People talk a lot about work life balance. But the real question here is work travel balance 😉

How can we travel more and also earn satisfactorily through interesting work? Note that I said ‘interesting’ work. Because I greatly value the work I do – it is a way to contribute productively to the world and also improve our skills and capabilities in the world. I don’t really understand when travellers choose to take up odd jobs in foreign countries to fund their travels. Maybe this is “Indian” thinking, because at the end of day as a country we are still in survival mode and poor. So enhancing our work capability and career progression are important aspects for most of us. But even apart from the basic productivity and future security aspect, I would still consider it very important to grow as a person – and I think the type of work we choose to do plays a big role in who we become.

My first solo travel was in 2009, and I would say over the years I have managed a good work travel balance so that on both fronts there is increasing depth and clarity.

Work & Travel: A few ways to balance them

So first things first, how do we find time to travel when we are busy with work?

One of the foremost and obvious ways is Remote Working.

Remote Working

There are two possibilities here,

Become a Digital Nomad

Location independent work! You completely shift your work to remote working. This allows you to go nomad i.e. you can travel all year long if you want. There is no office or home you need to be associated with at all. Currently, I am digital nomad-ing for about a year now (though parents house in Mumbai is a base). I take up digital marketing projects that are completely remote and these completely fund all my travels.

You can read more about my work in the past one year of being completely remote. Earlier, I thought I would have to compromise on the quality of projects I get, being fully remote, but now I think not. There is a growing trend of completely distributed teams – this allows for good remote marketing roles.

Generally, people think that remote working is OK only for certain professions like digital marketing – but the truth is that it can be difficult for us too. I have to give up on many projects and opportunities. Between projects I may not have a paycheck for couple of months. I am Ok with this (and in the long run I don’t think I take much flack on the monetary end).

It’s a matter of priorities usually. In today’s world all sorts of random professions have some remote working possibilities!

Part office and part remote work

You can have a flexible arrangement at office where you can do some of your work remote. This lets you take longer travel breaks… I ran a social media agency for many years and it was completely remote at the execution end. But I had to go for client meetings and new client pitches and so on. It was a flexible work setup – remote and in-city. This can be a pretty good arrangement to travel well and also work well. 🙂

Negotiate for more travel

This is another trick that works. Basically, you negotiate with your office place to get more travel leave. Depending on your interests, this could include traveling more for work or only more travel leaves. It could also mean more travel benefits – like free flight tickets or so on.

Right at the start of your career this may be difficult but definitely after a few years when you have some skills and are good at your work this is possible.

I was working in an office setup for a startup and I had negotiated with them that I would take a long travel break once a year – long as in 2 months or so. (how else can I go on cycling adventures?). I have also spoken to a few other travelers who also use this same method.

When travel is work

The third option is that your travel adventures itself earn you money. This means paid travel writing, monetising your travel blog, selling photographs and so on. It also means work like travel documentaries, research or other such activities which need good bit of traveling.

The problem that crops up here is that you have to direct your travels towards making enough money – can you do this without compromising on the travel quality? Some folks are doing this really well, from top of my mind: Neelima and Shivya. You can follow them / chat with them to figure out how they are cracking it.

I personally never found this option exciting, but I am now looking to make a bit of money through travel writing and maybe this blog so it pays me for at least the time I put in maintaining it. 🙂 I also have some other travel – work ideas but they will pan out as and how I am able to put in some time for them. Since, digital marketing is my main work area, those projects get priority over developing these smaller channels of revenue.

Another idea for travel – work is to take up volunteer work with a bit of stipend. That let’s you explore the place deeply and also work and gain important skills.

Sponsorships

My Taiwan trip was sponsored partly by the Taiwan Tourism Bureau. This helps lighten the expenses of long trips. But one should think well about the terms with the sponsor to ensure that we can be true to our travel style.

It is possible to get sponsored travel opportunities, or sponsorships from product companies (these could also pay you above just sponsoring the activity) if you have a decent blog and social media presence. But as I highlighted earlier, it is really tricky whether you can travel as and how you want when there are sponsorships involved. Because the sponsors would demand xx no. of social media posts or blog posts and so on. This may be difficult with deep or intense travel adventures. It all depends on how you want to travel.

So overall these are the various ways people are managing work and travel. I think if there is a will then there is a way. But it needs to be a high priority for you.

However, the important thing is that you think a bit deeply about work and travel first – before you embark on any such arrangement.

Your Work

The work you take up should excite and interest you. After all, we spend significant number of hours of our lives working – I don’t think it should be only the means to fund your travels. As we keep saying in travel – it’s about the journey not the destination. So also in life – the journey of life is key. Don’t spend a large number of your life hours on stuff that doesn’t really matter to you. In fact the more exciting travel adventures I have, the more loth I am to work on something that doesn’t excite me equally.

Neelima has written a good, long post on “A Life of Travel is a Futile Pursuit” – if you are considering quitting your job for full time traveling, do give it a read!

Your Travel Style

What is your travel style? My travel style is slow, solo, immersive which means that I need to look at a work arrangement that fits this style. If yours is something different then you have to think through. For example, I like staying in smaller towns – this keeps my expenses low. But if you like to stay in vibrant cities then your expenses might be much higher – thus increasing the fund requirements.

Don’t just think about traveling more because it looks “cool”. Or you saw a lot of instagram pictures and decided this is what you want to do. Life is a lot more serious than instagram pics. You need to spend time getting to know yourself. Develop some clarity on your work interests, travel interests and generally how you want to Live! And this only happens over a few years of trying stuff out.

And at the end of the day – work, travel are all SUBSETS of our LIFE.

So think a bit about your LIFE. What you want to be doing? What is your situation with regards family, debts and so on? What is the quality of life you are aiming for. What really moves you deep within? What stirs your heart? What is the passion that will carry you through all the ups, downs and in-betweens?

Make choices with this clarity.