How You Can Travel Full Time AND Make Money

Last year, we took the biggest risk of our lives. We sold our house, bought a vandalized RV, and renovated it. We traveled the country full time for over a year. If you’re wondering how that’s possible without getting bankrupt, you’ve come to the right place.

You might think we were rich before all this, but we weren’t. We were two full-time real estate agents just living regular lives. However, we added a few more income streams along our journey.

Traveling full time doesn’t always mean surviving through frugal living. There are ways to live comfortably while traveling full time in your RV. You can pursue several income streams that allow you to work remotely while living your best life.

Here are a few ideas on how you could earn an income while traveling, be it seasonally or full time:

Find travel-based or seasonal work

It always fascinates me what people do for a living. My favorite is a couple that plays Santa and Mrs Claus from October to November each year. They earn enough money in those months to travel full-time.

Another couple works as camp hosts through Workamping. For 10 months a year, they work in different campsites. They get free site hook-ups and free propane discounts at the camp store. These are part-time jobs with a 20-hour workweek, so you have enough time to explore each campsite. Some parks may require a commitment of a couple of months. Travel-based jobs like these usually pay for accommodation too.

Some people work on solar-powered windmills across the country. They travel wherever they need help maintaining the windmills. Essentially, you travel across the country in an RV or trailer for a living.

So, there are many ways to do this. You can use a website like Coolworks to find some of these jobs. You can also check out RVer Job Exchange.

Work remotely

If you love your 9-5 job, the thought of being a camp host might not appeal to you. Perhaps, you want the best of both worlds – full-time work and full-time travel. You can ask your employers to let you work remotely if your job allows it.

I believe there are opportunities to work remotely, no matter what you do. You only have to ask. Recently, a former client and her husband decided to move out of state. She asked her employers if she could work remotely, and they agreed because she had been a great employee.

You might think this is impossible if you’re in the medical field, for example. But there are such things as travel nurses and doctors without borders. You could travel and save lives at the same time. If you’re a hairstylist, you could get a lot of business in various RV parks across the country. There are even remote call center jobs you can do from a different country. You only need to know where to look.

Become a freelancer

You can join websites like Fiverr or Upwork as a freelancer. That’s where we get most freelancers for our work.  When I needed somebody to write copy for the sales funnel of my digital product, I met a guy in the United Kingdom through Upwork. These types of freelancers are often in demand, so you could make a lot of money if you join.

If you have a skill set, some people might need it. It could be web design, writing, editing, video editing, sounding editing, and many other skills you can advertise on those sites. And your client base won’t be limited to your location either. You can get clients from all over the world.

You only need to think about what skill set you have or what skill set you’d like to develop, and start from there. You could gain a new skill in one year. There are many learning resources on the internet.

Creating digital products

Digital products are probably the best way to make money. You can create and sell online courses.

I used my background as a Hollywood editor to create a course that teaches real estate agents how to create better videos. I took two things I know – real estate and video editing –and I put together a digital product.

I've been selling that product since late 2019 or early 2020. It takes effort, yes. It’s constant work because I must regularly update things, from my ads to my sales funnel. However, it's a great way to make a living when you are on the road. Almost half of our income came from digital products in 2020.

Google AdSense and affiliate links

We have two YouTube channels. One teaches real estate agents how to create better videos. On that channel, I also promote my online course. Our Lyfe Untethered channel is more focused on our RV living and traveling.

We also have affiliate links. If we talk about a product we like, we can include a link to it on our blog or the description in our YouTube video. If you click on the link and buy the product, we earn a commission. And this is at no extra cost to the consumer. Sometimes we get a discount code for the product, so consumers benefit from the affiliate links too. We don't make a ton of money in affiliate links, but it’s better than nothing.

We get most of our affiliate links from Amazon because it’s super easy. It’s not always easy asking for affiliate links from other websites. However, they all add up over time. Just remember to include all your affiliate links in every video or blog post you upload.  

Google AdSense is another way to make money. When people without a YouTube Premium account watch your video, they might have to watch an ad or two. You earn a bit of income from each ad your viewers watch. So, we make a bit of money every month on our two YouTube channels just from AdSense.

Real Estate

Most of our income came from real estate, although we were traveling full-time most of last year. Leila jumped on airplanes often. She’d schedule appointments close together, rent a car, and stay at friends’ houses. Sometimes she’d get on the plane, work all day, and fly back to us.

We're both licensed real estate agents in California. She does all the hard work; I’m more the marketing video guy. But we did several transactions on the road last year. It helps that we have an agent on our team that can take care of some things, and we have other people who can take care of little things like putting signs on the ground. So, you can do a lot of things remotely. We're not pursuing real estate as vigorously as we were in California because we’re not there anymore, but it’s still possible. So, if you’re a real estate agent, you can still travel full time.

Between digital products, Google AdSense, affiliate links, and real estate, we were able to travel full-time last year. And you can do the same thing. Just find what works for you. I know these may seem intimidating, but you can make a lot of money if you remain consistent.

We hope these bring you closer to your dream of being a digital nomad. As always, we can't wait to share more of our adventures with you.

Here’s our guide to beginning your full-time traveling journey: How to travel full time

Check out this video for more tips on traveling full time: