If you’ve always been one to dream of life beyond your four walls, then a typical 9-to-5 may seem intolerable. Bring on a life of travel and wandering around the globe. However, you’ll still need to have an income to support your wanderlust lifestyle, whether you’re setting off on grand journeys in your trusty van or staying put in different beautiful locations for part of the year.
These are some of the easiest jobs you can do almost anywhere, ensuring a steady income so that you can break free of the typical life path and become a true nomad.
Application Design
Learning application design can be challenging, but also rewarding. If you love coding or have a strong foundation in software design, you’ll be well-positioned to design your own applications. This can easily be done on your own, and if your app actually helps many users, you’ll make it big. Then all you need to do is expand and continue doing this remotely with a team of trusted colleagues.
The application market is huge, and poised to be worth $864.5 billion USD by 2031. However, it’s also a very crowded market, which means that you’ll need to think carefully about what you’re offering in order to stand out from the crowd.
Why not lean into your own nomadic roots and developing an application for fellow wanderers? For example, you could build a travel app that helps women road-trippers stay safe while traveling. It could be from predators, or it could simply be safety from the weather. Think of using a CSV weather data export option to provide real-time weather updates to users, along with helpful advice like safe parking lots along their route and a community update option for those issues that Google Maps doesn’t share.
Freelance Writing and Editing Services
Writing is a huge field, encompassing everything from business articles to personal memoirs and more. There are also a zillion services geared to writers, such as beta reading, editing, proofing, formatting and more. Many of these services can be done remotely from the comfort of your van or cabana or hut on the beach without ever meeting the client. This sort of asynchronous work is perfect if you have a flair for writing or are pretty verbose; and want to continue being inspired by your ever-changing surroundings while keeping their mind sharp.
When building a freelance writing or editing career, consider using specialized writing job boards to find your clients and cultivate a portfolio of your best work – Muck Rack, Medium, or LinkedIn are just some of the places to build your presence. You don’t have to stick to one nice. Many writers cover a number of related niches, from travel and culture, to food and art. It might be a bit difficult getting started, but once you have a foot in the door, it gets easier. Plus, the fewer rewrites you need, the happier your clients will be and the better your recommendations.
Transcription and Translation
If you travel regularly to the same regions, you might become familiar with local dialects, figures of speech, and accents. This could be useful for a role in transcription and translation. This is especially true in an era of AI, where large language models often fail to capture the finer nuances of local conversations.
Once you decide you like transcription and want to keep going, you can also purchase specialized gear such as foot pedals that help you work faster. You might think they need a special setup, but these can be easy to set up in your van or pack into your luggage. Since you’re usually paid per project, you can adjust your schedule as needed to accommodate travel time.
Translators must have strong, native or near-native proficiency in both the original and target language. To better advertise yourself, ensure you specify the exact dialect you’re familiar with in both languages. For example, if you’ve mostly worked on translating American English into Standard Cantonese, you’ll have trouble translating it into the sing-song sounding Taishanese because although they share the same roots, they’re quite distinct with hardly a 30% overlap.
Remote Tutoring
If you’re a nomad, it doesn’t mean you started out without any experience. Most likely, you started out after a few years working a 9-to-5 and have a degree or two to your name. You can share your skills with others all across the world. Translate your degrees or experience in a particular specialty into a flexible yet steady employment through tutoring.
There are many remote tutoring platforms that connect experts with students in particular countries or around the world. These platforms guide students them through homework or help them understand complex concepts that the teacher may not have explained in depth. There are also platforms dedicated to language learning if you have a gift for languages. Most of these are flexible or shift-based, so you can sign up for your preferred work hours and do your own thing the rest of the time. As long as you have all your documentation in place for background checks you can easily turn homework and remote education into a career.
Remote Work Has Revolutionized Nomad Employment
Decades ago, travel lovers had to hope they could find odd jobs wherever they landed or rely on years of saved income. At that time the jobs were more along the lines of working on farms, in shops, or as au pairs, or any other random work. Nowadays though, anyone with an internet connection and expertise can find work anywhere in the world.
Whether you’re a software engineer who wants to drive across the US or a writer with a romantic heart, you can fund your nomad dreams without ever stepping into an office. Better yet, you can secure the credentials for these careers through online learning. There’s never been a better time to be a nomad than in the modern world of digital work.
Other Posts You Might Like
- Using park model cabins on homesteads
- Leatherworking projects for gifting
- Waiting is difficult! What do Christians do?
- Keto diet 101
- A visit to Rila Monastery
