The global travel industry has continued to rebound after a turbulent 2020, achieving a cumulative value of $631 billion at the end of 2021.
The year 2021 also saw the marketplace grow by an impressive 43% annually, with this driven by a significant hike in demand as global travel restrictions were gradually removed. Similar growth levels were achieved through 2022, although the sector is now being undermined by rising inflation and squeezed household budgets.
The market is also being inflated by the advent of digital nomads, who continue to eschew the idea of maintaining a fixed abode and instead look to work flexibly online while they travel the world. There are now some 35 million digital nomads dotted across the globe, and this number is likely to increase over time.
Of course, there are many ways you can earn money while travelling as a digital nomad, with a myriad of options available depending on your skill set, experience and outlook. We’ll explore some of these below while appraising their unique pros and cons for travellers.
Becoming a Digital Nomad – The Best Careers
We’ll start by appraising the most common digital nomad jobs, which are available entirely online and cover a broad range of markets and careers.
Perhaps the most popular digital nomad jobs involve website development and copywriting, which can be done from anywhere in the world so long as you have a reliable Internet connection and functioning laptop.
Working as a graphic designer also fits this bill, although you may need some relatively advanced software and a desktop PC to work on some projects.
In terms of copy and content writing, there’s also a huge range of resources through which you can network and source work, with Blogging Pro and Problogger connecting you to freelance job opportunities from across the globe. If you want to build a content creation career on your own unique travel experiences, you could even create a blog and monetise this by selling ad space to strategic partners, or potentially by selling guest posts to similarly authoritative voices that add value.
Sure, the halcyon days of blogging may have passed with the noughties, but it’s still possible to create an informative and authoritative blog that boasts multiple income streams which can be scaled over time.
A Look at Less Creative Online Careers
If we move beyond the creative realm, there are alternative options for those of you with an entrepreneurial or financial background. Take dropshipping, for example, which has emerged as a simple and attainable way of making money in the age of ecommerce.
But what is dropshipping? Well, this describes a remote and hands-off approach to selling physical goods online, as you develop a virtual store that hosts selected products from identifiable suppliers. When your customers make a purchase, you simply organise the item’s shipment to the relevant address, negating the need to handle the product yourself or manage any kind of logistical process (which typically requires infrastructure, experience and some form of core competency).
As for income, you’ll buy goods at wholesale prices before selling them directly to customers at their recommended retail value. This enables you to realise the difference between these two prices as your profit, with this business model relying on your ability to achieve a high volume of sales rather than maximising individual unit prices.
Although this is a relatively straightforward and hassle-free way of earning money while travelling, it can hardly be described as a passive income stream. The same cannot be said for financial market trading, however, especially if you look to leverage speculative markets and deploy largely automated trades.
Remember, the comparison of investing vs trading highlights a number of key differences, despite the fact that these terms are often used interchangeably. For example, traders often look to eschew ownership of financial instruments in order to leverage volatility and downward price shifts to their advantage, while this also means that they’ll open a higher volume of positions in a relatively short period of time.
When using automated or algorithmic trading, it’s also possible to create truly passive income streams that require very little management. In this instance, you’ll simply have to set your trading criteria along with clearly defined entry and exit points, from which point your orders are executed and managed intuitively.
You should also strive to include a stop-loss order when initiating trades, as this ensures that positions are automatically closed once they’ve incurred a predetermined level of loss. This is a key risk management tool, which adds another layer of automation and minimises the amount of time that you have to spend overseeing your activity.
The Bottom Line
Historically, the process of earning money while travelling was challenging, as you would have to seek out manual jobs such as tutoring or bar work.
This would compromise your ability to travel and enjoy your experience overseas, while creating organisation and time management issues that are hard to overcome.
Those who live as digital nomads have no such issues, however, as they can work flexibly online while undertaking a number of different tasks depending on their skillset.
Similarly, you can work on a freelance basis or as a sole trader when living as a digital nomad, helping you to strike the ideal work-life balance while overseas!