodic maintenance.
Another key element to online passive income, as with most businesses, is that the time and energy invested up front must create a valuable product or experience for people. Free market economies work based on voluntary choice so you won’t get paid unless you provide a value that someone is willing to give you cash for.
If you are interested in earning passive income online there are numerous options to choose from. Each of the passive income examples below assume you are web savvy or own a web publishing platform like a blog or video channel but they are great ways to secure passive income.
1. Make Money Using Adsense
Making money through Adsense can be very beneficial if you have a website, blog or a YouTube channel. The model works like this: every time you post content on your blog, website or YouTube channel, an advertisement will show. You will receive money whenever people view your advertisements as well as click on them. The model can also be scaled. The more traffic you have, the more money you make. As time goes on and your platform grows, you’ll being to make more money through Adsense.
Some people even make more than $6,000 a month in passive income through Adsense. However, in recent years there have been complaints that Google takes up to 45 percent of your advertisement revenue. Also, there is tremendous downward pressure on advertising rates due to the explosive growth of content providers in the past few years. In other words, the Adsense marketing industry is tightening so you will need to factor this into your plans accordingly.
2. Use Online Affiliates to Make Cash
Online affiliate marketing assumes that you have a blog or other online publishing platform. How this works is you provide content (an article or video) and drive traffic to an advertisers link. If your viewer signs up for something or buys something, you will get a cut of the profits. This is often a good way to make money, especially if you believe in a company’s service or products? Many publishers bring in five figures a year through their work as an affiliate alone. For example, Harash Agrawal at ShoutmeLoud has generated something like $80,410 in affiliate income over five years.
3. Receive Commission for Your Writing
Being a writer has many perks. Sure you could write articles for clients on a pay per article basis, but wouldn’t it be nice to make money whenever someone reads your articles? This option for involves writing the article for a website or sites, retaining all rights, but only making the income the article generates from pay-per-click to page views. While the initial return on this model can be low, it will allow you to build up your passive income if you publish enough high quality articles. Some articles generate more initial interest than others and some articles may be seasonal in nature. The websites offer payment when money in the account reaches a certain dollar amount.
A good place to start with this model of passive income is Infobarrel. Infobarrel has decent buzz, page rank and author payout. Several of the other past favorites in this niche, such as eHow, are no longer compensating authors.
4. Start a Business on Fiverr
This option is fairly easy if you have a product or service you can offer quickly. With Fiverr, you put up a blurb saying you will perform a service for $5.00 then people buy your product or service. So how can you make this passive rather than active income? You can offer to provide the users information in eBook form. Offer to send then a detailed document on how to increase their sales by 250 percent. To pull this idea off, you will need to have a finished product complete and whenever someone buys your product or service, you simply send them the information that has already been laid out in your eBook. This way, the only thing you have to do is hit the send button. There are many individuals on Fiverr that do the exact thing and make good money!
Need extra cash? Don’t we all. I’m sure we all have our days when we wish we had extra money to pay for certain expenses or just to save. The truth is, most of us have an opportunity to earn extra money sitting under our noses.
If you’re looking to pay off debt, save more, or simply cover regular monthly expenses, here are 5 of the best ways to make extra money:
Become a Mystery Shopper
Getting paid to shop, eat and have fun is basically the life of the mystery shopper. Mystery shoppers get paid to visit certain retailers and companies and pose as a regular customer in order to provide a detailed review of their experience. Mystery shoppers get paid per job and reimbursed for their purchases. While some assignments are pretty standard like getting an oil change or visiting a new retail shop in town, others involve dining at a restaurant, going bowling or out for coffee and more. You can sign up to become a mystery shopper with trusted companies like Red Brick Scheduling, Secret Shopper and Best Mark.
Sell your Services on Fiverr
Fiverr is a popular website that allows people to advertises their services at a minimum rate of $5. Fiverr sellers do everything from graphic design, article writing and editing, and SEO optimization to editing images, doing voice overs, making videos and more. Whatever your interests are, you’re sure to find a group of customers who may be interested in paying you for your work. Plus, you can always upcharge by adding additional features to your services so you can earn more than $5 per gig. To be successful on Fiverr, you need to write a clear description of your service offerings, use good graphics and imagery, and obtain reviews from past customers to build credibility.
Pet Sit For Others
If you enjoy animals, you may like pet sitting during your spare time for people who travel or run errands. If your time is limited, you can also try dog walking and still earn a decent amount of money from this service. Start by asking around in your neighborhood to see if anyone needs a dog walker or pet sitter. Most of your potential clients may be busy professionals who spend a lot of time away from home or an elderly pet owner who can’t get out of the house as much. To assist you with finding clients, you can sign up for Rover.com which helps match dog walkers and pet sitters with pet owners. With Rover you can set rates and describe your work preferences. Sign-up to Rover now!
Sell Your Belongings
One of the best ways to earn money quickly is to sell the things that you no longer want or need. It’s a great way to declutter while making some quick cash. You can have a huge garage sale or sell your items online on sites like Amazon or Ebay. You can also sell locally to people in your neighborhood or take your items to buyback stores like Plato’s Closet, Clothes Mentor, Once Upon a Child, Disc Replay etc. All of these stores will pay you for your items if they are in good condition.
Review Websites
If you’d like to earn money from the comfort of your own home simply by giving your opinion, you may be interested in reviewing websites with User Testing. This company pays $10 per each 20-minute review you provide that includes helpful feedback about a particular website. With User Testing, you choose assignments and record your voice and screen while you navigate through each website you review and share your honest opinion and suggestions. You can earn up to $30 per hour reviewing websites and payments are sent out weekly.
What have you done to earn extra money lately? Which one of these options appeal most to you?
There are countless articles written about the “9-to-5 grind” and likewise, how to manage the psychological dissatisfaction and disillusionment people often feel traversing to work Monday morning. If you work as a freelancer, however, such complaints might very well sound like a foreign language to you. Yes, we have article deadlines and “bosses” in the forms of clients and editors, but the life of a freelancer can offer individuals more freedom, control and perhaps even happiness than the life of a “regular” worker bee.
On of the easiest ways to start is to sign up with a website like Fiverr. This site lets you advertise small freelance gigs for $5, and it can be a good way to break into the area of freelance you want in your spare time doing your chosen skill at its most basic form. All you need to do is take whatever freelance work you want to do, break it down into a simple service which you offer for $5 and then fulfil any requests you get in your spare time. Doing this will give you the opportunity to test out the market in the freelance area you’re interested in, let you get creative in your offerings, and it’s an easy way to get your freelance career started. Even if you aren’t completely sure what you would like to do in your spare time, you can get some great ideas here. Why do want to do this? Here are four specific benefits of being a freelancer.
Take as much (or as little) work as you desire
In the beginning, it might be difficult to find a steady gig, but if you scour the Craigslists of many cities, you might find that with a decent portfolio, you can assemble an array of clients. In this case, you can decide to take on more work at certain times, or decrease your workload at other times. This kind of flexibility is unheard of in a more traditional job because, in essence, as a freelancer, you’ve become your own boss.
Work when you want, where you want
One of the most unpleasant aspects of the “9-to-5 grind” is the commute, both to the workplace and back home. As a freelancer, you can choose to work from home and as such, can decide to work in the early morning or in the dead of night. Most importantly, not only can you decide when to work, you can also decide what to work in. Instead of stifling ties and too tight pencil skirts, as a freelancer you can choose to work in your pajamas avoiding the unnecessary drama (and discomfort) related to choosing an outfit or wearing it. .
Charge what you’re worth
At a more traditional job, you earn more when you are promoted and you are promoted when your boss or supervisor deems you “worthy.” Now, for some, the criteria for worthiness is clear, but at many other jobs the criteria can be more vague and seem strangely aligned to whomever a supervisor likes. As a freelancer, you set your own rates and can pocket the profits. You have flexiility with what you charge so what you make isn’t capped by an hourly rate or a salary.
Avoid office politics — and unpleasant people
Sometimes the worst part of working in a traditional setting is not necessarily the job, but the individuals you might be forced to work with. As a freelancer, you can work from the comfort of your dining room table and interact with those you choose to talk to. In this way, you avoid office politics and the unpleasantry of interacting with people you would rather never see again.
These are just some of the benefits of being a freelancing and a simple Google search will unearth many more (with a list of disadvantages as well). In general, the key to success in freelancing is to take on projects that interest you and with the many people interested in hiring others to perform a specific project for them, there is bound to be something (perhaps even many things) to pique your interest and sustain your checking account. Good luck!
The above post is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Fiverr in partnership with Kasai Media. All opinions in the article are 100% mine.
