13 Ways YOU Can Get Paid to Travel

What could be a better job than arranging it so that you get paid to travel? When it's usually so expensive, how great would it be to be getting money back for your vacation? There are literally dozens of travel careers that pay well and that are also rewarding.

Some such opportunities for paid travel include finding a paying job, such as an airline pilot or flight attendant, a traveling nurse, a worker on a ship, a traveling chef, a crew member on a yacht, or a hospitality worker or massage therapist in a resort.

You can find other careers to get paid to travel that are relatively easy to get into. You may get to travel to faraway places, making money while you travel. A traveling career doesn't need to be your regular job, either. You can do it part time, and still have time to spend at home, if you have a family.

If you have interests like snorkeling, art history, painting, poetry, wine tasting or yoga, you can locate people who have interests similar to yours, and they can take you along on their vacation.

If you're interested in wine, perhaps you could get paid to travel by leading a tour to the wine countries of China, Morocco, South Africa and Argentina. Companies will pay you to take people on tours of favorite places. If you can book your trips yourself, you'll save the money you would otherwise spend on travel agents.  

YouTube and other video sites are quite popular now, and resorts may be happy to pay you for sharing creative videos with others, to get more business for their company.

There are few barriers to entering into the travel arena, and not a lot of competition. You can get paid to travel, and start your own resort video service with a Flip recorder or a camera phone. You can make even more if you spend $450-$500 on a good quality digital camera. You'll want to invest in a laptop and software to edit videos.

Travel writing is another way you can make money on travel. Many magazines and online zines need reviews of hotels and restaurants from unknown writers. As you become well-known, you'll make more for articles or videos. In addition, restaurants, hotels and resorts, along with other travel businesses, may give you services with no fees if you write a review for them. You can usually publish the same articles more than once, which means more money each time it's printed in different publications.

If you're an avid writer, perhaps you'd enjoy writing a travel guide book. That would be a way to get paid to travel that would probably pay even more than the cost of travel. Publish articles on online directories for travel, since they usually share their advertisement revenue with writers. You can also combine photography and travel writing by submitting articles and photos together, which will give your work a more professional look.