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This post was originally published in [2025] and has been fully updated for 2026 with new data and tools. Why wait for a two-week vacation when you could move your office to a beach in Portugal or a café in Tokyo? The biggest hurdle for most travelers isn’t the flight—it’s the paycheck. Fortunately, mastering the art of earning abroad as a digital nomad has never been easier thanks to the global shift toward remote work. The world is your office, and your income is limited only by your imagination. But how do you get there? In this post, I have 12 "really" cool ways! Microstock Short Video Ebooks Blogging YouTube Dropshipping Digital Art Fiverr Free Housing and Meals Street Performance Teaching English Online Sports reporting Fast cash for travel Keep reading, and I'll go over these ideas in more detail, plus my experience with some of these ways. Nomad Freedom Calculator Map out your income vs. expenses abroad. Projected Monthly Income Earning from the 12 Ways ($): Monthly Expenses Abroad Rent/Airbnb ($): Food/Dining ($): Transport/Visa ($): Insurance/Fun ($): Check My Nomad Viability Monthly Savings/Buffer: Why is Microstock a great way to earn cash when traveling? Microstock is when you take photos, videos and post them to websites. If someone uses the photo or video, then you get paid. Plus, they even take illustrations and some other content. I've recently been into this, and it's SUPER fun. Not only is it fun to take photos and videos of interesting things on your travels, but it's almost like hunting without having to kill an animal. Even better, it's completely flexible, and the money is passive. Meaning, you upload some content and years from now you could be earning money from it. You also don't need a $10,000 camera; just using a decent phone still works. In fact, I had the worst phone possible, and I was able to earn some cash. Now, a better camera or phone is better! The bad news with microstock is that you probably have to upload a lot of photos and videos to make good money. More bad news is that uploading the content can take some time. There are services and ways to make it easier. If you want to learn more about getting paid for your photos and videos, I wrote a post with TONS of tips, tricks, and ideas in this blog post HERE. Why creating short videos is a great way to get paid to travel Short videos go with travel like "old dads and technology." They don't like it at first, but give it some time, and sometimes they fall in love. What's so great about short videos is that they are SO easy to make. You don't need a green screen, a perfect microphone, artificial lighting, or a ton of editing software. All you need is a phone. Plus, apps like TikTok have all the editing on the app, so it's very easy, fun, and convenient. You can make short videos as you are traveling, talking about anything you want, such as traveling. I know what you might be thinking, "How do you get paid for making these short videos?" With a TikTok business account, you can have a link in your profile on day 1. If you make a short video, the call to action at the end of your video could be something like "check out my profile for more." When someone views your profile and clicks on the link, you can earn money. This link can be an affiliate link where you earn money if they purchase something or even fill out a form. Even better, this link can be a landing page where you collect emails, and you can earn even more. What's SO SO cool about this strategy is you can download the TikTok video and then repost the "same exact" video to many places for even more views. I'm talking Instagram, YouTube shorts, Facebook, Rumble, LinkedIn, and really a BIG list. Many places take short videos, because I guess people like them. All these places allow a link in their description, except Snapchat, where you can put a website, but it's not clickable. To learn more, I wrote a free guide that has 50 tips on dominating with short videos HERE. Why eBooks are so great for earning money with eBooks have more uses than Inspector Gadget on meth! You know, that '80s cartoon where he had tons of devices! via GIPHY Not only can you stick affiliate links in there, but you can also sell them, use them as bonuses, landing pages, give them away, or even use them for content lockers. Content lockers are when you lock up the eBook, and in order for someone to view the eBook, they have to complete a free offer that takes a few seconds. These free offers are like downloading a free game for their phone, filling out a few boxes, and stuff like that. When they do this, you get paid, it could be $1 to $10, and maybe higher depending on various things. Plus, eBooks are very easy to make, especially with software like this HERE. You can create eBooks on traveling or anything you want. Plus, once you create the eBook, you can continue to use it again and again into the future, so it's like an asset. Plus, unlike blog posts or YouTube videos, there is a lot of perceived value in a book (it takes time to write). AI can be of help; however, I recommend making it good quality, entertaining, too. It's a good idea to put a human touch to it. I wrote a whole guide that has 15 ways to use eBooks HERE. How to do Blogging when traveling Blogging sounds boring, lame, and not sexy. However, I really love it! What's so great about blogging is 1 you OWN the blog, "cool feeling." You do the work once and can continue to earn money in the future. Plus, you can repurpose the blog. A few blog posts can be turned into an eBook, and the same blog post can be posted to Medium and LinkedIn. You can easily create a YouTube video by literally reading your blog post (I do this). Turn parts of your post into a Substack or TikTok video. Plus, it's sort of fun! If you learn something, you're just posting your notes. You can include your YouTube videos, GIFs, pictures, lists, quotes, and all kinds of things. You can write about your travels or anything you want. Plus, in your blog, you can include affiliate links to earn money, plus if you put ads on the blog, you earn more money because you don't have to share it with YouTube. Oh, and as someone is reading their eyes glaze over the affiliate link, it's so much easier to click! You can create a whole blog using Medium or Substack, or I prefer owning the website because it's security and peace of mind. I've been canceled a few times. I wrote a whole post on step-by-step how to create a blog HERE. How to earn money with YouTube when traveling I was screaming from the rooftops about YouTube before it blew up (this is how old I am). Photo by Museums Victoria on Unsplash YouTube has a lot of benefits when it comes to gaining trust because someone sees you. If you're not scared to be in front of a camera, I highly recommend it. Plus, there are ways to make YouTube videos "very" fast, so they don't take lots of effort. Those videos can continue to earn you money. You can make videos on "anything," but I recommend it's something you're interested in, and travel is a great choice, because you're doing it. Then, leading your audience to check out a landing page and getting a free gift about your topic in exchange for their email. Then, using email, promote various products in the niche, and you can even promote your other content. Sure, you can earn money from ads, sponsors, and other stuff - but affiliate marketing is the main way I've found to get paid with content. I wrote a whole post on how to create a YouTube channel HERE. Why Dropshipping is great to do when traveling Dropshipping is another business model that you can do anywhere, even while traveling. It's basically where you list an item on one website, then ship from another website, and the difference you pocket. Such as list an item for $10, then go to another website, ship it for $5, and then keep $5. You might be thinking that you need an expensive website and e-commerce store to set it up. The good news is you can do it from eBay. This way, you're piggybacking on the reputation and trust of eBay instead of starting from nothing. The bad news is it's advanced. If you're interested, I wrote a whole post on how to find these items, list them, and many other tips to help you understand how this business works HERE. How to do Digital Art when traveling Digital art is another great way to earn passive income, plus it's very flexible, can be done anywhere, anytime, and can be fun. Plus, you can mix it with illustrations and list on microstock platforms. As far as I know, many microstock platforms don't take 100% AI art. This is due to copyright issues, but I'm not a lawyer. By adding some human illustrations to it, you can copyright it. You might be wondering how to create this AI art and how to earn money from it. Well, I created a big blog post that includes 10 ways to profit from AI art, plus cool tricks and tips on creating the art at this post HERE. How to earn money with Fiverr when traveling? Fiverr is a website where people do random, sometimes strange things for cash. Photo by Dominik Vanyi on Unsplash It's called Fiverr because people used to charge $5 to do weird things like call a family member and sing Happy Birthday. Now the prices are sometimes more than $5, and some people make great money. As you can imagine, there are many ways to use the platform to earn extra cash when traveling. Here are just a few ideas. Travel Photography Packages “Local Flavor” Short Videos Postcard Design from Your Travels Virtual Tour Guide Videos Travel Blog Ghostwriting Custom Souvenir Shopping Service Social Media Travel Content Packages Personalized Travel Itineraries Travel Journals / eBooks Street Interview Clips Custom Travel Soundscapes “Local Recipe” Content Creation Travel-Inspired Logo or Branding Design As you can see, there are "a lot." I'm sure if you brainstormed and used some AI, you could come up with even more. Plus, as you can see, there is some overlap. Travel photo packages can be combined with microstock and social media travel content packages. "Personalized Travel Itineraries" also seems like a lot of fun. I really enjoy making these for myself. Oh, and "Custom souvenir shopping" seems interesting. Who doesn't like to shop? Plus, you can get paid for it. What's great about Fiverr, and you can view the site HERE, is that you create a gig and people come to you. With Upwork, another freelancer website, how it works is that someone creates the job, and all the freelancers fight for it. It just seems better to have people come to you. Plus, it's free to set up a shop. One tip is to get a good profile picture that looks professional. How to get free housing and meals when traveling If you do some brainstorming and you're flexible, there are ways to get free housing and meals when traveling. One idea is housesitting and petsitting. This is when you watch a home and sometimes a pet when they are away. https://www.trustedhousesitters.com/ https://www.nomador.com/ https://www.housecarers.com/ Free Food - Yep there is a way. Some restaurants have too much and give it away or discount it. Here are a few places... https://www.toogoodtogo.com/ https://olioapp.com/en/ Work exchanges. This is where you trade a few hours of work for housing and a meal. Just make sure you do your research because I've heard of some "horror" stories in some places. I'm sure some places are good. https://www.workaway.info/ https://www.worldpackers.com/ https://www.helpx.net/ Hostels? Hostels are like a large dorm room where many people can save money. I used TONS of hostels when traveling around Europe and had TONS of fun. Just remember to bring earplugs, due to some people snoring. Also, there are ways to save on food because some have a community kitchen. Plus, depending on the hostel, there might be a way to do some extra work for free or discounted lodging. How to earn extra cash with street performance Not a bad idea to do a small performance around your travels to earn extra cash. Plus, there are TONS of different ideas. Guitar and singing Live painting and sketching Magic tricks Dance or movement arts Storytelling Living statue or mime Beat performance Puppets Caricature, portrait drawing I played with a guitar in Spain using someone else's guitar, and it was so much fun. However, I didn't really ask for money, plus it was in front of lots of drunk people. All you really need is some tiny material you can repeat over and over. How to teach English online for extra cash As I walked into a shared dorm room in Barcelona, Spain, this girl was in the corner talking to the computer. Turns out she was in the middle of a tutor lesson teaching English. She told me she got paid to do it! English is the language of air flight controllers, banking, and it's a VERY popular language to learn. Turns out there are TONS of different websites where someone can teach English and other languages online. Here are a few ideas.... https://preply.com/ https://www.italki.com/ https://www.cambly.com/ https://en.amazingtalker.com/ https://www.lingoda.com/en/ https://www.lingoace.com/ Whether you want to or not is your choice. How to do sports reporting when traveling When I lived in Southeast Asia, I got recruited to go to soccer games and just update the score. I guess they used the information for sports betting or something. I got trained and did it a few times. What I did was go to a soccer game and update someone over the phone on what was happening during the game. The first few times were fine, it sounds fun, right? Well, in 1 game, the other person couldn't hear what I was saying. So I had to keep repeating myself, and it was VERY frustrating. I got so frustrated, I quit after that 1 game, but I did get paid. Even if I had a bad experience at it, you may like it. Plus, there are different systems for doing this, not just talking over the phone. It is a way to make some extra cash when traveling. Here are a few places that could be hiring freelancers... https://www.statsperform.com/ https://www.geniussports.com/ https://txodds.ai/ https://www.imgarena.com/ https://sportradar.com/ How to earn quick cash to travel If you want to generate cash quickly, another idea is to list unused stuff you have on eBay. It doesn't take too much work, you get paid quickly, and you can remove clutter in your home. I wrote a whole post on how to do it HERE, plus how to avoid scams on that platform. How to save cash when traveling Oh, and I almost forgot, there are all kinds of hacks you can use to save money when traveling. The biggest is airfare. When I went to Europe, the plane ticket might have been the most expensive thing for me. I'm not going to pretend to be an expert in this (I'm sure I overpaid), but this guy HERE, has a whole guide that shares all kinds of tips and hacks on saving money when traveling. Conclusion Traveling is a wonderful experience that I've been blessed to do at times. From Mexico, India, Europe, U.S., and Southeast Asia, they have all opened my mind to meeting new people, learning new experiences, and discovering myself. It's about getting out of your comfort zone and living. There are SO many great quotes on travel, and if I had to pick one... "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts." - Mark Twain Have a good day, bye.