Making Money On The Road

We really wish we could tell you there’s a magic way to take a trip like ours, giving up work, and for it to somehow pay for itself. For us, the way we managed it was simply to save up over a period of years, travel in an 18 year old van and manage our finances well. The only income we have is from the rental of our house in England, which perhaps covers 1/3 of the cost of travelling.

We’re not sure what we’ll do when we return to the UK to earn a living, but we do know of some people who manage to make a living and sustain a travelling lifestyle full time. They have managed this through careful planning and hard work, again there is no magic bullet. The ways in which people seem to sustain themselves:

• By keeping a UK job and working remotely. theworldisourlobster.com did this, working two days a week via satellite Internet for two years.
• Some people seem to work for chunks of the year in the UK, and spend the rest of the time travelling (see doyourdream.co.uk)
• Developing software while you travel. Www.technomadics.com did this (website no longer up), writing code for Apple devices. We’ve seen one Australian-based couple who develop and support web sites from their motorhome; they have no house and access the Internet via satellite.
• We came across one guy who full times in the US and Mexico, living off about $4000 a year in Google Adsense income (like the ads on this site – if people click on them, the site owner gets paid a few pence).
• The vast majority of people we’ve met are retired, and travel on their pension and savings. We’ve met a few people who’ve sold up in the UK and travel full time; seems like rather a nice and exciting way to live out your latter years to me.

Update: This post is from 2011. We have now had a few more years on the road and learned ways to make money as you travel. You can find more articles about it here.