How do people make money abroad?

We are an Australian couple looking to set off in September to South East Asia. Our hearts are set on Indonesia to begin.

Basically, we expect to have $15 000 saved after flights and insurance. Although we plan to live as cheaply as possible overseas, we want to travel as far as we can for as long as we can before we return.

Does anyone have any experience, helpful hints or ideas of how to earn income or eliminate costs such as rent? We hear that some charities can provide room, which we are definitely open to, as well as wwoofing.

Our journey is only beginning in Asia, so advice from any country would be really helpful.

Thanks!

Most people frown on travelers using charities just to get free room and board.

That's why many charities don't provide it, rather they charge a fee. Many deserving local people would dearly love to get free room and board for work. There is no reason to think that magical white people who can travel have any special skills.

Have a look at Couchsurfing. Possibly WOOFing as well.

I do not understand why people factor in living on charity and living "as cheaply as possible" when talking about travelling. Being poor in a foreign country really sucks (yes I know this from experience).

Surely you must have some skills? Did you know you could apply for a WHV (Working Holiday Visa) for Singapore or Japan? Heaps of Aussies working in Bali and Lombok, surf schools, yoga teaching, dive instructors etc.

Here is my suggestion, I think you will find it sensible but boring:

If you don't need the money, then don't waste your time looking for work and then work for meager pay.

If you need the money, stay home for an extra month or two, earn good money there then enjoy your work-free trip.

Regardless of what you decide to do, have a great trip!

Forgot to answer the question: How do people make money abroad?

Most of us have regular jobs, not much different from what you probably did in Australia. Unfortunately then there is no travelling other than holidays and week ends.

Try workaway.info - it's a work exchange website. I think there's another one called workxchange as well.

One way to cut down on accommodation costs is to stay longer in one place. I do that in Indonesia, and I usually get a good discount for long-term stays.

Happy travels!

I have worked abroad doing a lot of different jobs. You could travel for awhile, then find a job abroad, then travel for awhile then find another travel job and so on and so on. I have met a lot of people who do this and make a reasonable living.

You can make good money from jobs that require travel, you just need to know where to look.

Good luck!

Most people frown on travelers using charities just to get free room and board.

That's why many charities don't provide it, rather they charge a fee. Many deserving local people would dearly love to get free room and board for work. There is no reason to think that magical white people who can travel have any special skills.

This is an excellent point. Unless you have important skills that are in short supply, e.g. nursing, and you truly want to engage in charity work, seeking out a charity for the purposes of gaining free room and board is unethical.

Like a previous poster before said, work really hard at home (weekends, lates, sell old gear) to make a good pot of money. When you start travelling if you choose to live in poverty thats fine, but you will quickly realise that being poor in the third world sucks (people model for those happy Oxfam posters)!
When I first started travelling they were "cheese sandwich" trips, travelling on the bread-line!
Too often I have seen travellers haggling like crazy with a local trying to reduce the price to nothing, even though the "top price" was very little.
Ok............ have you thought about the counties you are going to and what they make there? Can you sell local goods directly on Ebay, saving money for other Aussies ( you would haggle in this instance)? If you go to China this could be very effective, as most stuff is from there (but do your research)! Start your own website in advance of travel abroad, sell new stuff from the new country you visit. You only need NET access.
Take care and happy travelling...its a wonderful world out there!

Why don't you just travel for a shorter period of time?

Thanks everyone for the tips. I just want to clarify, we aren't looking to 'use' volunteer work to swindle work from local people (we've seen a number of tea plantations etc advertising work in exchange for room), we actually just want an experience, but we also have to think about money. The idea of working with local people to help them with their efforts is really exciting to us. We're looking for any experience people have had that they can offer in the form of advice.

Hi Kirstielee,
As long as you do not appear patronising the local people, why not? I have watched people "slaving away" picking tea numerous times in Sri Lanka and they are not happy bunnies. In fact on one occasion a lady held out here hand to me as she was included in my plantation shot! :o
Sounds like you would be better working for a registered charity in the third world and get a better understanding of what you can see there.
Just spending money as a tourist is very important now to many nations and adds greatly to the yearly. As long as living at grass roots level tourism is not that damaging at all.
Thanks

"just to help them with their efforts"

How incredibly patronizing.

You still want free room and board for giving the natives a handout. You have a lot to learn about the world.

teach english, surprised no one has suggested this!

'Kahua' - Please refrain from posting on my thread. You are highly ignorant and obviously want to big note yourself because you think you know everything there is about travelling. The whole reason of these posts is to ask questions and I have not traveled through South East Asia yet - hence the post. So unless you have anything that is actually relevant and useful to add, enough with the smart remarks.

Thanks to everyone who has suggested anything helpful. I am really just looking for general information before I embark on my journey. workaway.info is a really good site thanks! That is the kind of thing I am after.

You can't tell someone not to post in an internet forum. I think Kahlua has made raised good points.

Best you learn from critical remarks.

Your motives about using a charity as a means of funding your travel are reprehensible and someone need to call you out on it.

@ mike_travel_too

I have worked abroad doing a lot of different jobs. You could travel for awhile, then find a job abroad, then travel for awhile then find another travel job and so on and so on. I have met a lot of people who do this and make a reasonable living.

You can make good money from jobs that require travel, you just need to know where to look.

Good luck!

Interesting reply, what kind of work could you find and where would you have to look?

Edited by: paul1972

For 15000 dollars you could live 10 years in Indonesia so no need to eliminate rent...

Your biggest costs are accommodations and travel from place to place. The less you move the less expensive it is per day and the better rate you can get at a hostel.

You haven't answered the question regarding your skills and what kind of work you are doing now. That would help with suggestions of what you might do while traveling.

You haven't answered the question about your ages either. If you are under 30 you should seriously look at the WHV schemes as they permit you to work legally and hence make decent money in some cases.

You can use groups like couchsurfing and hospitality club but be aware that folks will sometimes expect you to take them to dinner or otherwise show some appreciation for the free accommodations.

Try contacting Servas if you want to help people and get free accommodations.

Be careful of overstaying visas or visafree periods. Be aware particularly on Schengen in Europe and the rules that you can spend no more than 90 days in a 180 day period within the Schengen zone.

Ruth

The money has to see us through flights and travel too. As awesome as it would be to stay in indo, we want to see a few different places as well.

Thanks paul, what sort of work have you done? unfortunately I am unskilled, doing gardening at the moment, but Kirstie has a diploma in graphic design without any work experience. one thing we have considered is her doing online work through elance, but apparantly it's pretty hard to build up a rep. I suppose that she wouldn't need to make much anyway considering the cost of living. We've just started an online TESOL course through global leadership college, and hoping to be able to find volunteer work.

Cheers for the SERVAS heads up everbrite, seems cool. More than willing to help out with stuff and shout food but I wonder if a couple are less attractive than a solo traveller?

Mike_Travel_Too, hey thanks for the killer website

I think doing an online TESOL course is a great idea, it will give you some real skills that will help with finding good volunteer work. I stayed in a beautiful place about 4 years ago, called the Akha Hill Tribe village, just out of Chiang Rai (Thailand). Just google them. They had a deal with volunteers who taught at the local school. Back then, if they committed to 2 weeks volunteering teaching English they got free room and board, not sure if it's the same.

And also, just generally, I often see that when someone asks a question about volunteering on TT they can be howled down with criticism about their motives. I find this very strange. I've probably spent over 2000 hours volunteering in my 40 years - everything from playing piano in old people's homes, to working in a soup kitchen and visiting asylum seekers in detention.

I can't think of a single volunteer job I've done where I wasn't gaining something for myself from the experience, as well as helping someone else. Sometimes I wanted to learn another language, or meet new people, or even just have something to put on my CV. Just because I had something I wanted to gain from volunteering didn't mean that I wasn't an effective and enthusiastic volunteer. People have all kind of motives for volunteering, and as long as they are intending to do a good job at whatever role they take on, their motives are really no-one else's business.

The OP never said he wanted to volunteer JUST for room and board, or that he planned to get room and board and then do a crappy job. I think some other posters are reading a lot more into what the OP said, that what he actually said.

@ hurricanebertha

really? I've heard it will let us stay there for 6-12months?

Edited by: kirstielee

Edited by: kirstielee

You also didn't mention what you do in Australia. Perhaps you can look into www.elance.com or some similar service (there are quite a few) and do part time free lance work as you travel. This all depends on what skills you have, and from what friends tell me it takes awhile to build up enough trust from good reviews on your work to get a steady income.

But if you are travelling in cheaper countries you might only need a little bit to stretch the budget.

I'm not sure why there seems to be such antagonism when you mention charities. It all depends on what you are doing for the charity, and whether it is worth it. I have a friend who spent 2 years in Afghanistan working for a charity (he was actually paid, though I assume not much) because the charity needed people with business experience to help run the operation. There is a UN website that has lots of paid and volunteer charity work that he used to find the job - but they do want long term commitments and skilled people. When I last looked at it a few years ago there were not many jobs for IT (my field), but plenty for Accountants (my wife's field).

Shorter term charity work (this is just from what I've seen when researching for South America) is going to typically cost something. Sometimes the cost will be lower than what you would be paying otherwise, other times it's quite a bit higher as you are also helping to support the charity in the way that really matters - cash. I think though it really depends on whether you can offer a skill that they need and have trouble finding locally. My wife is hoping to find some work with charities that are trying to expand internationally in some way and need assistance with international accounting standards. We'll see if that works out :)

Sign yourself up to couchsurfing.org, excellent way to network and meet local like-minded people around the world. There are often social meet-ups and events you can tag along to, getting yourself involved in local community is usually a enriching and unique experience. As a couple it might be more challenging finding free accommodation though.

Regarding WWOOFing, a worthy consideration especially if you want to get your hands dirty but know what you're getting into before you sign yourself up to. Usually it's very hard yakka in remote locations. It's not uncommon to be given the worst tasks the rest of the family doesn't wanna do and pushed quite hard, and all for whatever food is available (sometimes scraps) and a bed. Hearing people say it takes away from local jobs is bit of a grey area. Many are poor rural farming families, they ain't got no money to hire someone to shovel cow dung, but getting in a fresh faced foreigner every few weeks eases the burden of their back breaking work. Although a portion of them aren't doing so badly and can take advantage of volunteers' goodwill, the volunteer can walk away feeling like they've learnt nothing from the experience and have been barked at and laboured like a slave. So it's important to be realistic of what to expect.

TESOL is a good option if you're willing to volunteer as a Teacher for short periods. For paid work, usual expectation of work commitment is least a few months. For intermittent and casual work, marketing yourself as a Private Teacher is possible but naturally not particularly stable nor guaranteed.

Edited by: rhythmbug