1. Get Sponsored to Travel!
Getting sponsored is an innovative and new way to travel around the world. By using fundraising sites such as Kickstarter, GoGetFunding, and FundRazr, you can raise all of your travel and expense costs to travel the world for free – all you have to do is to have an idea and to develop a proposal.
Crowd funding means using the resources of the crowd (that means you, me, and the billions of other users on the net) to finance your project. All it takes is for everyone to sponsor or donate a dollar, and before long, you can have thousands of dollars to fulfill your dreams!
When you upload your proposal, you can set the time span that you want it to run for, usually somewhere around 1–3 months. During this time of marketing your idea, you will receive steady bids and sponsors, with people offering to pledge as little as 5 dollars or as much as $500!
When you set up your proposal, you get to describe the different funding options. These are usually organized into levels, with different bonuses or advantages to each level. You might set the lowest option at $10 and the highest at $1500!
Each funding level should have a perk or advantage for the patron. Perhaps, you want to offer them a personalized guide brochure or limited-release prints or pictures of your travels. Some inventive proposals even offer T-shirts courtesy of CafePress, key rings, or mugs courtesy of Zazzle. com. Be inventive! The better the prize, the more likely you are to get funded!
2. Write a Travel Guide
Why not get paid to travel around the world? One of the ways that you can do this is by writing travel guides, for which you either will have your transport fees paid for you or will be paid in retrospect.
If you have ever heard of the Lonely Planet guide series, then you will know just how popular and successful travel writing is. In today’s world, there are now many more opportunities to become a travel blogger, or someone who writes articles and short journal pieces about where they are and what is happening to them for travel and adventure websites.
If you manage to land a major gig like working with Lonely Planet, then they will often pay your travel costs for you to locations that they need updated books for.
3. Review Hotels
An increasingly popular way to travel or more accurately to get paid to travel is to review travel locations. The theory is simple; hotels, hostels, and BnBs are always looking for positive reviews, so much so that they will ask online copywriters to write fake adverts for them if they are forced to! Remember that a negative review – just one – on an online travel site can sink or seriously damage hotels’ profits that season, so they need a constant stream of positive reviews from travelers just like yourself.
If wine reviewers and restaurant critiques get paid to write professional reviews, then why shouldn’t you do too, as a professional world traveler? The first thing you have to do is to start an online blog or review site, talking about your experiences around the world.
If you run an attractive, professional-looking blog with complimentary pictures, true stories offering well-sourced information, and links, then the chances are that you are already offering just the sort of service that a hotel needs.
What makes your proposition even more attractive is if you have an engaged readership and an established presence on social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Google, or Pinterest.
One of the most important things that you can do to achieve your goal is to research your destination. If you are going to travel to any of the world’s major cities, then you will be looking at hotels, holiday apartments, and studios, most of which will have websites. More rural locations will probably mean BnBs, resorts, or estate houses. Always go direct to the website or hotel itself rather than through a third party. The closer you get to the owner, the better chance you are likely to have of making an impression!
Remember to only target places to stay that you actually want to stay in! There’s no point settling for accommodation that you know you might hate, and thus, you and they have a bad experience! A part of this is also selecting places that suit your travel style – whether adventurous, luxurious, self-catered, and family.
Choose accommodation that already has some sort of social media presence, even if it is only a website and a Twitter. These are the ones who are actively going to be aware and familiar of travel blogging. Medium to large hotels and resorts are more likely going to have spare rooms that need filling than small, family-run BnBs. To put it bluntly, the small, family-run business probably depends on every individual visitor’s income!
4. Free Transport Abroad
Now that you are abroad on your free holiday, something to think about is how you plan to travel from one place to another. If you didn’t bring your own vehicle as a form of community taxi or car delivery, you’ll have to find ways to get about which isn’t going to burn a hole in your pocket!
How to Travel Abroad on the Cheap!
Hitching: Hitching is still the number one resort for groups of travelers, but not generally advisable for single travelers. If you are traveling as a couple or as part of a group, then I would certainly recommend it. If you are staying at a hostel or on a farm, you will probably find that there are others there who are willing to hitch, and you should soon get a lift to where you want to go. You will probably find that the further into the developing world that you travel, the more that hitching becomes a natural mode of travel, as many people cannot afford to own or run cars and instead operate them collectively and expect to give hitchhikers a lift. As ever, you should always keep your wits about you and keep your money secure in a money purse when traveling.
Walk or Cycle: Remember that the cheapest and easiest way to see the world is under your own steam! Many European cities now offer bike rental schemes, where you can unlock a free bike at just the cost of a pound or token, which you will get back as soon as you finish with your bike. There is always walking too – the best way to see a city!
5. Where to go for free?
While the travel, flights, and the accommodation are usually the biggest obstacles to your goal of traveling for free, the next most important concern is how you are going to survive and what you are going to do while you are out there. If you are already using one of the schemes like WWOOFing or hosting, then the chances are you already have got access to meals and a kitchen or indeed are even getting paid! It is worth, however, taking advantage of these other free opportunities.
Remember to Find the Free Days: Most of the world’s biggest attractions such as the Guggenheim or the Louvre have free days. This is usually part of their civic requirement for their own state- or government-level funding, so why not take advantage of this? By looking through the museum or attractions’ own website (sometimes only by signing up for a newsletter), you will be told when the free days, nights, or mornings are. There is almost always once a month and more around Christmas time!
Special Promotions: Remember that most attractions bring in not only tourists from abroad but also visitors from their host city and have to market to their host city. Remember to check local newspapers (i. e., if you can read the language) and the notice boards for special promotions, free meal tickets, and discounts. Most of these kinds of offers are coupon deals, so all that you have to do is cut out the coupon and offer it at the desk of where you are going!
