Let's be real: the in order to survive in the modern world, you need to be making money. Making money comes from working, but there are alternative ways to get paid and/or cover costs compared to the whole corporate grind.

However, some people have it backwards: they think that in order to travel, you must save-save-save at a boring job - maybe even for years - in order to take that dream trip, and then come back home and do it all over again.

There's nothing wrong with that, though you can find jobs all over the world that pay you to travel instead.

With a work + travel lifestyle you can travel now, and travel later. You don't have to live vicariously through your favorite Instagrammers...because you don’t have to wait to make your travel dreams a reality. 

Here’s how:

New year, new career? If you're interested in landing a travel job this year - or looking for a short-term getaway from your current lifestyle - then you'll want to make sure you avoid these top four mistakes people make when searching for travel jobs.

If you want to travel more, then you must get out there and do it: travel. It's not as easy as it sounds, though. Timing, planning, and getting through those mental blocks often get in your way until you just put it off, again and again, until next year.

Then the cycle repeats and you see that one kid from high school on Instagram who has this really cool travel job and all their pictures give you serious FOMO...and then you realize that if they can do it, so can you!

Okay. Here's the quick reference list for what you need to do, to travel more by living a work + travel lifestyle:

I can’t believe it didn’t hit me until April of my senior year that I could get a travel job. That there are jobs out there that actually allow you to travel. Or jobs centered around traveling. That you can get paid to travel, in exchange for work!

I tried to plan out a 2-month backpacking Europe trip with a friend, which downsized to 2 weeks, to 1 week, and we still couldn’t afford it, looking for a travel job instead was a no-brainer.

Looking for a travel job? There are many posts online that list the various travel jobs out there, like teaching English, working for a summer camp, or running an online business anywhere in the world. You might skim one of those lists and go, hmm, that sounds cool or yeah, I'd never do that.

But how do you know which travel job is right for you?

Since time is such a big factor when it comes to traveling, the length of time you'll be working your travel job is the best place to begin in terms of figuring out which travel job is right for you.