Have laptop, will travel. Even better, use your laptop to earn money while you travel, to pay for your travel. Here are some ideas how.

Laptop

Background

In a recent posting to the Digital Eve Israel Yahoo Group, a group member asked the following question:

“Any leads on how to find a job that can be done on my laptop, here and there, so that I can still pay my bills while traveling?”

This reminded me of the time when I was still a programmer at Amazon.com back in 2000.

Living in Paris but working daily over the Internet with people in Seattle, I wanted to visit my family in Montreal without taking a lot of vacation time either. Luckily, Amazon’s computer systems allowed people to connect from outside the office and that made it easier to convince my boss to let me go.

In the end, I only took off 2 days for traveling purposes and otherwise worked full days from my parents’ house, basically paying for my trip and expenses. A side benefit to Amazon was that having me in a middle time zone (6 hours behind Paris but 3 ahead of Seattle) made some projects easier to finish on time.

Working while traveling and telecommuting aren’t quite the same thing

Which is true. People usually associate telecommuting with a full-time job that lets you work from home regularly.

To best answer the question above, let’s set out some criteria that make more sense regarding jobs for travelers. Those jobs usually need to be:

  • Jobs you can do over the Internet
  • Jobs that can be done over a short time-span i.e. during your travels
  • Jobs you can get on short notice

This last one is important in case you need multiple jobs to pay all your bills during your trip.

So we’re dealing with freelance jobs. However, if you choose well and deliver well, a short-term freelance job can become a longer-term freelance job that you continue from home after traveling.

Jobs you can do while traveling

With that in mind, the list below should give you all sorts of traveling job ideas. Each job title points at a real job description, and if the description isn’t a good match for you, just do a search on the job title to find more open jobs like it.

  1. 3D and Flash Animator
  2. Accountant
  3. Advertiser
  4. Administrative Assistant
  5. Article Writer
  6. Billing and Debt Collection Representative
  7. Blog Programmer
  8. Career Coach
  9. Virtual Assistant
  10. Advertising Poster
  11. Copywriter
  12. Customer Service Representative
  13. Data Entry Provider
  14. Data Specialist
  15. Database Developer
  16. E-book Writer
  17. Email Template Designer
  18. Flash/Web Developer
  19. Graphic Artist
  20. Caricaturist
  21. Marketing & Lead Generation Campaigner
  22. Logo Designer
  23. Online Tutor
  24. Personal Assistant/Secretary
  25. Press Release Writer
  26. Project Manager
  27. Recruitment Researcher
  28. Sourcer (not sorcerer!)
  29. Resume Writer
  30. Sales Presentation Designer
  31. SEO Analyst
  32. Foreign Language Voice Talents
  33. Technical Support
  34. Telemarketing Professional
  35. Transcriptionist
  36. Travel Planner
  37. Typist
  38. Video Editor
  39. Web Content Writer
  40. Web Designer
  41. Website Translator
  42. Stock Photographer
  43. Voice-overs
  44. Cartoonist
  45. Real Estate Researcher
  46. Business Consultant
  47. Legal Advisor
  48. User Guides and Manuals Editor
  49. Game Developers
  50. Travel Writer

If you liked this article, you’ll also enjoy 15 Reasons To Take A Temporary Job Now.

Have you ever worked while traveling for pleasure? How did you find the job? Tell us in the comments.

Subscribe to JobMob via RSS or email and follow me on Twitter for more travel job search ideas.

--Jacob Share

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