It´s a lot of people’s dream to be location-independent, go wherever their heart takes them, and make passive income while traveling.
To travel and only live from your savings for a long period of time is pretty unsustainable. In order to sustain that travel lifestyle, you have to find a way to make money from anywhere in the world so that your bank account doesn´t end up at $0.
It can be pretty tricky to get work visas for different countries so I created this list of ideas on how to make money on your travels and how to make passive income while traveling so that you can work from anywhere in the world.
What if I told you there are actually ways how you can make passive income while traveling the world?
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Admittedly some of these ideas may take a while to set up or take off but remember everything worthwhile takes some time.
I quit my job in retail to travel to Mexico and I´ve been doing that for the last couple of months now.
I´m still figuring out ways how to make money in a way that is sustainable in the long term but I did a lot of research on this topic and I´ve done some things myself to be able to travel and have an income at the same time.
Let me share these amazing ideas on how you can start making money by doing different things and how to make passive income while traveling. Hopefully, they can help inspire you in some way. Some of these ideas require your work again and again in order to make money, but some of these ideas only require work upfront and can earn you passive income which is the first step to financial freedom.
How to make money and passive income while traveling
1. Rent out your space
Renting out your apartment or room can be pretty profitable. If you live in a nice city with a lot of tourism you could rent out your apartment or room on Airbnb while you´re gone. The average Airbnb host makes 924$ a month by renting out their space. (Source: CNBC Make It)
You can also ask around if someone is in need of an apartment, room, or storage space.
I and my boyfriend had a friend who needed an apartment for only a short period of time and asked us if he could move into our apartment for a while. This was perfect since it was empty because we were traveling. So no matter if you´re traveling only for a short period of time or you´re traveling somewhere for longer, this is a great way to make money while you´re traveling.
2. Flip items
It depends on where you´re traveling to but most countries have Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist even. If you´re lucky and put in the work you might be able to find items for free or really cheap which you can then sell for a profit.
This takes a little bit of work because you do have to pick up the item but it can be worth it. Also, you have to know your stuff. For example, if you buy a really bad item and think you´re going to sell it for a profit but no one wants it, then you end up losing money.
3. Dividend Income, a great passive income source
Dividend Income is one of my favorite incomes. It´s all passive income and you only have to do the work once and get paid over and over again.
So how this works is you can basically buy a fraction of a company by buying their stocks. This entitles you as the owner of the stock to a proportion of the company’s assets and profits equal to how much stock you own.
The company pays out a proportion of its profit to its stockholders. So for example, if you own 1000 stocks of a company and they pay you a $0,79 dividend a year then you would get $790 every year.
Obviously, you would have to pay taxes on that but you get the point. You need a little bit of money upfront to start investing to actually make a good amount of money each month but nevertheless, it´s a great way of making money while traveling because you don´t actively have to do anything once you bought the stocks. It´s a great way of passive income.
Investing always come with a risk and I´m no financial expert so please do your own research.
How to make money online
4. Sell Digital Items on Etsy
This is something I´ve done personally and I absolutely love it! I just started a month ago and already made 10 sales.
Update: It has been over 2 months now and I made 80 sales and over $300. It´s worth looking into!
Basically what this is, is creating a Digital product on a website like Canva, something like a planner or template, and selling it on Etsy. People can then buy that template and print it out at home or professionally.
Digital Products can be a lot of things but let me give you a couple of examples to better understand:
You can sell for example wedding nametags, and people can buy them, change the name to their wedding guests’ name and get them professionally printed out, and use them for their wedding. Or you could sell baby shower games and people can print them out at home.
Let me give you more examples, these are categories people sell Digital products in:
- Wedding
- Baby
- Real Estate
- Fitness plans
- Nutrition plans
- Planners
- Checklists
- Social Media Templates for Yogis, Finance or Fitness Coaches etc.
It will take some time to create the templates, but it can be really profitable if you put in the work. Single templates can sell for anything from $3-$10 depending on what you´re selling and bundles for $90-$250. So if you only sell one bundle a week you could potentially make $800 a month.
Also, this is something you create once and can sell it over and over again so it´s Passive Income. I usually create my Templates on Canva and you need a Pro account to be able to sell your Templates. If you do this make sure to only sell things you´ve created personally and don’t use the templates that are already in Canva.
5. Publish your own E-book
Nowadays it gets easier and easier to do things online. You don´t have to spend huge amounts of money to publish your book or get denied 12 times by publishers like J.K. Rowling. You can easily publish your own book and sell it. Self-publishing an E-book is something you can do from the comfort of your home or while traveling and become a successful author.
Write a book about your knowledge or be creative and write novels or some sort of fiction.
If you´re not into writing you could create your own notebook or planner and sell it on Amazon with Kindle direct publishing. The way how this works is pretty simple:
You create a cover on a website like Canva and your pages for the inside. This could simply be blank pages or pages with lines for a notebook. Then you sign up on Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing and upload your design. If someone buys your planner or notebook, Amazon will create the book for you and ship it out to the customer.
Here are some ideas you could start creating:
- Planners
- Notebooks
- Quotes book
- Daily 5 minute journals
- Task/ to- do books
- Coloring books for kids
- Coloring books for adults
- Kids illustration book
You could also just outsource it on websites like Fiverr or Upwork. There you can find someone that draws illustrations for kids’ books for example or someone that creates mandalas and creates a coloring book for adults. The options are endless here.
6. Amazon FBA
Amazon is the biggest search engine in the world and has over 197 Million people that visit the website each month. Imagine selling your own product on Amazon and getting it in front of all these people.
Now, this is a full topic on its own and I could easily write a book about this (hint maybe an E-book) but to make it as short as possible I´ll explain what this is.
FBA stands for fulfilled by Amazon and you basically create an Amazon product listing and you go and buy that product in bulk and send it to one of the Amazon warehouses where Amazon handles the fulfilling if someone places an order. So someone can go on your Amazon listing and buy it and Amazon handles the shipment of your product.
Sounds pretty great huh? There is a lot that goes into it and you have to do a lot of research on what products are actually selling. You also need a little bit of cash to buy the products but this is an amazing opportunity to start your own business and you can all do it from a laptop.
This makes it the perfect way of making money while traveling if you have a bit of cash to spare and it will bring you a ton of passive income in the long run.
7. Sell a Digital Course and make passive income while traveling
If you are knowledgeable in any topic you can create a Digital Course. People want to learn new skills and the easiest way to do that is by having a teacher. There are different ways how to offer your Digital Course. If you already have a platform like a website, blog, or YouTube channel you could offer it to your audience directly. There are websites like Podia or Teachable where you can self-host your Digital Course.
If you don´t have a big audience already you can use websites like Udemy or Skillshare.
Both are websites dedicated to learning new skills. Skillshare works on a subscription basis while on Udemy you pay for individual courses.
There are people who earn a lot of money teaching other people different skills.
Here are some ideas you could start teaching:
- Money, Budgeting, Finances
- Music Instruments
- Human Design
- Languages
- Manifestation
- Algorithms
- Painting
- Social Media Growth
Or just whatever you´re good at. There might be something that´s not on these websites already. If you have a skill, definitely consider creating a Digital Course. You could start by creating a presentation on Canva. You don´t even have to show your face if you´re not comfortable with that.
This is a great passive income source since you only create the course once and can sell it over and over again.
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8. Become a freelancer
If you have a skill like drawing, proofreading, writing or graphic design, etc. you can become a freelancer. You can sign up on Fiverr and offer your services to people.
I mentioned earlier you can outsource a lot of things on Fiverr and pay someone to do something for you but you can also be the person that gets paid to create something.
9. Start a Dropshipping business
Dropshipping is a business model where you advertise products on your website without actually, physically having the products. When someone buys something on your website you then go to your supplier and buy the product and your supplier ships the product directly to your customer.
For example, you put something on your website for 45$. Someone buys it and you get paid 45$. You order it from your supplier for 20$. Your supplier ships it directly to your customer and you keep the profit of 25$.
You can advertise your product on Social-Media Platforms like Pinterest, Instagram, or TikTok. This is a great way of starting to make money if you don´t have a lot of money to invest in the beginning. Shopify is the best website to create a Dropshipping business.
10. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate Marketing in simple terms is basically promoting someone else´s product and receiving a commission when you get a sale. Commissions range a lot where sometimes you get a certain amount of money per sale and sometimes you get a percentage of that sale.
For example, if someone buys something for $100 while using your affiliate link and you get a 40% commission when you make $40 with that sale which is pretty amazing if you ask me.
You can promote products of all kinds. Whether that be physical products, digital products or sometimes you can make money when someone signs up for a website by using your link.
It takes a while for affiliate money to roll in but it´s something that can make you a lot of money in the long term. Also if you have a big audience it´s easier to promote a product and actually get a sale. Think of your favorite Blogger or YouTuber. They usually always have affiliate links in Blog posts, descriptions, etc.
I love using affiliate links from other people because it doesn´t cost me more and I help someone make money so it´s a win-win.
11. Start a Blog, the best way of making passive income while traveling
This is something to consider if you love writing. I definitely do and always have loved it back in school. It is not expensive to start a blog and you could even start with less than 4$ a month by signing up on Bluehost. Blogging can make a lot of money if you put in the work. You can start making money with advertising on your Blog and use affiliate links to promote products you love.
Here are a few ideas you could start writing about:
- Food
- Travel
- Reviews
- Fashion
- Make-Up
- Finance
- Personal Development
- Lifestyle
I recommend starting a niche blog so it´s easier for people to find you. Also, you don´t want to confuse people by writing a Blog-post about Make-Up and the next Blog-post is about Finance. If you´re at some point not passionate about that Blog anymore, you could even sell it, which brings me to my next point.
12. Blog Selling or Flipping
This requires that you already have a Blog you can sell or have the needed cash to buy an already existing Blog but it´s a great way of making money while traveling because you can do it from your laptop.
If you don´t want to own your Blog anymore you can sell it for a profit. How much you can make from your Blog depends on a couple of factors like your content and pageviews. The range of what you can get is between 24x-40x of what your Blog makes you.
So if your Blog makes you 1000$ a month you might be able to sell it for $24.000-$40.000.
Blog flipping is like Item flipping. You buy low and sell for a profit. If you have money to buy a Blog this is also something to consider. You can buy an already established business or Blog and resell it for a profit by actively working on it for a while and building its revenue and traffic. Also, you can just buy a Blog and keep it if it´s making you money every month.
I definitely want to start a new project Blog to try this one out and I think if you already have a Blog then it gets easier to create a second, third or fourth one because you´ve already done it before.
13. Become a Content Creator on TikTok or Instagram
It obviously takes time and effort to be a content creator and not everyone wants to become an influencer I know, but apps like TikTok make it so easy to get a lot of followers in a short amount of time.
You don´t even have to show your face if you don´t want to. There are so many opportunities here. You could teach people personal finances or make budget videos or show people the places you´re traveling to. Also, you could just record your dog or cat and chances are that one of your videos goes viral and you get a lot of followers from only that one video.
Followers alone obviously don´t make you money but you can start working with brands and get paid for it. You can also start advertising your own products or promote your affiliate links to a large audience.
This is a great way to make money while being location-independent.
14. Start a YouTube channel, a great passive income source while traveling
YouTube is the second-largest search engine in the world and video content gets more and more popular. With YouTube videos, you can make a lot of passive income because you upload a video once and people can watch it over and over again so you can get paid from the ads over and over again.
This is also something you can easily start with your phone and from anywhere in the world. You can start creating travel videos, vlogs, or beauty videos. Maybe start a fitness or Yoga channel.
But if you don´t want to show your face, again there are a lot of different options.
If you are a gamer for example just record yourself playing your favorite video games. You can teach people simple things like painting a wall, playing an instrument or how to put together furniture. Or think about the fireplace video everyone uses as a backdrop. It has over 85 Million views and counting so imagine how much money you can make by creating videos like this.
With determination and a little creativity, you can potentially make a lot of money online.
These are my 14 ideas you can start to make money online and while you´re traveling. I hope they were helpful and inspired you in some way.
Have you tried any of these ideas? Do you have any other ideas on how to earn some money and be location-independent?
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