Extend your travels with short-term and summer jobs

As a lifelong traveler, I have always felt that any trip – no matter the duration – always seemed to come to an end before homesickness set in; there were never any Sirens luring me back “home” to New York City or Amherst,Massachusetts. The challenge always lay in figuring out how to extend time abroad before exhausting the budget.

Apart from creatively managing your budget or traveling to parts of the world where the ever-weakening dollar retains value, there is one excellent alternative: Work abroad to help pay for or defray travel expenses.

For many years, information on finding jobs overseas was very hard to come by. When I took charge of TransitionsAbroad.com, I noticed that while the print magazine created by my father in 1977 had equally divided its coverage according to our core travel meta-categories of “Work,” “Study,” “Travel,” and “Living,” most traffic to the website was for information provided for short-term or even longer-term work overseas.

Here are the primary forms of work abroad which creative contributors have described to readers over the past 30 years in the order of their popularity (I will post in-depth on these forms in the near future):

Teaching English abroad: There is no other work to be found worldwide more easily than teaching English as a second language, as English remains the lingua franca. Before the creative amongst you dismiss the work as potentially boring, it must be noted the there are a plethora of excellent travel writers (including Rolf, of course) who have taken this route for longer-term immersion in a foreign culture. In fact, many of the best-written travel submissions we receive originate from those who have followed or continue to follow this path around the globe. While TransitionsAbroad.com hosts hundreds or articles and resources on the subject, we have collected links to the many excellent ESL websites dedicated to the field in order to make researching and finding such work simply a matter of selecting from many great options.

Volunteering abroad (on a budget): Rolf has addressed this issue in his Traveling Light column, but it cannot be overstated how many have found inexpensive ways to volunteer via work camps or small local organizations for the longer-term. True, there is no money to be made as a volunteer, but expenses can often be minimal compared to the time spent living with and helping natives. Again, some of the very finest travel writers have found the experience so inspiring that articles and books seem to spring from them with unparalleled passion. You can see many of these articles, resources, and links to such programs here as well as at database sites such as volunteerabroad.com.

Internships and work exchanges: The overlap with volunteer work is often hard to distinguish and many of these organizations are geared towards students or recent graduates, but there are options for paid work via a few select

organizations which provide for visas and training in interesting professions worldwide. You can learn to build homes out of local materials, develop businesses and marketing plans, or even learn fashion design while working for a gelato in Milan. You may find some creative examples of internships described by participants here along with programs tailored to the needs of Americans needing the requisite visas.

Travel service jobs: Working on cruise ships offers a chance to sail the seven seas while offering the chance to get off-the-beaten path when docking, and more physically demanding jobs on yachts offers their own unique, almost addictive, sense of freedom. Working in resort towns or cities as a tour guide, bartender, or other service provider does not prevent the creative traveler from taking a car, train, or backpack away from the tourist hordes into nearby native communities and little-explored lands. Examples of such experiences can be found here along with links to other websites specializing in such job postings.

Farm work and seasonal jobs: For those who enjoy staying close to the land and who are in good physical condition, farm jobs bring you closer to the earth and to the natives for whom and with whom you are working. As with many jobs overseas, getting visas may be an issue, but most countries – rich and poor- have a thriving black-market economy.

Au Pair work: Most of the positions are traditionally filled by women. The opportunity to live with a family abroad almost insures that you will learn a new language and participate in local life and rituals. This may also be your best bet for finding work in Europe if you are an American.

Freelancing: More and more work worldwide is being created by creative entrepreneurs, from those who turn teaching English into a business, to Web developers who find that they can create and maintain profitable websites even while on the road, to travel writers who learn to subsidize their travels with freelance articles which can be recycled for many different publications – on-line and print. I see freelancing as a booming trend for those who are willing to take a well-calculated risk and endure some hardships in order to live in places they love. But vagabonding is usually not about physical luxury…

So this summer or this coming year, give work a chance in order to allow yourself the opportunity to return home when you have exhausted your wanderlust – that is assuming that the lure of travel and living abroad can ever be fully satiated.