How You Can Travel the World for Free (and Make Money Along the Way)

Too many people put off the adventure of their dreams for fear of losing precious many dineros. All those fearful adventure-avoiders don’t realize they can do it – and instead of losing money, they can earn it along the way.

Here’s how.

First: Find a flight. If you’re not too particular about where you want to go, you can often find even international flights for under $200. I used the Hopper app to find a super cheap flight to Reykjavik. Hopper finds great (GREAT) deals within and without the US. ALWAYS find a flight first! rates change all the time, so by always taking the cheapest flight you’ll see the whole world eventually for a fraction of the usual cost.

Second: Research hosts in the area of your flight’s destination. I started on “market” websites like WWOOF.net and workaway.info : where farms, families or projects worldwide offer free room and board in exchange for physical labor/assistance. There are endless options: You could nanny for a family in France, work in a vineyard in Italy, or dairy farm in Scandinavia (like I did).

However: market sites like Workaway and WWOOF almost always require a fee to be able to arrange a stay.

So how do you get around that fee? Ding ding! Once you’ve narrowed your host preferences, you can sometimes find the same host online outside of the market site. By emailing them directly you can avoid the whopping $40 to be a member of the site (that’s like, 15 McDonald’s meals or something).

Lastly: learn a simple skill that’s in high demand. (I’ll go into these in more depth later.)

⁃ Photoshop is easy to learn but meticulous enough that few have taken the time to master it. It’s a growing market you can quickly jump on top of.

⁃ Edit articles, newsletters, websites and more from your laptop. There are not enough people today who know how to write. You can be the one who does – from anywhere in the world!

⁃ Computer programming is a booooming market you can tap into from anywhere in the world. All you need is WiFi.

I’ll get into the pros and cons of these skills later, but for now all you need to know is there are so many ways to make money from your laptop. And doing so enables you to see the world.

So go buy that ticket.