The Big Blue Marble Newsletter: Sample Articles

Unusual travel suggestions are dancing lessons from God.
Kurt Vonnegut

Supporting Your Wanderlust

One of my favorite people is Barbara Winter. ?Barbara runs a small company that helps people discover the joys of being an entrepreneur. She is also author of the book Making a Living without a Job: Winning Ways for Creating Work that You Love and a new book entitled Jumpstart Your Entrepreneurial Spirit.?I first met Barbara at a series of seminars she taught at the Learning Annex in San Francisco. The seminars were (are) called Making a Living without a Job, Establish Yourself as an Expert, and How to Support Your Wanderlust.

Barbara exudes contagious enthusiasm in her zeal to get ordinary Americans to realize that they have the power to forge a life and a career that engages their passions rather than just earns them a living (to her the word job is a three letter expletive). She is also a very generous person who has given her time and energy to help me set up my business.

In January 2005, I interviewed her by telephone for this sidebar because I think she has a lot of creative ideas for financing your way around the world.

Barbara: In my book, Making a Living without a Job I map out six ways to earn money without a job. I think three of these possibilities exist for people who want to travel. These are: personal services, information packaging, and marketing a product or service.

Personal services are easy to transfer anywhere. They do not cost much to start. All you need to do is look at your current set of skills and passions and find a way to fill a need in the market. One of my favorite stories about someone who used personal services to create a new job overseas happened to a woman I met at one of my seminars. She started a computer business several years ago in the US specializing in a specific technology. In the US, she found that she had to work really hard to keep her business afloat. One day, eight or so years ago, she got an assignment for working in Britain. When she got there, she discovered there was less competition than in the US and, as a result, she has been able to string together several long term assignments without working as hard as in the US.

Sometimes a good personal service business just combines several of your skills and passions together in a creative way. I once had a man at a seminar in Atlanta tell me about his days as a yacht sitter. He loved to travel and sail. He realized that many yacht owners kept their boats vacant for most of the year. He started to establish trust with the owners and asked them if he could live aboard the yachts when they weren?t occupied. It was not hard for him to string together several yacht sitting experiences since they helped the yacht owners while they were away and provided him a free place to stay.

Caretaking, by the way, is a great personal service. When I decided a few years ago to take a sabbatical from my business to travel I found several people who allowed me to take care of their home while they were gone. I enjoyed spending time in other people?s homes, but, found that I got territorial about my new home. I felt upset when the owner?s returned. I learned though that I did not need much money to survive. (Paul?s note: Caretaking is so popular that there is a newsletter called the Caretaker?s Gazette? that advertises positions around the globe (mainly in the US) and profiles interesting caretakers. As a whole most of the position listed required a lot of work ? such as taking care of a hotel, farm, or business ? however, sometimes they have ?low maintenance? positions available).

Another good example of a creative business is from Ian Hewitt, author of book on Teaching English as a Foreign Language. He owned a health food company in Australia and found that he had to work so hard that it was endangering his health. On a lark, he went to Japan to teach English. Over time, he began to look at websites there and realized that they needed someone who could help them write in clear English. I also had a student who traded her English skills for free accommodations in Asia. Whenever she got to a new city, she went to a University and posted an announcement that she would trade English lessons for accommodations. She never had a hard time finding a position and met a lot of wonderful people.

You don?t have to go through a formal program to teach, there are a lot of excellent resources for teachers available from State literacy programs throughout the US. In addition, there are lots of websites with detailed information about teaching in many countries complete with country specific lesson plans. I think that some trendy personal services in the US, like personal organizers, may do well in another land where they are just beginning to discover some of these new services.

Paul: What about information packaging?

Barbara: One of the best ways to package information is to give a tour. When I was in Rome, I heard about an American who was a classical scholar who earned $300 a day giving private historic tours of ancient Rome. I have a friend, Jan who runs a business called Murder Most Cozy that gives small, specialized tours of the sites of famous cozy mystery stories in England. She changes the tour annually and ends up with many of the same guests year after year. She ran a newsletter with the same name until a couple years ago. A cozy mystery, by the way, features an amateur sleuth who solves a crime. The crime does not have to be a murder. The main attraction to the stories is that the sleuths are usually eccentric.

Paul: I?ve thought about doing tours, but, I am afraid it?ll be a lot of work.

Barbara: When I started doing research for my How to Support Your Wanderlust seminar, I thought the same thing. However, Jan says it is like hosting a slumber party. She has a travel agent do most of the arrangements for the tour. She just prepares the tour itinerary and presentations. I once listened to a story on the Today Show about a man who specializes in taking photos of the sights of Washington DC. At first, I didn?t think much about it. However, I looked at his website and was surprised how many interesting ways you can capture a well known sights. Seeing all those exposure surely helped him sell his photo tours.

Paul: Now tell me about marketing services and products.

Barbara: One of the most common ways to market services and products while traveling is importing and exporting. The US Department of Commerce gives extensive, inexpensive seminars detailing what you need to do to export products from the US overseas. It is harder to get useful information about importing goods from other countries to the US. Whenever you market a service or products you will be most successful if you find a specific niche.

In one of my classes, a man decided he wanted to work as a translator of medical documents in France. It seemed like a great idea. He was a medical professional who spoke fluent French. I think if he just to be a translator, it would hard for him to find work. There are a lot of French people who speak English fluently. However, by adding the medical part to the equation, I thought he?d be successful since these combined skills are rare.

• This is a sample article from the FREE Big Blue Marble Newsletter about my (Paul Heller) trips around the world, meeting along the way others who share the pursuit of following their dreams to travel and live in another part of globe. The newsletter also features many tips, program reviews, and other useful information gathered from the road to help you become a participant rather than a spectator in the daily life of distant corners of the planet. If you'd like to subscribe to the newsletter (and my Postcards from the Road), please send me an e-mail or fill out your e-mail address in the space indicated on the left side panel of this website.
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