As you all know, I love temple seeking! I just can’t get enough of the historical and religious sites around the world. But, travel doesn’t come cheap and you will need additional income sources particularly if you would like to travel in the long term. Today, I’d love to share with you how I fund my solo female travel blog. I travel extensively to see some of the most amazing places including the temples of Bangkok, highlights of China and La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona. Many people ask me how to make money travelling. Sometimes I have a main job, sometimes I am nomadic, but I ALWAYS have additional income.
5 Ways to Earn Online – How to Make Money Travelling
1. Blogging Income from Affiliate Marketing
Do you want to know how to make money travelling? My travel blog produces income from Affiliate marketing – the concept of marketing for other companies (your affiliates), one of my top ways to make money online. If I mention my favourite hotel in a particular city, for example, I can generate a link from a website such as booking.com or Agoda and then if someone books from clicking through to my link, I can earn a percentage commission for this booking (usually between 2-5%).
If you are looking to make money to travel through your blog, the best platform that I can recommend is Awin. Awin (formerly Affiliate Window) is an affiliate marketing platform that will help you to link with relevant companies and earn commission from click throughs and bookings or purchases. There are other good one including CJ (Commission Junction) and the Amazon Associates affiliate programme (great for advertising products).
If you are serious about making an income blogging, you might want to explore the best blogging courses that I have found online – Travel Blog Success, Turn your Dreams into Money and Nomadic Matt’s Superstar Blogging course.
2. Being a Landlord
I bought a property in my 20’s and it’s one of the best things that I ever did. Over the years, my mortgage has come down and rental income has gone up, leaving me a tidy profit every month, provided that there are no repairs. The key to being a landlord is to get a good long term tenant and keep them happy by doing repairs and maintenance work immediately.
If you are buying specifically to let, go for a good area, because you are more likely to get better paying tenants and people who look after your property. You’re also less likely to get your property burgled while it’s empty.
I would recommend managing the properties yourself if you can. The only two times when things have gone badly wrong are when letting agents have been ‘managing’ it for me. Sadly, their main objective is to take the money and run. They also often take money for repairs without allowing you to approve or check the work.
3. Matched Betting
Matched betting is a way to make money online by profiting from free bets with the bookies. Just to be clear, it isn’t gambling, provided that you always match your bet on the exchange. Matched betting has been featured on The Guardian and Save the Student as a legitimate way to make an additional income. It’s not illegal, although many bookies may not allow you to keep your account open in the long term if they can see that you are profiting from them!
Essentially, you bet on a footie match (or a horse) with the bookie and then you ‘lay’ the bet (or bet against) on the exchange. Then bookies offer you free bets, so when you do this process with free bets, you are basically cashing in on them, because the free bet money will either appear in the bookies (if the bet wins) or in the exchange (if the bet loses). Chi-ching!
The best tool that I have come across to make money matched betting is profit accumulator. The offers are displayed in your account daily with exact instructions on how to profit, and a calculator to make sure that you can work out your lay stake.
This is one of my top ways how to make money travelling – I have done matched betting not the road from many countries in Europe. However, you do need to check the laws of the country you are travelling to. Is online gambling allowed? Will your online bookmakers allow you to access your account from the country that you are travelling to?
4. Money Making Mobile Apps and Websites
There are some fabulous smartphone apps that will show you how to make money travelling and allow you to earn on the road. I love to do market research through apps such as Roamler and StreetSpotr. Once I had to go into Tesco and photograph some bananas for £5! Easy and good pay considering that most are only 10-15 minute tasks. I did a lot of Roamlers from Sweden, because it can be quite an expensive country to travel. It worked really well!
There’s also a website called 20 Cogs where you can complete competitions, offers, gaming and surveys. Each task is quite easy to do – it might be something like complete a survey, sign up to Netflix or sign up to an online Casino and spend £10 on slots. The ‘cogs’ qualify or go green once you have completed the offer, and then you can move on to the next one. Each contain a monetary value. After completing my 20 Cogs, I drew out over £230! One tip – set up separate email address and possibly phone number to avoid the marketing hassle that can come with 20 Cogs.
5. Freelancing
If ever my passive income runs out, or I have to evict a tenant, there is always freelancing to fall back on. My freelance gig is social media management and I run my own website for this – www.trumpetermedia.com. I help companies to write content for social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, and Instagram. I also offer a blogging services for companies.
You can freelance in anything that you are good at – blog writing, website design, SEO, social media design, administration. You control your tasks and you control your rate.
There are lots of freelancer websites out there, but my favourite by far is People Per Hour. I find it easy to get work on there, just be wary of the fact that some stingy clients try to push you down on price – know your worth! Be clear on your pricing and delivery quality work, and you will quickly increase your rating and raise your bookings. You can sign up here for £30 FREE Credit!
Further Help – How to Make Money Travelling
You might want to join my online money making Facebook support group.