How you can get paid to travel

IT SOUNDS like a dream, but it’s a reality for thousands of travellers who combine work with pleasure. Here's how to see the world on someone else’s dollar.

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GETTING paid to travel. It sounds like a dream, but it’s a reality for thousands of travellers who combine work with pleasure.

Earning an income while travelling is also easier than you think. While joining airline and hotel loyalty clubs might get you a free ticket or a night or two of accommodation each year, there are much easier ways to see the world on someone else’s dollar.

From making minimal commitments through house sitting or home rental to selecting a globetrotting career, here are 13 ways to get paid to travel, according to Cheapflights. So pack your bags and read on.

House sit

Water plants, feed and walk dogs and pick up the mail for homeowners while enjoying the perks of getting paid and a free place to stay. From opportunities in your neighbourhood to halfway around the world, there are plenty of websites, like Mindahome.com.au, Aussiehousesitters.com.au and Care.com that list house sitting opportunities lasting from one day to several months.

Rent out your house

The proliferation of property rental websites like HomeAway, VRBO and airbnb has made it easier to rent and rent out rooms. For years, Brian Sharples and Carl Shepherd preferred renting holiday homes over staying at hotel chains but finding and booking vacation homes wasn’t easy.

The duo started HomeAway in 2005 and there are now 1 million home listings in 190 countries. The average vacation rental owner on HomeAway makes $28,000 renting an average of 18 weeks. Not bad.

If you’re game to rent out your home, you could earn heaps.

Write about travel

It’s not the easiest way to get paid to travel, but ambitious writers and journalists can combine their love of travel with their passion for the written word by becoming travel bloggers, travel editors or writers for guidebooks and travel publications.

Those with a penchant for photography can also earn a living by shooting photos for travel guidebooks, magazines and websites. Starting a blog is free but gaining connections often costs some money.

One place to meet other travel bloggers and travel professionals is the annual TBEX conference, a popular travel blogger gathering.

Be a tour guide

At most monuments, museums and top attractions around the world, tour guides stand at the ready to introduce visitors to these famed sights. Some are so memorable that an hour with them is the highlight of the trip.

There are thousands of opportunities to be a tour guide, from working for established companies to working as an independent guide. Tour guides provide everything from walking city tours to cycling culinary adventures to step-by-step explanations of the history at the world’s greatest treasures like the Angkor Wat and the Taj Mahal.

Tour guides may be ubiquitous, but they get paid to share the world with others.

Work as a nanny

Working as a nanny abroad affords the opportunity to gain work experience overseas and see the world while getting paid.

Like kid? Consider being a nanny.

Volunteer on a farm

Since 1971, folks looking for an alternative holiday have been heading to Worldwide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF) to work in exchange for room and board — the organisation links volunteers with organic farms and growers.

In return for volunteering, WWOOF host farms provide accommodation and food along with experience working on organic farms in Asia, Central America, North America, South America and Europe. Volunteers work four to six hours a day doing tasks like sowing seeds, making compost, gardening, planting, cutting wood, weeding, harvesting, packing, milking, feeding, fencing, making mud-bricks, wine making, cheese making and bread making. Stays average one to two weeks but can be as short as a few days to six months.

Become a flight attendant

Fly the friendly skies and see the world too. The opportunities to globe-trot are plentiful with flight attendant perks like free airfare and competitive salaries. While the job can be demanding — working long hours including weekends and holidays with long stretches of time away from family — the rewards can include a ticket to see the world.

Work on a cruise ship

Set sail with a great salary and benefits, no commute and the chance to see the world by working on a cruise ship. From housekeepers to cooks, Blackjack dealers to activity co-ordinators, and bartenders to masseuses, there are dozens of professional jobs aboard cruise ships. Staff are given rotating days off, allowing them to disembark for a day or more in ports of call around the world.

You could do cool things on a cruise ship, like make animal shapes out of towels.

Work for a hotel

Check in for a year or more at a favourite destination by working at a hotel. Resorts worldwide look for exceptional bartenders, chefs, event planners, public relations managers and hotel managers to run the world’s most exceptional hotels.

Along with competitive salaries and benefits, hotel jobs often include free or discounted hotel stays and the chance to earn a living in paradise.

Be a travel nurse

Licensed nurses can practice their profession of caring for others while exploring the world. From short- to long-term assignments, nurses not only get to work in exotic locales, but they earn a salary often higher than what they earn at home. In some countries like America you could make up to $12,000 per month, TravelNursing.org claims.

For nurses who wish to share their talents for free in exchange for a memorable adventure near home or abroad, the non-profit Nurse Without Borders lists volunteer, career and educational opportunities for nurses and nursing students.

Be a roadie

Load-in, load-out, day in and day out is the life of a roadie. The benefits of travelling with and having up-close access to bands and seeing the world don’t come easy. Long hours, long hauls and backbreaking tasks are all in a day’s work.

From carpenters and electricians to sound engineers, riggers and stagehands to seamstresses and security, there are many opportunities to work behind the scenes.