10 Ways to Make Money as a Digital Nomad

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how to make money as a digital nomad

Living the digital nomad life is the dream of many – imagine spending a month or two in tropical Bali, then another in Thailand. After three months of soaking in the sun, you decided it’s time for sushi – so you moved to Japan.

Digital nomads embrace a location-independent lifestyle that allows them to work anywhere and live everywhere. 4.8 million people currently describe themselves as digital nomads, and 17 million aspire to become nomadic one day.

digital nomad statistics

To earn a living while traveling around the world, many would choose to seek a remote position or start their online business. So here we have listed 10 practical ways to make money as a digital nomad! 

Remote Employment

Even before the pandemic, many companies are already hiring remote team members. Some companies are even entirely remote.  Social distancing measures and lockdowns under COVID-19 have caused the shutdown of physical offices. Work from home or a coworking space, therefore, becomes the new normal. 

Companies are reckoning from the epiphany that many types of work do not need to be done on-site. They discovered the benefits of hiring a remote team, such as savings on office space and travel expense, increased productivity, reduced turnover, and more freedom to hire the right candidate. 

benefits of having a remote team

Facebook plans to have half of the employees work remotely over the next 5 to 10 years. Google will try a hybrid work-from-home model. Zapier is a company that has been working remotely since the beginning. There are many more companies we can name about remote working. And what we are trying to tell you is – it’s not that difficult to find a remote job. 

If remote employment is not what you’re thinking, keep reading – below are nine ways you can make money online as a digital nomad.

Teaching Languages

Teaching your native language overseas is a popular way digital nomads earn a living. You can apply to local schools and learning centers to be a language teacher for a month or a few. 

Physical teaching has its boundary, though – you will have to find and apply to a new school every time you move to a new location. A more flexible, sustainable way to do it would be to teach online on platforms like Preply. These platforms allow you to secure a stable student base, plan your own teaching schedule, and determine your price rate. It’s completely free to sign up. 

Create and Sell Online Courses

Online courses are on the rise. More are exploring options to study online to sharpen their skills and absorb knowledge for career advancements, professional development, or hobbies learning. 

This opens a new opportunity to sell your knowledge online. Believe it or not, teaching online courses can be a lucrative business that makes seven figures. After you record a series of online courses, they become your digital assets. You can sell them to an unlimited number of students.  

An excellent example is Tim Steveson. He is an experienced strength and conditioning coach who moves to teach online and is now teaching Calisthenics to more than 40,000 users in less than a year using Learnworlds.

Many online course platforms help you do that, and you can get started for free. In case you already have a website and established audience, you can also sell courses on your website.

Start a Dropshipping Store

the dropship model

Dropshipping takes away the trouble of keeping and handling inventory. When a customer places an order at your online store, it will automatically transmit to the supplier, and the supplier ships it to the customer directly. Many dropshipping suppliers even enable custom packaging for your brand. This is the easiest way a digital nomad can start an online store and sell right away.

You can take a look at Shopbase and Spocket if you’re looking for high-quality dropshipping suppliers. 

Start a Blog 

Blogging has been around for more than a decade. It’s still one of the most popular ways digital nomads make money, and it’s not without reason. Blogging can become a lucrative business if you look at these high-paying blogs mentioned on Forbes:

  • The Huffington Post: $14,000,000 per month
  • TechCrunch: $2,500,000 per month
  • Mashable: $2,000,000 per month 

One of the significant sources of income for bloggers is affiliate income. You can quickly get started by joining networks like Share-A-Sale and Awin. It’s completely free to join, and you can instantly get assess to thousands of merchants who are open to affiliate partnerships. 

10 ways to make money blogging for digital nomad

Our best-recommended platform to start blogging is WordPress – which is completely free to use. While you have to pay for your web hosting, we recommend Bluehost which costs only a few dollars per month and includes one-click WordPress installation. Just so you know, Venturer is built with WordPress and hosted with Bluehost. We recommend them because we use them and love them! 

Start a Podcast

The number of Americans who listen to podcasts weekly has grown by 120 percent in the last four years. Over 90 million Americans listen to a podcast almost every month. 

With the rise in podcast popularity and the ease of starting a podcast, podcasting is a practical income source for digital nomads. There are numerous ways you can monetize your podcasts, such as paid memberships and sponsorships. 

Get started for free with Podbean or Buzzsprout – they are our top recommended podcast hosting platforms

Social Media Management

Social media has become part of our life. Brands are investing heavily in social media marketing to interact with their customers and target audience. They hire social media managers and specialists to create posts, reply to comments, and monitor brand mentions. The demand for independent social media managers is surging as more small businesses outsource it. 

This is a practical income source for digital nomads. Start by determining the channels you specialize in, create a social media portfolio, and offer different service packages. 

Your package pricing depends on your experience and quality of work. But here’s a reference: according to Payscale, social media manager hourly rate ranges from $10 to $27, with an average of $16. While it might be difficult to charge top dollars at the start, testimonials and referrals will get you there. 

social media manager hourly rate

There are also useful tools to lighten your workload in managing multiple brand accounts across different channels. 

Start a YouTube Channel

YouTube is the second largest search engine, just next to Google. On average, a YouTube video can receive $18 per 1,000 ad views, which equals to $3 – $5 per 1000 video views.

Popular YouTubers can also participate in influencer campaigns to create sponsored videos. How much you can charge for a sponsored videos varies on your subscriber number, engagement, average video views, and form of promotion. Many digital marketers adhere to the $1,000 per 100,000 followers, or one cent per follower rule. But again, this is just a rough estimate. 

It is also common for YouTubers to join affiliate networks like Awin and Share-A-Sales to refer viewers to products they like. You can place the affiliate links in the description box and let your viewers know about them in your video. 

As a digital nomad, there are numerous niches you can consider: travel, lifestyle, photography, fashion, and more! And no, you don’t need expensive cameras. Just shoot videos with your mobile phones, and edit them with one of the free video editors. But if you have enough budgets, you can consider some of the top recommended YouTube cameras like the Canon PowerShot G7 X Mark III and Sony RX100 Mark VII

Become a Social Media Influencer

Like being a YouTuber, becoming a social media influencer on Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, and more is common among digital nomads. There is synergy – once you accumulate fame in one of these channels, your followings will likely increase in other. It’s likely that your YouTube subscribers will follow you on Instagram, and vice versa. 

You can make money on Instagram in numerous ways. And you can start earning even with less than 10,000 followers. To grow your social followings more efficiently, you can use tools like Crowdfire to manage all your social media accounts in one place and automate postings. 

Freelancing and Consulting 

If you’re less into social media, freelancing and consulting are some of the top choices. You will get the flexibility to arrange your own schedule and get paid top dollars if you possess one of the in-demand skills. 

On Toptal, you can earn $60 – $210 per hour, depending on your specialty. Some of the most sought-after professionals are developers, product managers, designers, and finance experts. 

Besides registering on freelancer platforms, it is essential to build your personal brand online. Having a portfolio website is great. And don’t forget to expand your professional network on LinkedIn. 

Digital Nomads FAQs

What is a Digital Nomad? 

Digital nomads are people who live a location-independent, technology-enabled lifestyle. They often make a living online, work remotely, or telecommuting and travel to different locations. 

How many Digital Nomads are there?

4.8 million people currently describe themselves as digital nomads, and 17 million aspire to become nomadic one day, according to research by MBO Partners

Over to You!

Many aspire to become a digital nomad one day to earn a living while traveling around the world. They wait for the “best timing” to take action – but there is no such thing as the best timing. Maybe you are in a full-time job. But you can still look for remote openings, start a blog with Bluehost, register on Preply as a language teacher, or apply to become a Toptal professional. 

The best timing is now – stop waiting and start acting! 

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