If you already know you’re one of those people who will never be content with two weeks of vacation each year, it’s time to figure out how to make travel your lifestyle. Fortunately, there are more opportunities than ever to do this.
Getting Your Degree
In order to get most of the types of jobs that allow you to travel and live abroad, you’ll need a bachelor’s degree at minimum. You might think that you should be saving every penny for travel, but college will pay off with a lifetime of opportunities to live and work overseas. If money is an issue, consider taking out a student loan. Student loans tend to be easy to apply for and can supplement or replace federal funding, scholarships, grants, savings and any other sources of funding for school. While you are in school, doing a study or work abroad program and learning another language can better prepare you for an international lifestyle.
Choosing Your Travel Lifestyle
There are many different choices for your travel lifestyle, and of course, you may find that you want to change it up throughout your life. But you have to start somewhere, so here are some questions you need to ask yourself. Do you want to be based in the United States and work at a job that has you traveling often? Do you want to move to another country and put down roots there? Do you want to have the opportunity to live in many different countries for short or medium periods of time? How much control do you want to have over where you go next? Do you want to be self-employed? The answers to these questions will help you determine what type of career to pursue.
Your Career Options
One in five workers will look for a new job in the next six months. That’s because career options are many and varied. Looking for a job that allows you to be US-based but offers a lot of foreign travel is fairly straightforward as this is usually in the job description, but you still may want to consider what type of job you want. Would you like an office job that involves business trips, or would you prefer to work as a flight attendant? Another fairly straightforward option is if you have a parent or, sometimes, a grandparent from a country you’d like to live and work in. It is often possible to gain citizenship even if you are not one presently.
Beyond these situations, there are many other options. You could take a position at a company that has overseas branches and try to get an internal transfer. You could find out what skills are in demand and will get you a visa in the country of your choice, and study that in college. You won’t get rich travel nursing or English teaching, but you will just about have your pick of countries and opportunities. You could also join the foreign service, which, if you pass their stringent hiring requirements, will transfer you somewhere different every few years. Finally, you could start your own business, one that allows you to work in any location, as long as you don’t come into conflict with local visa regulations.
