How to make money while travelling

Stokepedia

The beers have been flowing, the parties long, and the memories are fuzzy, but now the well has run dry. Your bank balance is emptier than Donald Trump’s friend list however that doesn’t mean the adventure has to finish, it may have just begun. The night is always darkest just before dawn and while you’re reduced to frying pickles over a camp stove at the moment, there are opportunities for travellers to earn some money in Europe that could pull you from the abyss and sustain your journey a while longer.

Blog/vlog
Of course this is every traveller’s dream job but it isn’t the easiest dream to achieve as it is a highly saturated market in which it is very difficult to build a large enough audience to gain sponsorship. You need a bare minimum of a thousand subscribers/daily active users to begin approaching companies, with most requiring at least ten thousand. So while this might be a good passion project that could potentially yield profits at some point, it isn’t going to happen overnight and probably won’t be able to save you when your cash reserves have run out.

HostelsIn cities, particularly those with a high English speaking tourism rate, hostels are often on the hunt for receptionists who are fluent in English, bonus if you are multilingual. Generally, they either offer food and accommodation in return for work, or paid work with no accommodation. The under the table pay might not be great, but it should be enough for you to put yourself up in a different hostel and feed yourself, while still managing to fit in a few nights on the sesh and save up a bit. Night shifts are great if you’re trying to save money and catch up on Game of Thrones at the same time, but sorry ladies, generally European hostels don’t let women work solo night shifts for safety reasons.

Pub Crawls
Definitely one of the more fun ways to get some cash together but at the cost of your liver. Pub crawls generally pay on a commission basis of around €2 per person you get to come on the crawl and say your name, and if you bring enough people you’ll be paid to guide them around the pubs that night for around €25. This does mean spending a lot of your day standing around on the streets harassing strangers to take your flyer, but the nights make it very much worthwhile. Ordinarily, as long as you’re still capable of doing your job, you can drink as much as you want for free and spend your time hitting on hanging out with tourists from all over the world. Being paid to party has its downsides; daily hangovers, days where you work your arse off for fuck all money, and the realisation that you are slowly turning into a full blown sesh gremlin. All these niggling little drawbacks are small sacrifices to make though when you stop to think about the desk job you would otherwise be working back home and start drinking your seventh free beer of the night.

Go Legit
Depending on where in the world you are from it may be possible for you to get a working holiday visa for certain parts of Europe. For example, Australians can get a one year working visa for the Netherlands for €51, giving you access to a myriad of job opportunities as well as all the other “benefits” of living in a beautiful and liberal country. Even if you’re not going to use it for work, the visa is good for extending your allowed time in the Schengen zone. Other countries have other deals but the U.K., Ireland, Netherlands, and Spain are always good options to look into.

You’ll need to be willing to drop your standard of what an acceptable wage is but if you’re in the mindset that anything is better than going back to the real world, there’s always options for a hungry traveller with a need to earn. Expat or company websites are good place to start in the hunt for your latest occupation but unless you have a face that Stephen Hawking’s mother couldn’t love, go for the in person meeting where possible. If all else fails, there’s always a chance that you could come over to the dark side, if Stoke has a position available! Flick us a line and see what’s up, and remember, we work because we love this shit!