More and more people these days are choosing to become their own boss and work from home or anywhere in the world that they choose to be. As the internet economy continues to grow, the opportunities for people to find revenue sources online will only become more plentiful, and more people will be able to work from wherever they want as long as they have a laptop.
There are a ton of perks to working as a digital nomad. You can travel the world while still earning a stable income. You can live in a country that has a far cheaper cost of living than your home country while still getting paid in your home country’s currency. Plus, if you’re freelancing or self-employed, you can set your own hours, take vacation time whenever you want, work toward goals that you set for yourself, and you never have to report to a boss.
So, if you’re tired of sitting in an office every day and would rather do your work from a beach in Bali or a mountain hostel in Panama, you need to look into joining the digital nomad economy. Oftentimes, people look at digital nomads and think, How could they be so lucky that they can travel and work from anywhere in the world? In reality, it just takes some courage, perseverance, and research to start living the digital nomad lifestyle.
If you just opened your laptop and decided that you want to start your journey to self-employment and digital nomadism, here are some of the top-paying digital nomad jobs in 2021 that can earn you a solid living while you travel the world:
Content Writer
Obviously, content writing is the digital nomad job that hits closest to home for me, and being able to travel around the world and earn a living as a content writer has been one of the greatest blessings in my life. No, you don’t have to be Stephen King to be a content writer, you really just have to be a little creative, organized, and love to write and learn about new topics.
Nowadays, pretty much every successful business out there needs a blog in order to drive traffic to their website. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is basically the art of getting your webpage to appear higher in search engine results, and blog writing has become a huge part of that. So, there are endless opportunities out there to start writing content for small business owners who don’t have the time to write a blog for themselves.
If you want to find a job as a content writer, the first thing you’re going to have to do is write. No one is going to hire you if they have no idea what your writing is like. Build a portfolio of at least 20 articles that you can show to potential employers.
Once you’ve built up a portfolio, start scouring the internet for opportunities. Job sites like Indeed or Glassdoor will often list jobs for content writers. You can start marketing yourself on freelancer sites like Fiverr and Upwork where you can set your own rates. Reddit is also a great resource for finding content writing work, specifically the r/HireaWriter and r/writers4hire subreddits. You can also reach out directly to companies who already have blogs and offer your services to them via email, Instagram, or Twitter.
YouTuber
What’s stopping you from becoming the next YouTube sensation like PewDiePie or Ryan Kaji? For Generation Z, YouTube is one of the top media outlets, and people who amass large followings on YouTube are making millions of dollars. So, get that camera out and start filming yourself!
Think long and hard about what kind of YouTube channel you want to start. Think about your passions. Think about niches that might not be oversaturated yet. Do you love baking all different kinds of fancy muffins? Is there someone on YouTube that’s already making videos about baking muffins? Do you think you could make better videos than them? Ideally, you want to find a niche that has a lot of public interest, but that hasn’t really been tapped into yet.
Once you choose your niche, you can use tools like Google Trends to find out what the trendy topics are in that niche and capitalize on the hype. If you’re the first one to put out a video about a trending topic, you might see your subscriber count double or triple in a single day.
Continue to build your follower base by putting out videos every day or every other day, and soon YouTube will be sending money straight to your bank account. You can also start selling merchandise to your YouTube fanbase, you can get sponsorships, you can start selling online products like informational courses or exclusive access, and just keep on adding to your revenue stream.
Graphic Designer
For anyone out there who’s artistic and has an eye for effective visual marketing, you should look into becoming a graphic designer. While it’s true that many people go to universities and get degrees in graphic design, there are plenty of successful graphic designers out there that are entirely self-educated. All you need is some kind of drawing tablet, the willingness to learn a bit of graphic design software, and a strong passion for visual art.
Tons of graphic designers do their jobs from iPads or touchscreen computers like the Lenovo Yoga or Microsoft Surface Pro, so if you already have one of those, then you’re ahead of the game. You’ll also need some sort of stylus pen to do your drawing with. Some of the most popular graphic design software programs are Adobe Illustrator, GIMP, Blender, CorelDRAW, and Inkscape. Some of these programs are free and others you’ll have to pay for, but there are countless free resources for familiarizing yourself with them on YouTube and Google, as well as helpful in-program tutorials.
Once you’ve learned the basics of graphic design, start drawing like crazy! You’ll need a portfolio of designs if you want to get hired by a company or entrepreneur. Create 20 or more designs, compile them into a portfolio, and start sending your portfolio to potential employers.
Similar to content writing, you can find graphic design work on job sites like Indeed and Glassdoor, freelancing sites like Upwork or Fiverr, on certain Reddit pages, and by contacting businesses directly. And even if you’re searching for jobs or you’ve already got your first gig, keep drawing and improving your skills.
Dropshipper
Everyone has done some online shopping in their life, but a lot of people don’t really think about how the product gets from the factory to their doorstep. Some businesses have warehouses where they store their products and then ship them out to consumers. However, a new business model has arisen called dropshipping, which involves a company that basically plays the middleman between the supplier and the consumer so that you never have to store or handle the product whatsoever.
A dropshipping business typically involves finding a supplier that produces a product for cheap. Then, you set up an online store and market that product so that consumers will want to buy it from you. When a purchase order comes in, the supplier ships the product directly to the consumer, so you never have to handle it. The point is to create a price margin between what you pay to the supplier and what the consumer pays to you.
There are multiple platforms out there that make creating a dropshipping store extremely easy. Shopify and Amazon are probably the two most popular places for dropshipping businesses; however, people have been successful at running dropshipping businesses through e-commerce sites that they’ve created themselves. While Amazon and Shopify are going to charge you a commission on your sales, you don’t have to pay any commission on a site that you own.
Get Creative
If none of the options above seem appealing to you or seem like they don’t mesh with your skillset, get creative! People are inventing new ways to make money online every day. If you’re set on quitting your day job and getting into the digital nomad lifestyle, there’s no reason you can’t do it with some creative thinking and determination.
Get online, do some more research on how to make money from your computer, and you’ll be booking that flight to Aruba in no time.
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