Travel the World on a budget or even for free!! Become a Digital nomad

Travelling around the world is a dream for many of us, not everyone gets to do it. But what is the factor stopping us from travelling? Many of you may arrive at the same answer- Money. Yes, not all of us are privileged with wealth or good fortune. Working day and night land us with a small budget for a short vacation to the nearby location.
But, there are ways you can travel around the world for free or with a very small budget. Sounds like dream come true? First of all, get that thing clear in your mind "You don't need to be rich to travel" Let's look at the ways you travel around the world for free.

Volunteering

Yes, you heard me right. You can volunteer for various non-profit organisations or profitable organisations, where such organisations bear your stay and food expense for working with them. These organisations may be helping people with education, agriculture, travel, or acting socially for the benefit of people. WWOOF (Willing Workers On Organic Farms) is one such organisation. Here, volunteers can work on farms and help farmers in agriculture. Some other organisations which I have heard of are helping in children education in rural areas and some are working on creating a green clean environment by performing cleanliness and awareness drives all over the world.

You can volunteer for such organisations and get to travel with them for free, meanwhile, you will be gaining hands-on experience with life challenges around the world.

Apart from these organisations, you can volunteer for a travel organisation as a tour mentor or guide and they can bear your expenses along with the travel and also pay you if you excel in your work.

I am listing some organisations in India which will help you fulfil your dream of travelling.

• Spiti Ecosphere, Himachal Pradesh
• WWOOF-India
• Fertile Ground, Assam
• LHA, Dharamshala
• Sikkim Homestay
• Chirag, Kumaon
• SECMOL, Ladakh
• Dakshinayan, Jharkhand
• SSTCN, Chennai, Tamil Nadu
• Mother’s Hope, Dimapur, Nagaland
• Teach for India
• Rural Organization for Social Elevation, Uttarakhand
• Thinksharp Foundation
• Childcare volunteer program

There is a huge list of such organisations, you just need to find one where you can easily fit in.

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Work Exchange Programs

Maybe you are really comfortable with your work life and you want to work and still want to travel place altogether. Nearly all multinational companies offer work exchange programs for their employees. In this program, employees can switch their workplaces. Let's say you are working in Banglore, India as a programmer or whatever your profile may be. Your company has a similar position vacant at their Delhi, India location and you always wanted to live in Delhi or stay in Delhi for some amount of time. You can get in talks with your HR and maybe get that position. Even if there is no vacant position but some other employees in similar position want to work in Bangalore. In this scenario, you both can exchange your locations.

Sometimes companies come up with international work exchange programs upfront and offer you to work in some other countries too for a while.

Keep a close eye on such opportunities.

Work from Home

As the covid-19 pandemic struck the world we have seen an economic downfall. Everyone was obliged to stay home, it turned out to be many sectors have seen a downfall. Soon, enough everyone came up with a solution of work from home. With the progress in IT it was easy for many to switch to work from home, for others it was difficult yet they are coping up and getting a solution for it. Those days are near when everyone will be working from home and the office culture would be minimal.

At that time it would turn out to be a great opportunity for many travellers. they can travel anywhere and work from any place in the world.

Not only that, many have already have offered a position for work from home profiles. So what are you waiting for, go get going and get yourself one now?

Invest in Stocks

Let's assume you have been working day and night for a while now, you have saved enough and are thinking of just travelling places. But, eventually, you will run out of funds and what then? Join a job again and work your asses off again?

Well, I have a better idea. Invest your savings into stocks. It will take up some time to understand the variables in the market but you can find some stocks which can offer some good dividend and have good potential in 10 years or so.

You may suggest that investing in a property will serve better. I would say NO. If you own a property, you have to pay property tax every year or so and also don't forget the maintenance involved with that.

I'll clear that with an example.

You have saved approx 20lac (2,000,000)

Situation #1 

You buy some share worth 200 of a company that offers 5% dividend and the shares 10 years from now would be around 800.

Let's do the maths 20lac(2,000,000) and for each share of 200 you'll get 10,000 shares for that and after 10 years those shares will be approx 800. if you sell those shares you will get 80lac(8,000,000). Wait for a minute the mathematics is not over yet. You are getting a dividend of 5% every year. for the first year that would be approx 1lac(100,000) and this will increase every year. you will be getting approx 10,000 each month while doing nothing and your money will also be increasing every day.

Situation#2

You buy a property worth 20lac and rent it out for 10,000 a month. You keep it for 10 years you are getting the same amount as in situation#1 every month. But, you will be born with maintenance every year, property tax every year which will be almost equal to the rent you get every year. So, actually, you get nothing out of it. After 10 years your property value will be almost double or almost triple i.e. 40-60lac. So less when you see, because infrastructure has evolved and your property may be outdated.

So investing in Stocks is better than investing in property and getting more returns is easy.

You will say where does travelling come into this? That was just an example. you can invest as low as 100bucks and do daily trading as some stocks can offer great growth within days. All you need is 3-4hrs of research that you can do from anywhere in the world.

Get a Short-term Job

Working throughout may earn you a lot of money but you will be losing your true life in that. Instead, I suggest you get some Short-term or part-time jobs.

Short-term jobs like a resort manager, A resort manager only works when people visit his resort and that is for a limited season. You can get such short term jobs and earn hefty money while getting a big break every year to travel places. Simal jobs are of a Sailor, A Pilot, Cabin crew, etc.

Or you can opt for some part-time jobs for which you don't have to go office daily and you will be getting offs more often than others. Part-time jobs may not get you a lot of money but yes they will give you a lot of money to spend it all.

Become a translator

Learning a Foreign language is something that I like to do. I am no professional at it but learning those languages allows me to interact with a lot of people.

You can learn any language professionally and land a job as a translator or as a tour guide. Many tourists from other countries visit and hire such people with whom they travel and they bear all your expenses. Not only tourists but some company delegates also require translates and in such scenarios, those companies hire such individuals for part-time or even for a long term and your only job is to travel wherever you are needed.

Start an online Biz

If you are already into the Biz world it's time to take your business online. And if you are not already what the hell are you doing. Get your business online and make it earn for you even when you are sleeping. Start your e-commerce store, give services online, or make a static website to give people more insight into your offline business.

Sounds really difficult, but it is not.

Building a website is really made easy by wix.com, You can easily build a website for free with their easy templates and tools. Wix also provides hosting. but, you can always opt for some other hosting platforms too. What I found best was Hostgator. Hostgator is the market leader in terms of hosting, surely you may have heard about it. It has really cost-efficient hosting plans and can get you set up with few basic steps.

GET YOUR AMAZON BUSINESS ACCOUNT NOW!!

If you are looking to set up an e-commerce store look now where Shopify is the answer to all your problems. Shopify helps you to set up an e-commerce store easily, moreover, they provide you with well accessible domains and hosting too. One-stop solution for all e-commerce problems.

Trust me even a kid can create and run a website with these.

Get Sponsorship

There are a lot of brands that are associated with travelling and exploring. Some provide travel equipment, tools like bags, shoes, etc. Some help in travelling by providing accommodations or travel packages. Some go beyond and provide adrenaline rush with their offerings by providing gears, vehicles, photography equipment, etc.

You may already have got some pictures of such brands. These brands often offer sponsorship for travelling which may get the opportunity to market themselves. Getting associated with such brands is tough but not difficult you just need to build some following of yours on social media.

But, if you don't have a public presence don't get disappointed. Some brands associated with travelling pay you for the research you do along with the travel. Like Activities, best accommodations, best travel options. More than often these brands sponsor few people for research on a particular destination. You can approach them and while travelling conduct research for them.

Become a freelancer

The world is moving forward by hiring freelance Individuals for work. Well come on, who is going to pay for some more employees, it is easier to hire a freelancer and get work done. So, polish your skills and if you don't know where your skill lies you can easily develop some through various online courses or if you are a freebie like me youtube is the best source for you. Like Elon musk said, "If you really want to learn something, you don't need a college or degree for that, you can learn it from anywhere".

Many of the Individuals have done great even after not completing their degrees.

Be the trip organiser

This is my personal favourite, for this, you just need to be good at communication and interpersonal skills. Gather a group, a group of friends, family or even strangers. Pitch them a trip with a well-planned itinerary. Get deals on whatever you have planned in itinerary and you will easily save more than enough to sponsor 1-2 people in a small group of 10 people.

You don't owe anyone this money. Your skills got you here otherwise that group would be spending more than what they should. I usually do this when I am travelling with my friends and if one or the other has a small or no budget.

I'll write another blog for "How to save on trips or How to plan your trip ideally"

Start Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is one of the most growing fields. Let's first understand what Affiliate marketing actually is.

Consider a developer or business owner, like Tony stark our very own Iron man. Assume if Tony stark made an AI-based app more efficient than Siri or google but it cost him a fortune and he has nothing left for marketing or sales. If he hires a team for marketing and sales he will be spending more and the cost of the product will also increase. In this case, what will Tony stark do? He is a smart man, he will find a bunch of affiliate marketers and offer them a percentage in profit for every sale they make.

This will keep the product cost less and by this, the business owner like Tony stark in our case will be building a network and the sales will continue without hiring any dedicated team for it.

There are a whole lot of brands with affiliate programs. Some easy recommendations are Amazon and Flipkart. They offer sales percentage from 1% to near about 12% to affiliate marketers.

If you want more details with brands offering up to 60%, Let me know in the comments.

Digital Marketing

Many confuse Digital Marketing with Affiliate marketing but this is a totally different field. In Digital Marketing the Marketer creates and markets content for the client or brands he is working with. He can be working with a particular brand full-time as a Job or Part-time as a freelancer. In either of the cases, his physical presence is not that necessary.

A Digital marketer develops content for a website, social media, or any other digital platform and he also markets it through various networks. SEO/SEM are a crucial part of this, his main job is to develop leads to which the sales team can follow.

I am a freelance digital marketer and I don't need to stick in one place. I can travel anywhere I want and stay where ever I want. All I need is my laptop and a good internet connection.

I recommend reading a book that I have read The 4-hour workweek. It's a great book if you are looking for freelance work inspiration.

Let me know if you want a dedicated blog for Digital marketing too.

Become an Entrepreneur

Being an Entrepreneur is more of a thing you have than you develop. Let's first understand what being an Entrepreneur really means. An Entrepreneur is a visionary that foresees the possibility of happening and develop products accordingly. Like Steve Jobs saw the potential for a smartphone and he made it happen and today we all know him for that. Bill Gates developed Microsoft and nearly everyone uses it today in some form or the other. An Entrepreneur is not an Inventor. He just brings the right thing to the table when it is needed.

To be an Entrepreneur you have to understand the need of the product you are working on. It can be an app, a website, a tool, a machine or anything. Just give someone that very thing they need at that time.

There is a lot of potential in people of this age, many of you have really very good skills. Just ask yourself what your skills can do for the future and you will be an Entrepreneur.

If you become a successful entrepreneur you will have the vision of your life right in front of you. if you want to travel, you will be able to. If you want to work you'll be able to. You will be able to achieve whatever you want at that point in time.

Today, If you are on to something and are working on your project, you can do it from anywhere and at the same time, you can freelance for various individuals and earn too.

I have book recommendation "Zero to one", this will surely help you and motivate you. No matter what path you choose, I would say just go and read it.

Become an Influencer

If you think you have a lifestyle that can inspire others and make them follow you, then my friend you are already an influencer. Now you can take this to another level. Don't keep this skill of yours to yourself, head out and inspire people.

How can you that you ask?

Come on, I thought you knew about it already. Share unique content on different platforms. You can blog about your interests, You can make videos and upload them on youtube or other social platforms, You can sing, go and sing. You can dance, go dance. Follow a niche and present it to the people, they will like it and you can monetise your content. You will be able to get sponsorship with that easily. In fact, sponsors will approach you upfront.

So, this is how you will be able to make your travel dream come true. This is not actually free. You will never be getting anything for free but you can earn everything. You can earn happiness, you can earn joy, adventure, smile and what not.

Until next time, keep travelling and keep exploring the world and yourself.