If you use social media as your guide, you could be forgiven for believing that everyone is off travelling the world, sampling the food and lifestyle of other cultures and taking selfies for posterity. 

Plenty of us are keen to do the same – but how do you fund a travelling lifestyle? Unless you’re far better off than the average person, you’ll need to make money to keep you going while you explore the globe.

Some people do manage to snag a remote job and keep it while they travel – but this path has some definite downsides:

• Many remote jobs place limitations on your location (e.g. many remote positions require you to remain in the UK)
• Even if your job doesn’t require you to be UK-based, you’ll probably have to get your company’s permission to leave your home country
• There can be tax complications, which your company may have to accommodate
• Regular mandatory hours can make travelling much more difficult, as can limited annual leave
• Your company may be concerned about your attention being divided between your job and your travelling lifestyle

For all of these reasons, you may decide that a better alternative is to start a side hustle. It probably won’t bring in as much money as a full time job, but if you’ve got a travelling fund saved up already it’ll help to stretch it out, allowing you to get as much as possible out of the experience of travelling.

In this article, we’ll talk you through some of the best side hustles for travellers, both remote and in person, plus a few tips and tricks to get the most from your side hustle while on the move.

Remote Side Hustles You Can Do While Travelling

Matched Betting

Whether you’re a traveller or not, there’s no question that Matched Betting is one of the best side hustles out there. 

It allows you to take advantage of bookmaker promotions in order to secure a profit, and all you need is a laptop or smartphone. 

OddsMonkey members can make hundreds of pounds a month from Matched Betting, which would be a great boost to any traveller’s pocket. Check out our beginner’s guide to find out more, or take out our trial to make your first £40 in profit completely free.

Investing

For the financially inclined, stock market investing can be an excellent way to make money on the go. In the right circumstances, investing can be turned into a passive income, freeing up your time for your travels.

It’s important to be aware that this side hustle is on the riskier end of things. It’s crucial to be confident and experienced in stock market trades, and you’ll need a substantial pot of money in order to get started – but if that’s the case, investing could be the perfect way to fund your travels.   

YouTube

For some people, starting a YouTube channel to chronicle their travels is the perfect side hustle. You’re creating a record of your adventures, gaining a following, and earning money as you go – what could be better?

YouTube certainly can be a fantastic source of income for travellers, but there are a few downsides to bear in mind. 

• The market is saturated. There are thousands of other travellers out there doing exactly the same thing, making it difficult to stand out from the crowd.
• It’s a lot of work. Creating good quality videos is essential for YouTube success, but that requires you to spend an enormous amount of time scripting, filming and editing.
• It can take the fun out of travelling. If all you’re thinking about when you’re exploring the world is how best to film and script it, it can suck much of the joy out of what you’re doing. 

You should therefore think carefully before starting a YouTube channel with the aim of funding your travels.

Blogging

Like YouTube, blogging has a lot of advantages for travellers. You can use your blog to chronicle your travels, inspiring others as you go. However, it isn’t all that easy to make money from your blog, unless you combine it with aspects of affiliate marketing. 

You may prefer to work as a freelance blogger instead, being paid to write pieces for companies. This is less glamorous, but it can be a more reliable way to bring in money to fund your travels.

Freelance Photography

Freelance photography is another side hustle that combines well with travelling. If nothing else, the places you visit will offer a much more varied range of subjects than you’d get staying at home!

You’ll need to consider the type of photography that will work best for your lifestyle – product photography is unlikely to work, for example, and event photography would be difficult to organise, unless you schedule your travels around destination weddings. 

Stock photography in appropriate niches may well be a better choice, and if you’re lucky you may find success as a travel or wildlife photographer.

Virtual Assistant Roles

A more traditional role that can still work well as a remote side hustle is as a virtual assistant. You can usually choose your hours, allowing you to fit your side hustle around your travelling, and pick the tasks that best fit your skills.

There are plenty of virtual assistant agencies in the UK that you can sign up to – but you may need relevant experience in order to make it onto their books. 

Other Side Hustles You Can Incorporate Into Travelling

Seasonal Work

The cliché of the free-spirited traveller working behind a bar is a cliché for a reason! If you’re going to be in place for a while, you can always get a temporary job (assuming your visa permits it). If you’re an outdoorsy person, you might decide to work in a ski resort for a season, or if you’re more interested in local culture you could be an English language tour guide. 

Teaching English As A Foreign Language

You’ll need to get a TEFL qualification – but once you’ve done so, you’re in a fantastic position to make money by teaching English abroad. There are dedicated organisations set up all over the world, and your skills as a native speaker will be much in demand.

Use Your Skills To Help Other Travellers 

This will be a little more ad hoc, but if you’ve got practical skills you could offer them to your fellow travellers. Increasingly, travellers are making their way around Europe in vans – so if you know your way around an engine, you’d be in a great position to help any van-lifers experiencing vehicle problems. 

Alternatively, if you plan to travel the world on the water, boat-building skills will make you highly valuable to fellow sailors. Or for those with sporty skills, you might be able to become an outdoor instructor, for example in rock climbing or surfing.

Jobs That Involve Travel 

For a completely different way to travel the world, consider a job that by nature involves travel. Some possibilities include:

• Become a flight attendant. Admittedly, you’ll spend most of your time in the air, but working on flights gives you the chance to visit places across the world without having to spend a penny to get there – instead, you’ll be paid for the privilege.
• Work on cruise ships. By signing up as crew, you get the chance to see all the places a cruise ship visits. Again, your time to explore is limited by your work obligations, but this is another way to see some of the world without it costing you a thing.
• Work on a superyacht. Crewing on a superyacht is hard work, and not nearly as glamorous as it sounds – but it does give you the opportunity to travel, and it’s often pretty well paid. 

House Sitting

Another cheap way to travel is to offer your services as a house sitter. You’ll probably need to be pretty flexible to make this work, as you won’t have work all the time and you could end up heading to your next job at the last minute, but house sitting allows you to be paid to travel and to live like a local while you’re there.

Tips And Tricks For A Successful Travelling Side Hustle

• Save as much as you can before you set off. Obviously, you’re hoping to make a reasonable amount of money as you go, but if possible it’s much better to have a good travelling fund, to avoid being totally reliant on your income from your side hustle.
• Pick a flexible side hustle. You want your side hustle to work around your travel, not the other way around – so ideally, select a side hustle that you can do whenever you’ve got free time.
• Don’t let your side hustle take over your life. Unless you’re really passionate about what you’re doing, remember that your side hustle is there to facilitate your travelling, not the other way around. If it takes up so much time you don’t have time to do anything else, what’s the point in travelling at all?
• Keep an eye out for opportunities. Look for chances to top up your travelling kitty as you go – you never know what might crop up! Of course, you do need to ensure you avoid breaking local rules or your visa’s restrictions surrounding working.
• Become part of the travelling community. There are lots of people travelling around the world, and becoming friends with them is one of the best ways to find out about money-making opportunities you might not otherwise discover. Plus, if you’ve got useful skills, they might be in need of your services.

Paying Tax On Your Side Hustle While Travelling

If you’re based in the UK, you’re required to report and pay tax on any earnings over £1000 on your side hustle. You’ll usually be considered to be self-employed for most side hustles, which means you have to fill out a self-assessment tax return. This is a bit of a hassle, but there’s plenty of guidance out there to help you navigate the process.

If you’re physically based outside the UK for significant periods of time, though, other countries’ rules surrounding tax and working can come into play. Make sure to fully research how taxation on your earnings works in every country you plan to visit, to make sure you don’t end up falling foul of the rules.

And if you’re planning to stay a while in a country with a digital nomad visa scheme (such as Spain, Portugal or Italy), it’s definitely worth considering applying for one! You’ll need to meet certain requirements, which vary from country to country, but schemes like these allow you to stay longer term completely legally, while working a remote job or side hustle.

Summary

In short, there are plenty of ways to make money from a side hustle while you travel! 

With the right skills and commitment, and ideally at least a small travel fund to get you started, you’re sure to find a travelling side hustle that works for you.

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