Travelling is one of the most beautiful experiences in anyone’s life. Along with traveling, the task of living below one’s means is not something everybody can do intuitively. So, one of the daunting tasks associated with traveling is managing the financial survival part—and unless you’ve got a good source of constant income, your journey is going to come to a halt!
The financial factor always takes an active part in sustaining a traveler by taking care of the needs related to food, health care, accommodation, and warm clothes. As there is a saying – “Where there is a will, there is a way” – there are many remote and freelancing jobs available on several sites but apart from a niche job, a young traveler can also solve his/her financial issue by teaching English in the second language and volunteering in some non-governmental organization.
The solution to the issue of making money while traveling by using online platforms is discussed below:
How To Make Money Hiking?
There are many options and platforms to solve this issue, but while looking at the most recent technological enhancement and trends, we have listed the best ways to make money hiking:
A. Freelancing/ Working Remotely
The first way to make money hiking is freelancing- while this doesn’t actually require you to be hiking, it’s actually a solid way to ensure that you’ve got a steady stream of money. Even travel vloggers and content creators like to have a reliable source of income in case they lose their following, so investing some time to learn a decent skill is a great idea.
With the onset of the COVID pandemic, we have seen a hundred percent increase in companies being open to employees working remotely, and this has allowed unforeseen opportunities to emerge into the marketplace. The only thing stopping you from working remotely, and in the luxury of your own home – is skill!
What jobs can you do as a freelancer? A quick glance at the Fiverr marketplace will show you people running all sorts of gigs ranging from professional content creation to game development services. You do need to learn these skills, and they are not easy to learn- but over time, these skills will certainly prepare you for your fantastic career in a new field.
Just put the time to learn a skill (even this can be done online with the help of sites like Udemy and Coursera), and once you build a decent portfolio, start applying. Over time, you will be able to secure trusted clients and work flexibly- even while you’re out and away hiking someplace new!
B. Content Creation For Social Media
The job of content creation and its association with a stable finance factor is the easiest one in the present scenario compared to previous decades because of monetization factors introduced by some of the biggest tech giants such as Google—YouTube, Tiktok, Facebook, and other platforms for social media. A hiker can create content to monetize his hiking adventure in the form of YouTube Videos, Postcards, and blog writing for his hiking content.
With this, a trekker can create a channel of his/her own and post content of trail reviews in popular places and stunning places on the daily basis/weekly basis, and when the requirements of monetization get completed; the channel owner can get some amount of money from monetization platforms.
Another way to make a sizeable profit from businesses is by asking them for paid promotions, affiliate partnerships, user subscriptions, or making postcards that benefit them in some way. Most of the time, if you’ve got a huge following, businesses will be more than happy to pay you in exchange for positive promotion.
People also like watching serene scenes and if you can capture the natural sounds and pleasant scenery, you can amass a lot of views. You may have seen channels with millions of subscribers producing calm and relaxing music and wondered if you can do the same. Sure, you also need to make sure you’re using copyright-free music and not run into strikes and spend a good amount of time researching thumbnails and standing out from your competition, but that done, you can certainly earn a decent amount of money from your social media presence.
One way we would absolutely recommend you try out is blogging- if there’s a certain area that really interests you and nobody is doing it- you’ve got a good chance at making it big. There is Adsense- and there are huge media companies like MediaVine and Ezoic that pay you in exchange for the amount of traffic you can bring them.
C. Photography
One of the most interesting portions of the hike is – capturing photos along the trails with natural beauty. With a single good camera and little knowledge of photography, you can capture stunning photos.
These captured photos can be taken into the market through online photos stock sites and you can sell them in local markets by printing them for local markets or in cafes and hotels with profitable mutual agreements. In the long run after getting better at your shooting skills, you can also make photography courses and distribute them globally using platforms like Udemy, Skillshare, and Lynda and earn money.
Some nature and history channels also open up vacancies asking for photographers and videographers who are willing to move around a lot- if that’s something you find interesting, it’s a fantastic way to make money while hiking.
D. Become a Park Ranger
If you think that you are passionate enough to protect the environment and the animals there- and would love to work for national parks and local parks, you can start a career as a park ranger. It will not be trivial because it requires a lot of knowledge to perform the responsibilities but it is quite rewarding and also pays for moving around.
Regarding the responsibilities of Park Rangers, they are:
- Making a lead for hikes and tours inside the targeted areas
- Enforcing rules and regulations by patrolling upon it
- Doing missions for search and rescue
- Carrying first-aid and emergency medical assistance
E. Cambly
Cambly is an online platform that assists users in tutoring online, a career of vlogging or becoming virtual assistants. As a growing platform to solve travelers’ financial issues, here a user can teach English in presence of the internet without any prior requirements or qualifications. It is flexible so far that tutors can work from home on the basis of their time factors – as less or as many hours as they prefer.
You do need to have an electronic device like a laptop or a personal computer ready and it’s usually not possible to do your tasks from a smartphone. Of course, this job requires you to have a decent level of fluency in English as well as a good camera and microphone setup.
Regarding the Cambly pay rates, it’s about 10 dollars per hour. Despite the small amount of money, it is good to join this platform globally and have fun earning a little extra – you also get to talk with people and learn about cultures all over the world.
In common sense, it is important to look for reviews from previous workers to believe any sites fully. So, regarding Cambly’s reviews, from its past workers according to Glassdoor, Indeed, and Trust Pilot; it is 3.6/5, 3.4/5, and 2.4/5.
Here the reviews with points closer to 5 emphasize the work’s flexible nature and the process of the application, and negative reviews indicate that it is significantly low paying than other English tutoring platforms.
In conclusion, it can be said by taking a lot of references from blogs and general press positive reviews: Cambly is summarized as a low-stress job and suitable for nomads with digital access during hiking.
F. Patreon/ Building A Social Media Following
You might be thinking that Youtube earnings are adequate to live off of, but contrary to this- Youtube earnings can be unreliable, and you might face a serious drop in watch times and earn very little some months. The Partner program has been working to take more from the creators, so you will most likely end up with very little money even if you’ve got a million views on your videos. Also, the platform is known to have terminated several accounts without any reason, so you need a good backup plan.
We suggest building a small but loyal following- sites like Patreon will let you connect to your audience, and they can pay you a small amount in exchange for some perks. The patrons also have a say in what kind of content gets produced, so you will have an easier time reaching most of your audience’s interests while getting something in return.
The best thing about Patreon or something that lets you build a community is- you can ask them to support the things you are doing. You can sell the merch you produce, land marketing deals with big brands, and have a good influence on your viewers in some way.
G. Work For A Travel Magazine
If you’ve got good writing skills and have a passion for traveling, you can land some really good gigs working for a magazine like National Geographic or Hiking Gear Lab.
The way you get paid varies- while some magazines may want to hire you on a monthly basis, others will be happy to pay you a fixed rate based on word count. Regardless, how much you can earn doing content work depends on your experience and the quality of your work so the more you get into it, the more you can earn.
Picking up photography skills and learning basic SEO is also a good idea as you never know when they could come in handy.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is hiking to make money profitable?
It depends. If you are working remotely while you’re hiking or have some way to earn consistently while being out and exploring, you can work just as much as somebody else working from a desk. But if you’re dependent on somebody else who is paying you to write a book/ publish your blogs while hiking, you might be getting paid just enough to get your ends meet.
How much you can earn while hiking depends a lot on what you are required to do and how skilled you are at your craft. A skilled copyeditor or a proofreader will be able to make much more just working part-time than an amateur designer with very few clients.
What should you not do while hiking?
If you are thinking about going on a hike, you should make sure you have invested in quality equipment, have somebody to join you on your trip, and have a well-thought plan about your route and any impending challenges. Things like keeping your bearings and making sure you have the right size of boots are very important.
Conclusion
While picking up a camera and embracing the influencer life can be intimidating- and seem like a dream come true, the harsh reality is- not everybody will be able to achieve success that way. We do think you should follow your dreams, but we suggest you have a backup plan- and put some effort learning into a skill as well.