How I Fund My Travels Around the World ⋆ EvaMtalii

I share 20 easy and creative ways I make money to travel the world and share with you tips on how you too can make money traveling with the best travel jobs.

Some of the most frequently asked questions on the EvaMtalii blog and the social media channels rotate around the following themes: tips for making money while traveling, how to travel the world and make money, easy ways to make money while traveling, ways you can make money and travel the world, earning money while you travel, how to afford travel, etc.

20 Ways I have made money to travel the world

What's Covered in This Article

Rent my home while traveling

This has been one of my favorite ways of making money while traveling.

Instead of leaving my house behind locked doors while I’m miles away on holiday, I let it out via property listing sites such as AirBnB, and Booking.com.

If this is something you’d consider but are not sure how to go about starting an AirBnB business in Kenya, here’s a guide.

Sell ‘made in Kenya’ stuff online

99% of my exports are kiondos, maasai jewelry, lesos/khangas, and fishing flies which I ship to the United States.

I prefer the US because I get to leverage the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) agreement program that provides my clients in the U.S. with duty-free treatment to imports of the products when they purchase from me.

I once got a very good deal to sell 10 Kenyan-themed lesos to a high-end US shoe brand for a commercial. Tuseme tu hiyo pesa ilitosha kunilipa trip ya kwenda Switzerland.

If you’re interested in starting an export business to the US, here is a link to the full AGOA database of product(s) that are eligible for export to the US.

I use Etsy to list my products but also have a Shopify website for the fishing flies.

I ship my items using DHL (for the kiondos, lesos, and fishing flies), and posta (for the jewelry).

If you’d rather sell stuff locally, consider websites such as OLX, Jumia, etc.

Write, publish and sell e-books

If you’re conversant with a particular subject, topic or issue more than the average person on the street, you could very easily make money self-publishing and selling e-books online.

My greatest income-earner is novellas that I write in the form of e-books and self-publish using a pseudonym on Amazon.

The genre is mostly travel romance.

In my name, I have also published two e-books: one e-book that targets beginner freelancers, and the other e-book is one about surviving a retrenchment.

Becoming a travel influencer

An influencer in simple English is basically someone who others pay attention to and therefore he or she can influence them to make a buying decision.

The premise here is that I have over time built this audience by providing them value, and these brands would want to access this audience through someone the audience already have a relationship with and in whom they have built trust- hence the time influencer.

By virtue of having built an engaged audience through my blog and social media channels, I have had travel brands pay me to put up sponsored posts on my blog, and also pay for my travel, tours, and accommodation in exchange for Instagram features, mentions, and reviews.

Delivering packages

This I do through a company called World Craze.

Usually before I leave a country A, to go to country B, I go through the website to check if there’s someone in country B who wants a product from country A. I then buy the item while I’m in country A and then deliver it to them once I arrive country B.

World Craze then pays me once this transaction is complete.

Get paid to make YouTube videos

This is my most recent side hustle that passively makes me travel money.

My EvaMtalii YouTube channel got monetized in February of this year. Basically what this means is that is that I joined the YouTube Partner program.

As in, when YouTube runs advertisements on my videos and the person watching any of the videos decides to watch the advertisements, Google pays me some money.

In essence, watching the advertisement is the viewer’s way of saying thank you to the video maker for bringing to you the valuable content free of charge.

The best thing about making travel money through YouTube videos is that I need to put a lot of effort upfront when coming up with a video script or idea, shooting the video, then promoting it. Once its done and the video goes viral, it becomes a completely passive source of income.

Modeling

I’m very comfortable in my body and therefore prefer modeling bikinis and sports wear.

I work so hard to stay in shape and I think it’s only fair I get paid for looking fabulous :).

I mostly wait for brands to pitch me (because I get to charge higher), but once in a while especially when I haven’t hit my target budget for a given trip and I’m visiting an exotic location, I approach the brands.

This was my experience when touring Brazil and Argentina.

Freelance business plan writer

I focus solely on developing business plans for businesses in the US and Canada, and once in a while also so business plans for chamas.

The reason I prefer businesses in the US and Canada is because the two countries have perfected the art of documentation, and databases/statistics.

This makes conducting market research – the most time consuming aspect of business planning – a breeze.

Consequently, I need just about 5 days doing 4-5 hours a day to complete a 25-page business plan and walk away with a minimum of $500.

I used to list my freelance services on UpWork and Fiverr, but these days I’m more focused on word of mouth and once in a while, FlexiJobs.

On chamas, I love doing their business plans because they’re so straight forward, they are either investing on NSE, buying plots, buying apartments, or buying an Uber :). Easy peasy. These I complete in 2 days doing 3 hours, max.

Make money travel blogging

This is related to how I make money as a travel influencer as I have already explained above.

The premise is similar.

By virtue of having built an engaged audience through my blog and social media channels, I have decent enough foot traffic to make money out of this travel blog in the following ways:

Affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing is a passive income method that works best by virtue of me maintaining my blog active.

Essentially, I make money by including on the website, affiliate links to products and services that I have used and love. Should you click on any of them and make a purchase, I get a small commission for recommending it to you, and at no extra cost to you.

Some of my favorites include: AirBnB, Payoneer, Booking.com, Bluehost.com, Fiverr, VoiceBunny, etc.

Display advertising

While browsing through my website, you must have come across various advertisements on various fronts.

I am currently signed up with both Google Ad Sense program and another company called VigLink.

Basically, I earn money when a reader on the blog clicks on an advertisement.

Paid public speaking

This applies to being paid to speak at conferences, events, schools, chamas, and other travel related events.

I mostly speak about travel on a Kenyan passport with its associated visa hurdles and breaking its associated stereotypes.

Writing for dailies

I prefer to write for myself.

But once in a while when either the deal is soo good or it is an opportunity for exposure in a market that I’ve been eyeing, I don’t mind writing for free.

Case in point was this article I wrote for Myanmar Business Daily back in 2014.

This one article elevated by career to a whole new level and opened up so many opportunities for me, including a brief modeling stint.

Destination marketing

This is whereby in exchange for payment or paid accommodation, travel, food, tours, etc, a country or city’s tourism board invites me to visit their country or city, and then share my experience with my audience through my blog, YouTube channel, and other social media.

This was the case with my trip to Oslo Norway that was fully sponsored by the VisitOslo tourism board.

Use my bank card to pay for travel expenses

Whenever I use my bank card to pay for any of my travel expenses, my bank reimburses me cash for swiping the card.

It’s not much but it counts.

Other one off ways I’ve made money while traveling

Compensation for default entertainment system

I once was on board a Delta flight and for some reason everyone’s entertainment system wasn’t working.

As soon as we landed, we were each handed crisp clean $100 bills.

Acting

All acting gigs I have participated in have been impromptu ones – especially when I used to live in Asia back in the pre-Instagram days when they’d never seen anything as exotic as a melanated black female in twist braids.

I took it to my advantage and scored 2 commercial gigs in Myanmar (formerly Burma).

Guys, black privilege is a thing y’all.

Use it to your advantage

Compensation for delayed flights

I think I’ve benefited from this twice or thrices.

Technically, if your flight is delayed for 3 hours or more and the course is not weather – related, you should claim for compensation from your travel insurer.

Compensation for being retrenched

Some time back, I got retrenched.

Fortunately, my salary account at the time had retrenchment cover attached to it, and I wasn’t even aware of it so hadn’t planned with it in mind.

I therefore just took this money that the bank paid me and took off on a one year sabbatical.

Fortunately when I returned the universe had realigned and I got another job.

Monitoring and Evaluation consultant

I try to engage in at least one well-paying consultancy gig every year.

I am in the process of writing a short e-book on how to get into high-paying consultancy in Kenya.

This is based on my personal experience so I highly recommend it.

Bookmark this post if you want a notification when the book is out.

Tracing my unclaimed funds

Before Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) Unclaimed Financial Assets Authority (UFAA), it was near impossible for anyone to trace money they may have had stashed away in some institution that they may not have been aware of or may have forgotten about.

So last year, I visited the UFAA website and claimed some money I had left over in a bank account I no longer used, I also claimed my points from the now defunct Nakumatt smart card.

If you’re looking for some travel money, simply log onto the The Unclaimed Financial Assets Authority (UFAA) website and you never know what you could come across.