Can we find work easily along the way?

There are typically two schools of thought when it comes to taking long trips – either people save up enough money to just go and do the kind of trip they want and home when the money runs out, or people plan to work along the way to support an even longer trip than they could have afforded by savings alone. There’s not really a right or wrong answer to the question of which one each person should choose for themselves, but there are definitely major decisions you’ll need to make for either choice.

BootsnAll member Gee-Man and his girlfriend are about to set out on a 15-month journey, and the question of whether they can find easy work along the way will determine whether they’re able to leave a few months earlier than the original plan.

Has anyone experiences of picking up work in exchange for a bed in a hostel? We need work permits for US, Canada, Australasia and S.America so I guess that would just leave Europe (unless you can still work without one for a few hours here and there in the other continents??)

This will affect our decision on when to leave also as we want to set off at the end of this year if there is a strong possibility of finding some work whether in hostels or fruit picking etc which is 3 months earlier than the original planned date.

The answer to this question won’t change whether or not Gee-Man and his girlfriend go on their trip – they’re going, one way or the other. But if they can find work easily it means they can leave a few months before their target date. And when you’re planning an epic trip like this, the sooner you can get going the better it is!

So, what’s your experience with working while you’re traveling? Do you have any advice to share with Gee-Man? If you do, we’d love to have you stop by this thread on the BootsnAll message boards and share it with him.