Three Fun Ways To Make Money Traveling In The U.S.

So you are considering buying a RV from a place like Orangewood RV Center and traveling, but you need to have some dependable income. Here are three fun ways to make money teaching and writing that you may not have considered before.

Teaching Arts and Crafts

Many arts and crafts supplies stores welcome artists to give crafting and painting lessons, and most of them have a classroom or demonstration area. You can offer one or two day workshops as you travel around.

To do this successfully, you need to contact each store a month or so ahead of time and discuss:

  • The dates/times the store has available, before their monthly class calendars are printed out.
  • What you will be teaching. Some store managers want to see a syllabus or detailed description of what you will be teaching.
  • The fees you will be charging, and discuss how they will be collected and how you will be paid. A few stores may ask for percentage, but most are just happy to have more opportunities to sell materials, and build their customer base.

To attract students, have some images of your own work available, and keep the needed supply list simple -- perhaps offering to supply some of the things yourself -- for the class.

Another idea for making money this way is to contact the company that makes a brand of art materials you like working with, and see if they have any paying opportunities demonstrating their products in stores and other venues.

Writing Articles

If you enjoy writing articles, you can make decent money writing for various content providers. Before doing this, you should brush up on your grammar (most companies are very picky about comma usage!), and composition skills, because many sites require you to submit samples of your work. From these samples you may be assigned a starting score and the higher it is, the more work you can accept, and the higher the pay rate is.

You can make some decent earnings this way if you are quick at writing/researching, and you can do it anywhere you have access to an internet connection. To be successful at this, you will want to get accepted at several sites to ensure you have enough work.

As you grow in confidence, you can seek private clients to work for. You should have some business cards to carry with you everywhere, and some writing samples available to send, because as you travel around and meet people, opportunities will arise to increase your business. Most writers settle on two or more topics to become knowledgeable in, and this makes the work and getting assignments easier.

Substitute Teaching

If you plan to stay in a certain area/state for the duration of the typical school year, you could become a certified substitute teacher. While this requires you to settle for a bit, you will be able to get to know a place well, and develop new friendships, before moving on. Some states require only 60 college credit hours, a few states require only a high school diploma/GED, and for others you need a four year degree. You will need to submit to a criminal background check for this job.

You will enjoy it more if you identify the school level you want to work with (such as elementary, junior high, or high school), and subjects you like to teach.

Nowadays, many places allow you to accept daily subbing jobs over the computer or on your cellphone. There are a lot of advantages to these jobs such as:

  • Being able to choose what days to work,

  • Getting to work with children and/or teens,

  • Having your weekends/holidays off, and

  • Being off work by 3 pm or earlier.

If you don't have the education to qualify for teaching, schools also have other temporary positions to fill such as working in high school bookstores, secretarial work, and more. To find these jobs you need to search for the area's school corporation website.

There's more

Most people have skills and talents that will lend themselves to paying gigs, so write down a list of things you really enjoy doing. With some research and creative thought, you will be able to modify these things to make money at, while being on the road.


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