Friday, March 09, 2007

Portable jobs

After yesterdays random pot-eating granny post I thought it was time to write something a little more relevant to Perpetual Travel, so here goes.

Unless you're very rich, or retired and very rich, becoming a permanent tourist is only viable if you are able to generate an income, no matter what country you are currently chosing to reside in.

This is where the internet is so powerful, if you can do business via digital media then you can definitely live and work anywhere. Such web-based work has the potentially huge advantage that you can continue to earn in relatively strong currencies (USD, GBP, Euros) whilst spend in relatively weak ones. If you lived in the UK US$1500 per month is a poverty-line salary. In many, many parts of the world this type of money enables you to lead an extremely comfortable (sometimes luxurious even) life.

Some examples of portable work that can be done entirely via the web would be: Graphic Designer, Web Builder, Computer Programmer, Travel Writer, Photographer, Editor, Accountant, Consultant, and Webmaster/Affiliate to name just a few.

Less conventional internet-based portable jobs include Full-time Investors, teaching english online, and yes even playing poker online!

For the less tech-savvy traveller jobs such as nursing and teaching english as a second language are also highly portable.

I have sort of written this post on a whim, I wan't to go away and research the topic a little more and comeback and update a little later. If any vistors can think of any other portable professions please do post a comment. Thanks

UPDATE: all I've really found online is this excellent list of 'work from home' case studies, which includes other portable jobs I hadn't originally thought of such as (but not limited to): Internet Librarian, Network Marketer, Law Tutor, Virtual Office Assistant, Translator, Editor, Proof Reader and Indexer.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

What you describe is the life style of the future.
Being an successful artist isn't too bad either. Having a few reliable art dealers and ship them some pieces on a regular basis from wherever in the world one put one's easel.

Perpetual_Traveller said...

I think so too Max!

I'll add artist to the list, thanks hadn't thought that.