How to TRAVEL FOR FREE: This Is What Professionals Do to pay for it.

 



The number one reason people don’t travel is due to lack of money to pay for traveling and their living expenses.  If your dream is to travel the world and see places you’ve only had the opportunity to learn about in books. Here are some strategies for you to earn funds while you travel to achieve your goal of traveling the world for free.

The degree of your success will depend on how well you speak the local language, how hard you’re willing to hustle, and of course your English speaking skills.  If you have mastered neither of these, then there is still hope for you as you can provide labor or your unique skill set to fund your travels.

Now is the time to start seeing the world.  This article will give you 19 ways to blaze a trail for yourself through the unknown while sustaining yourself for as long as you’d like.  Here are some of the best options for traveling the world for free:

1. Become a Deckhand

Join a crew on a ship in exchange for the company, being a deckhand, or for a particular skill, you may possess. The captain of the vessel will give you free passage and often compensate you to travel with them on their boats to their destinations. Once in different ports, you can jump from ship to ship and go just about anywhere in the world.  Check out www.findacrew.com or www.crewseekers.net for postings from captains looking for crew.

During a trip to Puerto Rico, I met several people on the island of Vieques who were working in the restaurants, getting paid under the table and saving money to hitch rides on yachts and travel everywhere you could think of: French Polynesia, the Mediterranean, or merely the Caribbean islands.  There were bars we would go to at night where the captains would post signs on the bulletin boards advertising that they needed deck hands with no experience to experienced. Some paid and some just paid room and board depending on how much you could contribute to skills or labor.

2. Get a Travel Rewards Credit Card

Using a credit card to pay for your regular ongoing expenses is an excellent way to build up free flights and hotels.  Credit cards such as Orbitz Rewards Visa, Chase Sapphire, or the airlines’ credit cards, allow you to build up credit for free travel and perks. Just don't accumulate unnecessary debt or it will defeat the purpose of having the card.  You can also join travelhack.org, and they will show you how to get free flights by accumulating miles with offers.

There are also tricks for how to best use miles to your advantage. Transfer miles within a partnership of airlines. For example, I needed to use 525,000 miles for a first class, round trip ticket to fly on ANA to Japan from Los Angeles. Instead, I transferred 90,000 miles from Virgin Airlines to buy the ANA ticket. Since it was a partner airline, it only cost me about 17% of the actual miles for the same ticket.  Using this strategy, you can transfer airlines within travel partners and actually get better tickets for fewer miles.

3. Eat for Free or at a Discounted Price

While on a road trip with the family, in a small town in Colorado, my mom had a breakdown because she was on a diet and was not allowed to have mayonnaise on her sandwich.  She got upset and left me and my girlfriend behind. We would have to ride the bus back to Los Angeles. However, she accidentally left with our wallets and we only had the change in our pockets.  As we wandered around thinking about how to get back home, we found a Salvation Army soup kitchen that was serving lunch. They offered the option to eat for free if you had no funds, or you could pay 50 cents for your lunch.  The food was very hearty, and we could eat as much as we wanted. We had spaghetti with marinara sauce, garlic bread, and Kool-Aid to drink. We ended up calling my mom after she cooled down, and she came back to pick us up.

I had a similar experience in Atlanta, Georgia when I was sixteen traveling with my friends to a baseball card show.  We had run low on money, so we were sleeping outside the convention center in a nearby park until the show started the following day.  We were on a very tight budget and found a soup kitchen that charged 50 cents for all-you-can-eat baked beans, cheese bread, and an orange drink. These places typically have discounted or free groceries you can take as snacks for later in the day.

In the USA about 40% of all the food we produce is wasted and thrown in the trash.  That comes out to over 150 billion pounds of food wasted and about $200 billion USD worth of food not eaten.  So if you are low on funds or food, don’t hesitate to visit a food bank or soup kitchen.

4. Trade Labor at a Hostel

Hostels often welcome the idea of having international staff working there, especially if you speak English in a non-English speaking country.  This is called “Woofing” in the hostel world when you are willing to trade labor for room and board. Speak to the hostel manager and negotiate a deal for room, board, and even pay for your work.  There are also websites like hostelworld.com that have message boards and allow hostels to advertise job opportunities. If it’s a country that requires a work visa and you don't feel comfortable working without a work visa, you can work for room and board so that no money is exchanged

5. Ask for Travel Gift Cards

When you have a birthday or some other special occasion, ask for a gift card for airline travel, Airbnb, HomeAway from home, or travel website gift cards.

6. Work on a Cruise Ship

You can get paid and travel around the world by working as a staff member on a cruise ship.  Check out cruisejobfinder.com, www.cruiseshipjobs.com, and www.cruiselinejob.com. You can also contact the cruise lines and get gigs teaching classes depending on your areas of expertise: business, health, history classes, etc.  Cruise ships offer educational lectures during the days for guests, and you can be a guest lecturer and in exchange get a free or discounted cabin.

7. Host an Educational Trip

Educational travel companies provide free trips for teachers to get them to host tours for students.  Some will include a free training trip beforehand so that you can learn how to be a better guide. Some of the best outfitters include Explorica, EF, and CHA Educational Tours.

8. Drive Someone Else's Car Across the Country

You can either find someone who needs their car relocated on craigslist, drive for a car rental company or Auto Driveaway, the largest vehicle-relocation company in the US.  You need to be at least 23 years old and have a valid license. After putting down a $350 security deposit (returned upon delivery), you will be paid a negotiable rate — either flat or per mile — and gas will be charged back to the owner.

Relocate motorhomes and get paid for it.  The usual cost may be about $200 a day for an RV rental.  However, most people rent them only one way, and someone else has to drive them back to the big cities, so RV rental places such as www.apollorv.com, or cruiseamerica.com offer deals where they pay you and all your expenses to drive the RVs back to desired locations where demand is higher.

9. Volunteer on Environmental Projects

You can look to ecological organizations for volunteer projects around the world, helping out with endangered species and environments.  One such group is deahorsecamp.com where you can work, get paid, and go on polar bear viewings. Also, check out wwwletsgoglobal.ca for volunteer opportunities around the world.

10. Carpool or Hitchhike

There are multiple smartphone applications to help you hitchhike or carpool.  You can either join others or have others join you to help offset the fuel costs.  Some of the sites I use are the Waze Carpool app, craigslist, thorntree.lonelyplanet.com, erideshare.com, compartir.org, and hitchhikers.org.

11. Take Your Medical Skills on the Road

If you are a medical professional (doctor, nurse, occupational, physical, or speech therapist), you can go mobile and travel for free to places like Florida, Hawaii, military bases around the world and get paid for it.  Companies like MedTravelers offer gigs everywhere that last from 8 weeks to a year. The compensation varies based on experience, but traveling nurses or therapists can make as much as $15,000 a month, with food and housing covered.  If you are a nurse or a doctor, you can also get free cruises and get paid for working on cruise ships for short or extended tours.

12. Teach English

You can get paid to teach English abroad for nine months to two years, and in some cases, have your travel expenses covered.  Check out www.tefl.com for job postings teaching English.  Another option is Diverbo that sends 15-25 English speaking volunteers to villages in Spain and Germany for weeklong trips to help locals practice their English skills.  Diverbo doesn't cover your flight, but it does include your room and board.

13. Trace Your Ancestry

Israel, Hungary, Macedonia, Armenia, Cuba, and a few other countries have organizations that sponsor people to visit their homelands and learn about their heritage.

14. House-Swap or Rent Your Home Out

I use HomeAway from home, Airbnb and/or Craigslist to rent out my house, pay for my entire trip, and have money left over! Other options are homeexchange.com, OfferUp, homexchangevacation.com or homebase-hols.com. You have to pay a registration fee. These are usually an even swap, so they are not money makers. However, if you live in a place that is not a high rent area, this may be a better option for you.

15. House Sit or Swap

Craigslist has house swapping options available. Home Exchange, HomeLink charge an annual membership fee, but GuestToGuest is free and allows you to host guests in your home in exchange for others hosting you.

You can also house sit for family, friends, www.mindmyhouse.com, join www.housesitter.com, TrustedHouseSitters,  Rover, www.housecarers.com, or other house sitting websites allow you to live somewhere else so you can travel.

16. Organize a Trip

Organize a trip for friends or family. In exchange for doing so, some travel operators will cover your costs if you function as a trip leader.  YMT Vacations will give you a free vacation if you get twelve people to buy a trip from them; if eight of the guests book their flight through YMT, your airfare is also covered. Other companies that give you a free trip include Grand Circle Cruise Line, Select International Tours, All Aboard Travel and Merit Group Travel.

17. Volunteer

There are volunteer opportunities everywhere in the world where you can get room and board in exchange for some type of service.  www.blueventures.org, www.HelpX.com, www.habitat.org, www.unitedplanet.org, www.nps.org, www.volunteerforever.com, www.parks.ca.gov,  www.WorkAway.com, plus dozens of more organizations allow you to connect with people all over the globe to find volunteer experiences and to meet your travel desires.  ww.Archaeology.org also has opportunities to volunteer on dig sites around the globe.

18. Volunteer With WWOOF

WWOOF (Willing Workers on Organic Farms) will offer you free accommodation, food, the opportunity to learn a few new skills and immerse yourself in a new culture in the destination of your choosing in exchange for working on the farm. You will be responsible for covering your travel costs and a subscription fee of $75, but your room and board will be included. Another option is www.Workaway.info, which offers cultural exchange all over the world.

19. Work in the Adventure Space

AdventureWork allows you to find short-term or long-term gigs teaching and working in facilities offering skiing, sailing, archery, and water sports in all kinds of sports travel destinations where the host can cover your expenses and pay you a stipend while you help out.

I talk more in-depth of travel issues in my Amazon Book. Check it out here.