How to travel the world for free
Ever wanted to know how to travel the world for free? I do it and you can do it too. It takes work, but it’s worth it.
If you’ve followed me and the blog for any length of time, you’ll know I’ve done my fair share of travelling. You’ll also know that I’d done a lot of it for free. Well, not free. I had to put A LOT of work in and gave value back. But in monetary terms, nothing left my wallet.
Examples can be found here, here and here.
To do this, there are two options.
Both require you to start your very own blog. Here’s how to do it.
Option 1 - Pitch, pitch, pitch
Your first option is the most straightforward. Create yourself a blog. I recommend setting up something super easy on Squarespace. Populate this with lots of content focused on the sort of niche you want to target. If you’re looking to get free travel, then having lots of city guides and activity reviews is a good way to go.
Once that’s done, you’ll need to tick the following boxes:
Leverage
The easiest way to do this is to have your blog generating a decent amount of traffic (5k per month is fine to start) or to have an Instagram account with a good amount of followers. These two together are more powerful than just one alone.
Outreach
You’ll need to reach out to the tourist board of the place you want to visit. If you want to visit Tokyo for example, reach out to their tourism board and pitch to have them fly you out, source your accommodation and rustle up an itinerary.
In return, they will get some fantastic coverage that will generate more business for their city. This is the trade. You are providing immense value to them and in return, they are showing you the best of what their city has to offer.
Deliver
If you continue to deliver for these places, creating fantastic content and delivering value, you can show this to more and more tourist boards as proof of concept and snowball your operation. In fact, you could be hitting a new place every weekend if you pitch your socks off.
Option 2 - Post, post, post
So your second option is a bit more nuanced because you’ll have to get yourself an accountant (unless you’re pretty hot with your numbers).
With this option, you simply just pay for everything, but make sure you post about it incessantly.
This way, you should be able to make a case to the tax man that these purchases are wholly and necessarily for business purposes.
This is not financial advice so bear that in mind.
You can learn more about all the cool stuff bloggers may be able to get through on their expenses using this link: https://www.keepertax.com/tax-write-offs/social-media-influencer
Tag & CTA
If you’re leaving town for work then your travel and accommodation is expendable. Tag the places you’re staying, the airlines you’re using and make sure you always leave a call to action for viewers and readers so they can take a look at these companies.
That way, your expenses can be claimed because you are genuinely driving traffic and business for these places.
Pay correctly
Pay with your business card. This way, all expenses are going through your business and it’s all recorded correctly. You want everything to be completely above board. So whilst you have to pay up front initially, you can claim all of this back off your profits at the end of the year, meaning instead of lining some government official’s pockets, you’ve had the time of your life ✈️
Submit
Submit your taxes via an accountant. This is always the safest and most effective way to double-check your expenses and ensure it’s all submitted 100% legally and efficiently.
LEARN MORE ABOUT EXACTLY HOW I TRAVEL FOR FREE
If you want to find out how I became a digital nomad using this blog and how you can do exactly the same thing, check out my course here. For more information about how to free yourself, check out the video below 👇
It teaches you everything you’ll need to create a successful blog, freeing yourself from the 9-5 and allowing you to travel the world for free, making crazy money whilst doing it.
What are you waiting for?
Be sure to follow me on socials to keep up with the daily goings on of The Man Blueprint. You can also sign up for my inner circle using the newsletter form above. Just drop your email in there and it’s job done. Completely free and completely brilliant. Whilst you’re here, have a little browse of some other article you might like below too. You won’t regret it.
You may also like
The weird art of sauna networking
Did you know that there’s an art to networking in the sauna? Yep. Read on to find out more.
Here’s something you’ve probably never thought about. Networking in the sauna. Well I’m here today to let you into this strange little networking secret that I recently discovered. Are you ready?
A bit of background
I was sat in the sauna the other day chatting away with a few guys and it dawned on me. Has anyone every thought of the insane stealth-networking potential of this situation? If you’ve ever been in the sauna for any prolonged period of time, you’ll know that eventually, you’ll get chatting to whoever you’re in there with.
The type of person in a sauna
If that person you get chatting to happens to be a fellow entrepreneur, it’s essentially an elevator pitch on steroids.
Think about it.
High level guys care about their health more than most. If your gym has a sauna then it’s probably quite a high end facility. A plethora of health conscious, wealthy members means an increased chance of chatting (in a very personal setting) with a business owner for a fair amount of time. Not just a quick 15-second pitch.
An example
For instance yesterday, the two guys I was talking to both turned out to be businessmen in my area. One owned some bars in the city and the other owned a few barbershops.
Guess what? Both their businesses had websites that needed some major work. I told them a bit about what I do and booked a couple of meetings in there and then. In a sauna. Talk about killing two birds with one stone. A great workout, followed by ninja-closing some potential clients whilst sweating out toxins.
Next time you’re sweating your balls off, maybe ask that guy next to you what he does for a living. You never know who you might meet.
Be sure to follow me on socials to keep up with the daily goings on of The Man Blueprint. You can also sign up for my inner circle using the newsletter form above. Just drop your email in there and it’s job done. Completely free and completely brilliant. Whilst you’re here, have a little browse of some other article you might like below too. You won’t regret it.
You may also like
How To Be A Nomad With No Money - A complete guide
So you want to become a digital nomad? You’re gonna need guidance. Here is the complete guide on how to be a nomad with no money.
So you want to be digital nomad? This blog will teach you how to be a nomad with no money and working remotely.
A guy in one of the private communities I’m a member of recently asked me how it was that I got started in ‘digital nomad-ing’ and how I actually make my money. Whilst I gave him a brief breakdown of things he could be doing, I thought it would be good to expand this out into a longer post that might help some of you blokes out - as this covers exactly how I made money as a nomad before I had money.
This isn’t a guide on money-making schemes. It’s more aimed at income-generating skills that give you enough money to live well whilst allowing you to be location independent AND scale if you so wish.
I’ll make a list of each and ideas on how to scale. They’re all intentionally low barriers to entry, so anyone can at least try these and begin living the digital nomad lifestyle while traveling the world as a remote worker.
🚨 A quick FYI - a lot of the scaling options are similar. Most scaling solutions are the same across all industries so I am repeating myself a little bit. But hopefully they just hammers the point home even more.
How to become a digital nomad?
If you want to find out how I became a digital nomad using this blog and how you can do exactly the same thing, check out my course here. For more information about how to free yourself, check out the video below 👇
It teaches you everything you’ll need to create a successful blog, freeing yourself from the 9-5 and allowing you to travel the world for free, making crazy money whilst doing it.
What are you waiting for?
Copywriting
This is one of the lowest barriers to entry in the freelance trade. If you can write in any guise, you can be a copywriter. Sites like Fiver, UpWork and People Per Hour are making this easier than ever. You can write copy for ads, daily content for sites (I used to write 10 articles PER DAY for the largest forex business in the UK and their sister companies), long-form SEO-optimised guides, brand guidelines - the list goes on and on. There’s also no ceiling for copywriting. If you are good enough, you may end up writing for huge publications such as the Esquire or GQ.
It’s different for service providers such as web developers who have to be proficient in many different design languages. If you only know CSS and Squarespace for instance, you’ll never design Nike’s new website. But if you are an excellent copywriter, you may well design the slogan that adorns the homepage.
This is THE freelance gig to get into if you want to be a digital nomad asap.
How to scale?
Up your rates.
Take copywriting courses.
Train a team up and have them write articles for you. Especially useful for spin pieces where you are just repurposing existing content to pad out news sites.
Translation
The overwhelming majority of those outside the UK, US, Canada & Australia, etc. speak English very well. So automatically you are extremely qualified in a very niche industry that those in the countries mentioned don’t really have access to. This can be done anywhere in the world!
You can start off doing translation gigs on jobs boards and one day after amassing an excellent reputation, you may find yourself translating for huge foreign sports stars or being the go-between in crunch talks between the UK and France. This is another opportunity with absolutely no ceiling as long as you really brush up on the languages you speak and all of their idiosyncrasies.
How to scale?
Up your rates
Take linguistics courses
Find people similar to you in your area with an interest in language. Create a team that are similar to yourself but with different strengths. For example, some excel in high pressure environments and some like to do their translation behind a screen for article proofs. Once built out, you can manage this team. Being from a similar area you can have solid rapport and eventually you can hire a general manager to step in and let it run itself.
Web design
This is my main income source now and it is EASY to do. If you utilise low-code platforms such as Squarespace and Wix you can create beautiful sites that are easy to manage for your clients and that they are willing to pay mega money for. Take some additional courses, read around online and build your portfolio. In next to no time, you’ll be easily making dream-level income.
How to scale?
Up your rates
Hire a junior designer
Use templates to free up more time for more clients
Slowly build a team and remove yourself as the bottleneck
Graphic design
For graphic design, you might have to have some level of artistic inclination. But it can definitely be learnt. The Adobe suite is so much more accessible to all skill levels now making it easier than ever to get to grips with pro-level software. If you’re really looking at being a digital nomad, the graphic design route would be fruitful, as you can do a lot of it from an iPad meaning it takes pretty much zero room in your bag/case. Imagine being able to make 6-figures from this tiny little screen that slots inside your backpack whilst sunning your balls in Bali? Ideal.
How to scale?
Download professional programs from Adobe or learn how to do work faster on Canva - this is a great nomad jobs for beginners
Take a course or 2. This is quite an important step for graphic design as skill is very important.
Develop a workflow
And again, build yourself a team when the work stacks up too high. Artists come from every single country in the world, so you may be able to find a world-class graphic designer who is willing to work for 15% of what you would actually charge a client. Give them a 5% tip, keep them onside and you’ve got yourself a money printing machine.
English teaching
A bit more hands on, but if you speak English well, you can travel to whatever country you want and get a job teaching English to classes or private students. A lot of rich families will pay to have their child tutored by English speakers. I had a friend who taught English to Russian royalty 😳 and another friend who lived with a German family rent-free whilst also being paid, just for teaching their kid English for 2 hours per day.
If you crave even more freedom from teaching English, you can do it via zoom to classes or privately. This is an even more viable option thanks to corona and helps to expand your target market to pretty much anywhere around the world.
How to scale?
Up your rates.
Market your services and teach to larger classes.
Build an online English academy. Learning softwares are making this quite a viable option now.
Same as above, but pre-recorded. If you build an English-learning course with a high success rate you’ll have a passive income for life with very minimal admin.
Blogging and Freelance Writing
As a lot of you will already know, this is where my digital nomad journey began and what laid the foundation for a lot of my success. Blogging taught me how to create content for social media, take great photographs, be an effective copywriter, design beautiful websites, understand SEO, network with high-level people and so much more.
If you can succeed at being a ‘blogger’ you can succeed at any form of online hustle. The best thing about getting into blogging is that the barrier to entry is SO LOW. You can create a cheap website, hook up a cheap domain and literally write about anything you want. Eventually, you will begin to generate traffic. This will be hyper-targeted traffic because these people are coming to your website to look for specific content.
This is where you can monetise. You can place ads on your site from Google who do it automatically for you. Or you can pitch companies on monthly retainers to place banner ads on your site. You can also use my Free pitching template to make your digital nomad journey even easier.
Who doesn’t love free stuff (and potentially free travel)? You can even set up your own store filled with merch - the possibilities really are endless when you’re looking to generate income from your blog. Once you have a bank of articles done, they will constantly make you money too, so it can be a real passive earner with enough traffic.
How to scale?
Charge larger fees for featured posts.
Have an outreach specialist pitch to companies for you to scale your online business. These specialists can be full time or part time.
Hire writers who know SEO well. Even if their English isn’t top drawer, their skills in SEO will still generate much more traffic for you. You can always proof their work before setting it live.
Get guest post submissions. A great way of generating free content and also helping the writers with an authoritative backlink.
Affiliate Marketing - How to Make Money as a Nomad
This is kind of in the same vein as blogging, but with more of a laser-focused approach to what the website aims to do. With blogging, you can post more rambling-style content interspersed with the money-spinner stuff. Affiliate marketing is all about the sales. Affiliate marketing sites work well if they are based around reviews and listicles. This type of content lends itself very well to being able to link out to affiliate products dozens of times within the same article without looking spammy. You can also approach affiliate marketing from the social media side of things too.
Posting links to products on your story (if you have that function), having links in your bio and even just in messages to people who are interested in the products you talk about. There are lots of ways to bag affiliate sales. One of the best is Amazon affiliates if we’re just talking about ease and linking to amazon.com. As long as the user clicked your link, you still get the commission on any purchase they make within 24 hours. Considering how many people use Amazon daily, I wouldn’t bet against this being a big source of income for those of you looking to get started quickly.
Be sure to check out the affiliate advertising program description before signing up!
How to scale?
Negotiate larger affiliate commission percentages where possible.
Get a team of writers to write the articles for you (I used to do this for a Muay Thai affiliate site who were making big, big money simply reviewing equipment they hadn’t even tried…).
Hire somebody to scour the web for the best affiliate programs and sign you up. This will free up a lot of research time and allow you to either write more, negotiate more or simply have more free time as a digital nomad.
Social Media Management - Digital Nomad Jobs for Beginners
Most of us have experience with social media. We all know what it’s like to be on one side of the algorithm, consuming content produced by others. Because of this, we know what people like - we are people. If you are someone who’s organised, can write good captions, has time to engage with users on social media and knows platforms like Instagram and TikTok like the back of your hand then you can make money simply taking over somebody’s account and running it for them.
A lot of business owners today are STILL not tech-savvy enough to take full advantage of the true potential of social media. If you can show this to them, their minds will be blown and they’ll think you are a master - which you are of course… One thing to note with social media management, a lot of people are under the impression that it’s easy to do.
You’ll often get something along the lines of “oh, my grandson will manage the social media side for us for free, he loves MySpace!”. You need to be prepared for this and be able to make a case for why they need a professional. If you build up a nice bank of case studies, you’ll have ample ammo to show the night and the day difference between a hobbyist and an expert.
How to scale?
Utilise scheduling software like Hootsuite to automate posts and remove yourself from the majority of the process.
Up your rates
Use templated posts to reduce decision fatigue.
Build a team. Since the management can be done at any time due to software, look at hiring people in lower cost-of-living areas that still speak excellent English.
SEO Specialism
This is a skill that everybody who has a website, social media profile or YouTube channel wants. You can choose to specialise in all of these areas or niche down to just one. But at the end of the day, EVERYBODY who wants to make money online needs SEO. If they have no level of search engine optimisation then they’ll never be found and they’ll never make any money.
That’s where you come in.
If you can up-skill yourself to a level where your input generates your clients insane returns, they’ll want you on retainers, they’ll tell their friends about you (if they’re in different industries) and you’ll begin making huge sums. You don’t even need that many tools. SEM Rush is good and Google has lots of free resources to keep on top of trends. Add a course, some mentorship and some real experience into the mix and your life as a global traveller SEO wizard begins to look pretty rosy.
How to scale?
Up your rates
Take a course
Find a mentor
Whitelabel for larger SEO firms
Slowly build a team and create an agency in your image
Other ideas
Other honourable mentions (that I haven’t done personally so can’t advise on) that have a slightly higher barrier to entry but may yield huge returns are:
📹 Youtube automation
💸 Drop shipping
🖥 Video editor
📱 SMMA
TL/DR
Look into the following industries if you want to free yourself from location-dependent work:
Copywriting
Translation
Web design
Graphic design
English teaching
Blogging
Affiliate marketing
Social media management
SEO specialism
If you have any digital nomad jobs that I didn't cover in this list, feel free to get in touch and I can add some more remote jobs!
Be sure to follow me on socials to keep up with the daily goings on of The Man Blueprint. You can also sign up for my inner circle using the newsletter form above. Just drop your email in there and it’s job done. Completely free and completely brilliant. Whilst you’re here, have a little browse of some other article you might like below too. You won’t regret it.
You may also like
The Fjallraven Kanken is a digital nomad's dream
Today, I have one of my favourite collabs to date. Fjallraven have been kind enough to send me over one of their Kanken backpacks to test drive (and keep - because who would want that back once it's come in contact with my sweaty bod?).
As someone who would probably class himself as a digital nomad, ie - someone who can work from anywhere with a Wi-Fi connection - I thought this backpack would be the answer to all of my problems.
Turns out, it was.
Who are Fjallraven?
"Hailing from the small town of Örnsköldsvik in Sweden, a place where mountains and forest meet the sea, Fjällräven is an outdoor clothing and equipment company that’s committed to making nature more accessible. In true Swedish style, we focus on simplicity and practicality, and we have the utmost respect for the environment."
Straight to the point. I like it.
The Kanken
The Kanken (specifically, the Kanken No. 2 Black) backpack is by far my favourite in the Fjallraven range.
I don't want to pigeonhole them, but Fjallraven have become quite well known for their diddy little backpacks that Pinterest girls wear religiously. That is why I think the Kanken - the big daddy laptop version - offers the perfect alternative for those who want to escape this image and utilise the frankly brilliant Fjallraven range to its fullest.
After trying the Kanken for the past 6 weeks, here's why I've decided that it should be the go-to backpack for all digital nomads (and probably even those who just want a nice bag lol).
Why the Fjallraven Kanken is a digital nomad's dream
Where do we start with this one? There's so much to this Kanken that I simply didn't expect. Some of these may sound very, very trivial, but I'm going to explain each one and try to convince you cold hearted psychopaths why they actually make sense.
Let's list a few shall we?
Side bottle pockets
There's not many things worse than being out and about (being the #adventurer that you are...) and running out of water, is there?
Well, there's quite a lot of things worse than that but you know what I mean.
Anyway, having these little side pockets is perfect for putting either plastic bottles (yuck!!!!) or stainless steel bottles (yum!!!!) and keeping on top of your hydration gains all day. Seems trivial but having these on the outside of the backpack creates loads more room inside the bag to stuff full of other essentials like Yu-Gi-Oh cards or Beyblades.
Double compartments
The Kanken has two distinct compartments which is ideal for keeping stuff separated if you so please. For instance, a lot of backpacks will have a laptop sleeve in the back which is all well and good, but it's still not completely separate and easy to get to.
If you want to jump in and grab your lappy whilst you're in the airport, the Kanken has you covered. Just unzip the back part and dip in. You can also stuff notebooks, pens or even an iPad or something in there too. One compartment for tech and the other for clothes, etc. It's a modern day version of 'business up front, party in the back'. Think of it like a futuristic mullet, for your back. Or don't. Whatever.
Mat included
There's even a little slide-out mat in there, which is well hidden, but when you bring it out it's actually rather substantial. Since Fjallraven build their gear for adventurers, this mat can be used to sit on mountain sides for a rest when you're ascending to the summit of some huge monolith of a hill.
Whereas us digital nomads could probably just use it as a nice cushion to put on a dingy coffee shop stool.
Still a nice touch though...
Name tag
This is basically the grown-up version of your mum writing your name in the back of your school shirts so the grubby kids wouldn't steal your pristine whites.
In all seriousness though - it's a handy little feature to have in case for some reason, your bag gets waylaid. If you're a little wanderlust seeker much like myself then you might have to put your bag through airport security. No dramas if it ever gets lost then - your details will be right there inside.
You could probably do this with every bag ever - I know - but the fact that Fjallraven have thought ahead and put this in there is a nice touch. It's the little things.
Massive capacity in a small vessel
Absolute tardis vibes.
This backpack is perfect for taking on holiday and saving on luggage fees for the frequent travellers amongst us. Since the compartments zip all the way down, you can fill every inch with clothes, chargers and whatever else you like to stow away on your travels.
It travels well this little fella.
Looks
And obviously - the thing just looks damn good.
If you want to get your very own Fjallraven Kanken then you can find one here.
Be sure to follow me on socials to keep up with the daily goings on of The Man Blueprint. You can also sign up for my inner circle using the newsletter form above. Just drop your email in there and it’s job done. Completely free and completely brilliant. Whilst you’re here, have a little browse of some other article you might like below too. You won’t regret it.