July 6, 2017
• 3 Minute Read
There are few ideas as captivating as free travel. It’s an elusive goal for many, but it’s not impossible. To get there, you can use one of several strategies that offer travel opportunities that someone else will pay for.
But first, you have to understand that free travel is never easy. As the saying goes, there’s no such thing as a free lunch, and any travel that you accept for free will come with other types of costs and obligations.
Here are six ways that you can start traveling for free:
1. Get A Job That Requires Travel
There are jobs at nearly every pay level that require you to travel for your work. Popular careers that involve travel include sales, consulting, entertainment, and hospitality. When your employer sends you somewhere, they will typically reimburse the cost of all of your meals and transportation expenses. In addition, most employers will allow you to spend your weekend at your destination, giving you additional time to explore a new place.
2. Teach English
If you are reading this, then you have a vital skill that’s highly in demand around the world. There are organizations that are looking for native English speakers to teach English in foreign countries around the world. Some are full time positions that include airfare, while others are temporary opportunities that only include room and board.
3. Become a Travel Writer or Photographer
Freelance journalism isn’t known as being an especially high paying career, so how can all they afford to visit the exotic destinations that they are always writing about? They can’t afford to pay for these trips any more than automotive journalists are able to buy every new car they write about. Instead, the destination will host the journalist or photographer who is traveling on assignment. Sometimes, it’s a collaborative effort with a tourism board paying for a flight and a rental car, while a hotel comps a few nights stay. The larger the publication is, the more willing a destination will be to cover your travel expenses in return for coverage.
4. Become a Digital Nomad
If you add up all of your monthly living expenses, such as housing, transportation, and utilities, then you’ll probably come up with quite a large amount. But if you were to shed all these expenses, then you may have enough money to travel full time, albeit frugally. Until recently, you could only survive this way off of your savings, or with some kind of passive income. But now, there are dozens of careers where you can work remotely from anywhere in the world that has a decent Internet connection. Possible careers that lend themselves towards remote work include computer programmers, web developers, graphic designers, online entrepreneurs, translators, and consultants.
Here’s a way to see the world for free without having to give up your current career. There’s an entire community of award travel enthusiasts dedicated to learning all of the tricks and loopholes inherent to frequent flyer programs and hotel rewards. It doesn’t hurt if you already earn points and miles from your business or personal travel, but many of the ways you earn points and miles don’t require any travel at all. For example, there are numerous credit cards that offer new applicants generous sign-up bonuses, and valuable bonus points and miles for your most frequent purchases. Also, travel providers can offer bonus points and miles as part of promotions.
6. Connect with Your Heritage
Americans descend from all corners of the world, and there are organizations dedicated to helping us reconnect with our ancestral homelands. For example, Birthright Israel offers to pay Jewish Americans travel expenses for a 10-day trip to Israel, and Birthright Armenia will reimburses travel expenses for Armenian Americans who spend two months to volunteering in Armenia. Other organizations subsidize travel for Americans of Greek, Hungarian, Taiwanese, and Ethiopian descent, often with a volunteer component.
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