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Most people would love to travel, but where would they get the money?
One of my passions in life is traveling as I’m a wanderer at heart. My folks moved a lot for the purpose of seeking better opportunities when I was a youngster. As a result, I attended 9 different schools while growing up. That might freak out a lot of people – it did me at first as a little guy, but after the first couple of moves to new schools and new friends, I began to look at these moves as new adventures. After high school, I joined the U.S. Air Force and had the good fortune to travel to many different countries around the world. After 8 years in the Air Force and with an Honorable Discharge in my hands, I entered the corporate world and had the good fortune to again, travel, both domestically and internationally. When I retired from the corporate world and then my own business, I continued my love of travel and made several trips to South America. I’m now working on my bucket-list which includes curtailing International travel and traveling more domestically. This resulted in the purchase of a cargo van and building it into a custom RV.
Since purchasing and building out my van, I’ve made 2 trips to the western states of Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and California. I am currently at my home in Georgia recuperating from eye surgery. My doctor is now monitoring me for a month to insure my eye heals properly. Once she gives me clearance to travel, I’m heading out to spend the remainder of the winter in southwest Arizona; the Sonoran Desert and surrounding areas. From there, I’ll be exploring back roads and small towns of America. No calendar, no clock and no schedules. The only thing for certain is I’ll be following the sun as I wander around this great country searching out state and National Parks and other things of interest. Even driving to Alaska is on my radar.
“How do you finance your travels?”
That question is the one I get asked most often and is what prompted this article. I have spent countless hours on my computer researching ways in which one can earn money online, offline, full time or part time, on the road or from home.I’m not talking about get rich quick schemes or anything of that sort. I am talking about real, legitimate money. It’s not only possible but it’s a reality, not only for me but for anyone who has the desire to put in the time and effort. Furthermore, I’m not talking about having to have a lot of money to invest; I’m talking about making money with little to no upfront costs. You just have to research it and confirm that it’s legit and that you provide a good service or product in return.
So, in answer to that question, I have my retirement funds and I sell products online, but now and then, I will provide a service such as a consult for a fee. (I used to give my knowledge away for free then one day I realized that it’s valuable and people will pay for it) I was a very successful Professional Private Investigator for most of my working life with offices in Texas, Georgia and Florida. I’ve been retired now for several years, but I still get occasional calls from companies or individuals requesting my services, but that’s a very small stream of income compared to the Internet. I also teach others what I’ve learned in terms of earning a part time or full time income via the Internet while traveling. Basically all that’s needed is a laptop or smartphone and an Internet connection. Hey, I’ve conducted my business while sitting in a coffee shop high in the Andes Mountains of South America.
So when I’m asked questions about funding my travels and earning money on the road, I explain to people that I sell goods while traveling. The next questions then are inevitable – “how do you find goods to sell while traveling?” “How do you ship products?” “How do you get paid?”
Good questions all; let’s take a look.
NOTE: This article is not about the ‘details’ of selling on any of these platforms, but to show you there’s a way to make money on or off the road. If you’re interested in details, please contact me.
FLEA MARKETS: Rarely do I ever have a schedule to keep when I’m traveling, so when I happen upon a flea market or sizable yard sale, and if I’m in the mood, I will stop and have a look. Most people go to flea markets and yard sales to look for a needed item or just browse and while away time. I’ve learned that flea markets can be gold mines. I go to flea markets to see what I can pick up for a few bucks and then flip it on eBay or Amazon for 80-100 bucks.
RETAIL ARBITRAGE: Is an excellent way to make money, especially for beginners. For those of you who might not know, Retail Arbitrage is simply finding items on retail store shelves that you can flip and sell for a profit online, on such platforms as Amazon, eBay,Craigslist etc. If I happen to be in a store, such as a Walmart or Target, I’ll spend a few minutes looking for close-outs that I might be able to flip for a nice profit. I have an Amazon scanner app on my iPhone that I can scan a barcode with and the results of that scan will tell me if that item is profitable.Therefore, I don’t waste time or money on something that might not be profitable. I don’t do a lot of this, because I don’t want to get bogged down with anything labor intensive while on the road, plus I don’t have a lot of room in my van to carry too many items. But this is an excellent way for one to make a part-time or even a full-time income.
ONLINE ARBITRAGE: Is another way to make money. Simply defined it’s finding products online with the specific aim of exploiting a price mismatch between two market places, so you can resell them at a profit. I do very little Online Arbitrage. I mention it here only because it is a viable source of income.
ETSY STORE: I design coffee mugs (but I’m not limited to coffee mugs) to sell in my Etsy store. An Etsy Store can be had by anyone and there’s no cost to set up a store. Once it’s set up and you begin stocking it with items to sell, you’ll pay a 20 cent fee to list an item and of course there’s final fees once you sell something. I design my mugs on a platform by the name of Printify and then list them on Etsy. Printify is partnered with and is integrated with Etsy, so once a sale is made on Etsy, Printify will print the mug and ship it to my customer. It’s a seamless operation and Etsy takes care of everything for me including collecting the money and electronically depositing funds into my bank account. The beauty is, I don’t have any inventory and I only pay for the mugs once they are sold. I have no upfront costs, no money tied up and I never have to touch anything but my laptop computer or my iPhone. I’ve only recently begun selling on Etsy, but the prospects are unlimited. To give you an idea, here’s the link to my Etsy Store.
www.etsy.com/shop/checkmymugs
MERCH BY AMAZON: This Amazon program is awesome! It affords anyone the opportunity to sell “print on demand”T-Shirts, hoodies, long-sleeved T-shirts, etc as well as some other items such as Pop-Sockets on their platform. This program truly is a great opportunity for anyone who wants to sell online. You can sell shirts (and other items) with no upfront money. You could easily start a very lucrative business with this model. One simply uploads a T-Shirt design and Amazon does the rest. No cost at all to the seller. Your shirt will be printed and shipped usually within a day or so of receiving an order. Not only that, but Prime shipping is free! This can be a single shirt or multiple shirts. This is a great way to design and sell shirts. Amazon has made a significant investment in printing machines which cost in the neighborhood of $500,000.00 each and they have a warehouse the size of a football field housing these huge printing machines which are the size of a car and takes several people to operate. And, Amazon lets us use their machines at no cost to print and sell T-Shirts. You set your own price as to what you want to sell the shirts for. The only stipulation to pricing is that you make at least 1 cent profit. Therefore, if you were so inclined, you could design and sell shirts to groups such as Little League, bowling leagues, church groups, etc. for just a penny over cost. How great is that? Amazon lists these shirts and products on their site and another benefit is these items qualify for Prime Shipping. Amazon takes care of everything such as listing the items, selling them, shipping them and collecting the money and if there’s a customer service issue, Amazon takes care of that as well. Amazon then sends my profit to my bank account. It doesn’t get any better than that. I’ve been selling T-shirts with this program almost since it began.
eBAY: I’ve been selling on eBay for years. And again, the only issue I have with this platform is handling products. The seller has to take photos of goods they want to sell, list the item, write a description and when a sale is made, pack that item and ship it to the buyer. It’s an easy way to make extra money or even a full time income, but as you can probably tell by now, I’m just not crazy about handling products. I used to sell a ton of books through eBay, but that required a lot of driving around to used book stores, Goodwill, thrift shops, library sales and the like and rummaging through hundreds of books trying to determine if a book was profitable. Books are also quite heavy and can be costly to ship. I made some good money, but I spent a lot of time in book stores to make that money.
AMAZON FBA (FULFILLMENT BY AMAZON): For most, this is probably the best way to make a good income but there’s also a lot of work involved just like any other legitimate job or business. Once I got my eBay business running, I began selling online with this program about 10 years ago and did quite well, but frankly, got to the point I did not like handling products. I’m at that age where I’m retired and don’t have to work and was just not as motivated as I once was. I think most of us go through that. I wasn’t traveling much then, so it was fine as I had plenty of room at home to store products. So when I got the itch to travel, I basically put this business on the back burner. I am still active with Amazon FBA, just not nearly to the extent I once was. I am what is known as a PRO Seller on Amazon and I touched on Amazon above regarding T-shirts. When I want to sell something on Amazon (other than T-shirts), I use their FBA Program as opposed to their Merchant Fulfilled Program. As a PRO Seller, I get to take advantage of Amazon’s UPS rates. UPS is a major partner of Amazon and therefore when using FBA, my shipping rates are much cheaper than other logistic companies such as FedEx, DHL or the US Postal Service. UPS Stores are an online seller’s best friend. Look around; you’ll find UPS Stores in every town and city. So when shipping to Amazon, I take my items to a UPS Store and ship to Amazon. Amazon receives my boxes; unpacks them, sorts them, lists my items on their platform, sells them, ships them, and handles all the customer service including any returns. They then deduct their fees and electronically deposit proceeds directly to my bank account. All this makes selling on Amazon’s platform while traveling a breeze. The drawback to this program for me while traveling is dealing with products. I don’t have the room in my van to buy a lot of product and store in my van. I have a couple of acquaintances making well over a hundred thousand dollars a year as part-time sellers using Amazon’s FBA program while traveling the USA in their motor homes. These folks buy most of their products to sell on Amazon from flea markets and retail arbitrage. And being in large Class A motor homes, they have a ton of room to carry products.
STEEMIT: Steemit is a blogging and social networking website owned by Steemit, Inc that uses the Steem blockchain to reward publishers and curators. I’ve only been involved on Steemit for a few months and have not been as active as perhaps I should. But from a money making stand point, it is perhaps, the best social media site out there, because it’s the perfect opportunity to make money writing. I’m still learning Steemit, but from what I’ve gathered, the more you write and post, the more money you can make. Two (2) posts per day is what is recommended by the person who introduced me to Steemit. There doesn’t seem to be a limit as to how much one can earn. So far, I’ve made over 100 posts. You make money when other “Steemers” upvote your post. I have a lot of posts on Steemit that have not yielded a single penny but I have some that have paid anywhere from 2-3 cents to 25 cents to a few dollars. The most I was paid for a single post was $96.45 and one post in the $29.00 range. Steemit works on cryptocurrency, but don’t let that confuse you here. You can exchange the cryptocurrency for dollars.
Here is my basic grasp of it. Steemit is a social media site built on a block-chain and everything you do on it is recorded. All of your writings are considered a transaction and will be recorded. Because of its transparency and the fact that anyone can look to see how much you have earned and look at your history to see what you have withdrawn, makes it a rather honest place to be. Basically how Steemit works is that everyone creates posts and these posts receive up votes. When they are upvoted, you earn money. You can even upvote your favorite posts too and receive a small percentage of that post’s earnings as well. Some of my posts have been perhaps a full page or a little more. I’ve also posted just a photo with maybe one sentence or paragraph description of the photo. So far I can’t tell the difference in terms of money earned. So I’m thinking, for the next several posts, rather than take the time to research for an article, I will post some interesting photos of my travels and perhaps a sentence or 2 describing the photo and see what happens. I’ve seen some posts with just a photo and description earning as much as several hundred dollars. I’ve also seen some lengthy posts bringing in that amount. So there is money to be earned posting on Steemit. I know of no other social media sites paying for posting articles. Feel free to check out my Steemit site at:
https://steemit.com/@billjones
IMPORTING: I do some importing and sell those goods on eBay, Amazon, Craig’s List, and even Facebook using the drop-ship method, so I never have to touch the products.
I purchase directly from factories in China and have the product shipped via U.S. Mail from China directly to my customer in approximately 12-20 days. I don’t purchase large items because of potential shipping issues and cost. I purchase small items such as survival gear items, cell phone cases, dash mounted phone holders, even knock-off type Go-Pro Cameras, etc and I’ve never paid more than$3.00 for shipping on a single item. In a lot of cases, I get free shipping. These are all profitable items that sell well and because I deal only with reputable factories and sellers in China, I’ve never had an issue with a lost shipment or credit card abuse.
CRAIG’S LIST: Most of us know about Craig’s List and I’m sure some of you have used it over the years to buy and sell. I’m sure too, that most of you are aware of the dangers that can be associated with Craig’s List. We just have to be prudent when using this platform. However, the fact remains that Craig’s List can be a good place to conduct business. Aside from buying and selling on this platform, it can also be used to find employment, post ads for services you might want to offer, etc. In my travels and research, I’ve met a few people that use Craig’s List regularly as a means of finding employment on the road. One gentleman I met has all sorts of handy man skills. Since he’s not old enough to retire and draw social security, he relies on Craig’s List to find odd jobs to suit his handy man skills while on the road. He tells me he can usually get all the work he needs. Another is a computer geek and he uses Craig’s List to find jobs in his line of work, whether it’s loading software or repairing a hardware issue, he seems to do well. There appears to be plenty of advertisements for all sorts of skills on this platform. I’ve never used Craig’s List for anything but buying and selling but my research confirms their FREE ads do work.
With all the research I’ve done, I could probably write a book on this subject. (Now there’s an idea for yet another stream of income). In fact I have one book on Amazon’s Kindle now, but it’s related to my former profession as a Private Investigator.
Because of my love of “wandering” around this great country, these platforms serve me well, especially T-shirts on Merch By Amazon, mugs on my Etsy store and selling drop-ship products from China.
By the way, I am in the process of setting up a YouTube Channel for uploading videos on while traveling. I’m still in the learning stage of using my video editing software. Once I learn the software and get my channel up and functional, I’ll be sending out an email as to the YouTube channel address. And of course, I’ll be posting it on my blog as well.
Thank you very much for taking the time to read this. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to contact me at:
Until next time…
bj
