10 Easy Income Streams that Earn you Money Whilst you Travel the World
With the number of digital nomads increasing year on year, there’s never been a better time to up sticks and travel.
But whilst at one time the only way to fund a travelling adventure was to save up beforehand, or work in bars and restaurants along the way, these days there’s endless opportunities to earn money easily.
These 10 passive income streams allow you to travel the world and make money whilst you do it. Sounds like the dream right? Let’s take a look at them.
10 best passive income streams for travelling on your own terms
1. Selling digital products
Creating a digital product is one of the easiest ways to earn money passively.
If you already have an audience, you can sell them through your own website or social media channels. But even without an audience, websites like Etsy make it easier than ever to get started.
You can easily create products for free on Canva, and there’s templates on there to help you if you’re not a natural designer.
You could make templates for just about anything – birthday party invitations, hen do games or productivity planners.
Think about what your skills are and how you could apply that to the product you want to sell. Is there something your friends always come to you about? That’s usually a pretty big clue.
If you’re the one always organising the group trips, maybe you could create the ultimate trip planner.
You can set your product up to be automatically emailed to the customer when they purchase it, so you don’t need to be involved at all.
2. Starting a blog
Whilst you’re travelling or living in a new place, it’s the perfect time to start a travel blog.
Write about experiences, hotels and the best things to do in the places you visit, and when you start generating traffic, you can make money from ads on your website.
There’s lots of different ad networks to choose from, depending on the amount of traffic you get, and the earning potential is huge.
The best part? You can make money in your sleep. As long as people are engaging with the ads, you’ll be earning money.
3. Earning through affiliate links
We all influence people every single day. Maybe your friend asks where your new top is from, or you tell your parents about a brilliant new restaurant you’ve discovered in town.
In real life, there’s no way of you getting recognised for influencing that sale. But online, there is. And it’s called affiliate marketing.
Most big brands have affiliate programmes which you can sign up to, and each time someone buys something through your link, you’ll earn a small amount of money.
The more people buy, the more that small commission builds up. Affiliate marketing is an extremely lucrative income stream, and one that allows you to earn money passively whilst you’re lying on a beach in Spain.
A blog is a great place to advertise your affiliate links, you could sign up to the Booking.com affiliate programme and write posts on the best hotels in your area.
Or try Get your Guide and Viator, and create guides to the best activities near you.
If you’re more interested in fashion, sign up to LTK where you’ll find all your favourite brands.
If you’re passionate about tech, try the Amazon affiliate programme. You could review products and offer your thoughts on the best one to buy.
People trust real experiences, so get out there and do the things you’re talking about. Use your own pictures and offer honest opinions on what you liked and disliked.
4. Producing travel itineraries
When we live in a place we forget that for some people, it’s a bucket list destination. So take all of that knowledge you have about a place and turn it into a travel guide.
You can use Canva to create your guide and then download it as a PDF, and sell it on your blog or sites like Etsy. Think about what you can add to make it unique, people love information they won’t find anywhere else.
Maybe you know about a hidden bar where you enter through a fridge door, or a family run restaurant that makes the best dumplings in town. Everyone’s searching for an experience away from the mainstream, and they’ll pay to get it.
5. Start a YouTube channel
If you’ve got a hobby you’d like to share with the world, starting a YouTube channel is a great way to earn money passively.
You’ll need to grow your channel enough to be eligible for ads, but once you’re in, the earning potential is huge. YouTube has one of the most generous ad networks for creators.
6. User Generated Content (UGC)
User Generated Content, or UGC, is rising massively. This is where you create content for brands to post on their own website or Social Media channels.
The beauty of UGC is that you don’t even need to grow your own audience to get started.
Create a list of as many brands as you can think of, and then send them a DM on Instagram asking if they’d be interested in you creating content for them. Keep following up if you don’t hear back, it’s common for brands to need chasing.
When you’re just getting started, you’ll want to price yourself competitively to build up a portfolio of work. But the more brands you work with, the more you’ll be able to charge.
7. Sell your photos to stock websites
If you like taking photos, you can earn money by selling them to stock websites like Unsplash.
You don’t need to use an expensive camera, phones take such brilliant photos these days that it’s often difficult to tell the difference.
If you’re travelling in a particularly beautiful destination, use the opportunity to take as many photos as you can. You can also use them for your blog so it’s a win win.
8. Take on social media clients
Living in a digital world can make it easy to think everyone knows how to run social media channels for their brands.
But that’s not the case, there’s lots of people out there who need a helping hand to nurture and grow a community.
If you have experience growing your own social channels, or maybe you’ve done it as part of your job, this is a valuable skill people will pay good money for.
9. Grow a Facebook community
Unlike Instagram where you don’t get paid for views on a video, Facebook will pay you for views as long as you meet their entry requirements.
Think about your interests and what you’d most enjoy making content about. Maybe it’s travel, food, books, or fashion. You’ll need it to be something you can create regular content about as consistency will be key here.
Growing a Facebook page might take a little longer than some of the other ideas on this list, but the rewards are huge once you start earning money.
10. Work as a digital assistant
With the rise of people work remotely and more bloggers, influencers, and business owners than ever before, people are in need of assistants to help them manage their time.
The beauty of this job is that you don’t need prior experience, you just need to be hard working and organised.
You might be asked to help pitch for new clients, arrange meetings, edit videos, manage finances, or reply to customers.
Reach out to business owners on LinkedIn, or content creators on Instagram and ask if they need an assistant.
Try and get people to commit to a retainer, where they sign up to a monthly fee. This way, you know you have recurring revenue coming in.
Closing thoughts: Income streams that help you travel the world
Its never been easier to make money remotely, offering incredible opportunities to travel the world on your terms.
Some things on this list require more work than others, but once they’re up. and running, the opportunities are endless.
And there’s something quite addictive about generating money for yourself!
