67 Travel Friendly Jobs to Consider: Day 20 of 30d30w
28. Sep, 2009 
16 Comments
This post is part of 30 Ways in 30 days to Redesign Your Life and Travel the World. This series seeks to give you the practical, real world steps you need to take to get from wherever you are, to exactly where you want to be– traveling the world and living the lifestyle you want.
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I’m sure there are 1,000 different jobs you can do overseas, but here are 67 just to illustrate how varied the options are. If you’re struggling to find a way to make money while you travel, perhaps one of these offbeat stories will give you a new angle. Most of these are first hand accounts, others are links to job boards you might not have considered and a few are how-to articles.
- “I have an incredible job”. Be like this guy.
- Work in the Foreign Service.
- Take your US based strategic communications job on the road
- Work as a Theatre Tech.
- Get a job in Hong Kong from the job boards.
- Find a paid internship in IT in India.
- Act your way across Europe.
- See Antarctica up close with the many job opportunities.
- Find jobs across Asia at the PacificBridge
- Become a wildlife biologist
- Turn your full time job into freelance
- Help on a farm.
- Teach English.
- Make money with your blog and showing other people how to do it.
- Find jobs online in Thailand
- Guide Bicycle Tours.
- Work in an Eco-lodge.
- Start up a business in Hong Kong. Or in Japan for that matter.
- Become a Diver Instructor
- Search for jobs in Malaysia
- Join the legions of IT professionals working remotely and become an IT consultant.
- Beyond teaching English… use your English skills to land other customer facing work.
- Be like Rolf: become a Travel Writer.
- Get a pub job.
- Work in a Ski Resort.
- Join the bon fire and work at campsites worldwide.
- Managing Editor of an online travel network slash guidebook writer slash translator slash…. well you get the idea.
- Become a geologist.
- Work in a hotel in the UK
- Find jobs from house-sitting to farm hand at wwoof.org
- Help businesses and writers polish their prose as a freelance copy editor
- Start your own import/export business
- Be a bar hostess in Japan
- Snap up an IT job in Europe.
- Take care of little ones anywhere in the world: become an Au Pair.
- Help individuals and small business get off the ground in developing countries by working in Microfinance.
- Work in New Zealand wineries.
- Get a job on an Alaskan Fishing boat.
- Check out jobs in Singapore
- Sell your photographs to glossy magazines like Vogue
- Take your corporate job abroad
- Get your hands dirty and work on a farm in Tuscany.
- Write what you love and become a freelance writer
- Fund your travels by playing online poker.
- Chicken Sexer, Bollywood Extra, and 18 more weird travel jobs
- Do what you love and teach others how to, too.
- Search the online classifieds for jobs in Japan
- Put your design skills to work and be a long distance Art Director
- Be an english language radio announcer.
- Search the Gajin Pot for even more jobs in Japan
- Become a Backpack Filmmaker
- Become a local, then find opportunities like voice over work, corporate English gigs and more.
- Search the online listings for jobs in Korea
- Be an on-the-ground journalist as freelance foreign correspondent.
- Become a company’s Twitter Guru
- Play the market and sell stocks
- Search the online listings in India
- Become a bush pilot.
- Take photography to the next level and become a freelance photographer.
- Be a nurse overseas.
- See the world from the open sea: find work on a sailboat.
- Travel port-to-port as you crew Cruise Ships.
- Show tourists the sites in Rome as a Tour Guide.
- Check out the job listings from the Maldives
- Become a professional freelance web designer
- Search the job boards on ExpatForum.com
- Learn how to become a freelance translator
Are there more? Absolutely. If you think of another, please leave the link in the comments.
Excellent list!!
Some great suggestions there 
It’s great how those links are all relevant to travellers specifically. You could actually get any job abroad if you have the right CV. I studied electronic engineering and just looked for brief internships early in my travels.
I also loved working in a Youth Hostel – most of the time you can just get in touch directly with the owner to see if an extra hand is needed.
Buskers can have pretty good travel standards. I met a guy in Galway who was funding his world trip by making BALOON ANIMALS in the street!! The crazy thing is; he made €200 the day I met him!
You can turn any job into “freelance” (as I showed with translation). I hosted a Couchsurfer once that is a masseur for the elderly and posted ads on craigslist for availability when going between cities.
As you say, there are actually 1000s of ideas, there’s no good excuse not to get out there
Benny the Irish polyglot´s last blog ..Getting rid of your English accent when speaking a foreign language
It’s a pity that here in China it would be almost impossible to do any of these jobs legally. 99% of foreigners working here are teaching English. The Chinese are strict when it comes to foreigners doing other kinds of jobs here.
Gordie Rogers´s last blog ..Review: Free Ebook- Breaking Free.
Gordie,
You live there, so you know better than me, but there are definitely jobs out there that aren’t just teaching English in China. Maybe 99% of the people you know who work English teaching jobs are more transient? Here is the RSS feed for the Monster.com China jobs section:
http://rss.jobsearch.monster.com/rssquery.ashx?brd=1&cy=cn&lid=96&re=130&baseurl=jobview.monster.com
There are all kinds of things, Marketing Coordinator, Sales Director, Engineer. Also from my personal experience working in a global corp, it is possible to get an assignment in China, working for a US based company. It’s more of a commitment– it’s becoming an expat not a backpacker, but I think there are opportunities if that’s where you want to live.
When I first started traveling, I was a chef – And I found it was one of the most in demand jobs in the world. Many Countries even have special work permit loopholes for foreign Chefs. I never once had a problem finding work, whether for a week or 6 months. Don’t expect great pay though.
I’ve since moved on to the better paying web development realm, but if I ever run out of clients one day, I know I always have cooking to fall back on.
Ian W.´s last blog ..A Slice of Pai – Pai, Thailand Series
One of your best posts ever!
How about art teacher [Hong Kong and Korea] / radio DJ [Cambodia] / independent artist [nomad through Asia and Europe]. Some of my experiences from the past 12 years.
Look to increase exposure to experiences that can enhance your career, or that are related to what you’ve done before. This will keep continuity through your CV, and be in tune with your interests.
I go for chef every time, you never go hungry !
Cool list!
I’m going to interview a friend of mine who has been making his living as a DJ in China for the last 5 years. I got to visit him last year which was cool. He’s been paid to travel around the whole country, become fluent in Mandarin, and is now thinking about writing a book.
And a Swedish dive instructor I met in Indonesia is now in Hawaii learning to fly helicopters. Can you imagine piloting scenic flights around the Hawaiian islands as a job?! Wow.
Dave´s last blog ..Travel Video: Eurotrip Robot Fight
WONDERFUL list! I really like the group effort that you’ve invited. Now, if we could just spread the message to everyone in the world…
Lindsey Stetson´s last blog ..The Infamous Travelbug
Great list, I need to start doing some of these soon as my savings are looking sorry for themselves
AdventureRob´s last blog ..The Netbook to Travel with: Samsung NC10
Gordie, where in China do you live mate? I’ve been here a year and 7 months and I get offers for acting, voice work, corporate interviews, marketing at supermarkets. There are so many opportunities, and when you get an opportunity, it’s up to YOU to make contacts.
For example: I went for a 2 hour acting gig, and while I was there made a contact with the woman working for the company who is making the commercial. I got myself work doing their script translations and proofreading. It doesn’t pay much by Western standards, but $30 per 1000 words is pretty decent here.
You’re obviously not paying attention to your surroundings. People here WANT to give foreigners money to do just about anything, but instead of us looking like farmers or illegals, they look up to us and respect us (even though thinking we’re stupid at the same time) and pay us well.
Good luck in the future mate, I hope you can find yourself some opportunities!
I consider IT job in England. Many people told me, the salary is interesting.