Comments on: Do you need to be rich to travel the world?

By: Leness

Leness — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 17:03:45 +0000

I actually did a CELTA, but because I don't have a bachelor degree and I'm only nineteen, it's difficult for me to get jobs like what you suggested despite the fact I even have experience in translating (specialised in political brochures and helped in translating a novel), but simply because I don't have a bachelor I wasn't able to get visas for all the countries I want to work in (mostly Asia.) I tried to get a work/travel visa in Japan, but due to the extremely complicated fact I live in Germany, but I hold an Irish passport, I'm not allowed to hold a german passport due to diplomatic reasons, but I have to live in the country where I hold the passport in order to get the visa…hence making me illegible.
I'll be going to uni in Ireland (UCD, ironically of all places), just so I can get a bachelor in order to do something very similar what you are doing to travel, but to learn Japanese (learning at the moment), Mandarin, Vietnamese and French. I will then hopefully be legible for the work and travel in Japan during the summer months after my first year. (Somehow being young was not so fortunate in my case…)

By: The Language Adventurers — The Sojourner's Passport

The Language Adventurers — The Sojourner's Passport — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 22:54:46 +0000

[...] to various countries to learn new languages within 3 months. He says, Contrary to popular belief, you don’t have to be rich to travel the world! I am currently trying to support myself by sales of the Language Hacking Guide and by giving [...]

By: Jay

Jay — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 01:38:13 +0000

Wow, what a coincidence.
I'm also an electronic engineer (option ICT) with a passion for languages. Right now i'm trying to find a way to generate income online (also reading the 4HWW) to become location independent. 1 spent one year in Spain (studying) and i would like to repeat that experience in other countries.

By: Dual Sim Mobile Phones

Dual Sim Mobile Phones — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 23:29:56 +0000

nice post

By: coetsee

coetsee — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 14:28:08 +0000

-Hi, I think your website is interesting very colorful. Good job! I feel helping job seekers finding their ream home jobs are a fulfilling quest. Good luck in your quest too.
-Cash Making Opportunities - The Beginning The working life is already tough enough, but the worries of being out of work was even tougher. The unsecured working environment have prompted me to search the internet for an alternative source of extra income so that I could learn how to Make Money Work for me and be Financially Independent. I listed down a number of Free Internet Business Opportunity Ideas while researching ways how people earn money online while working-from-home.......

www.onlineuniversalwork.com

By: benny

benny — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 15:55:56 +0000

I wouldn’t say the “majority” of schools; just the “major” schools When you are outside of large cities and don’t mind going to smaller schools for work, the certificate won’t be what convinces them, especially if they are stuck, but it will give you that extra more convincing edge. For some employers it can make a world of difference showing that you have “some” qualifications as a teacher of English, even if the weekend TELF is obviously nothing like other options. As I said, based on that certificate and about a year or two of teaching experience, I got work at major schools, but I wasn’t hitting capital cities that would be inundated with foreigners with the same idea..
Also, what I learned that weekend was actually extremely useful and it would have been much harder to start teaching English if I hadn’t done it

By: Cainntear

Cainntear — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 09:48:42 +0000

“You can get a TEFL certificate for just a few of hundred dollars/Euro close to home in just one weekend! (They even give the course in my home town in Ireland!) A lot of schools accept this (I’ve worked for the Wall Street Institute and Berlitz as well as countless other schools based on just these qualifications and some teaching experience)”

Seriously, no! The majority of schools will only accept someone with a weekend or onlin certificate if there’s no-one else on offer, and then they’ll also be happy with someone with *no* certificate. It’s a combination of your experience, lucky timing and the fact that you like living in less popular places that got you those jobs, not the certificate.

By: benny

benny — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 09:21:11 +0000

I forgot to include one useful link that I've just added. It's to a site that searches several sites for jobs that can be done online, based on keywords. Give it a try!

By: benny

benny — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 21:55:06 +0000

No problem
German is on my list of languages to re-activate. Once upon a time German was my best language!! Now I can barely say anything. I will be living in Berlin at some stage to reach fluency in 3 months and that will not be a hard mission since I studied German in school and ALREADY spoke it, but many years ago.
Dutch may come soon after that – I only ever think about the next 4-6 months really
Hope you enjoy my freelance translating article!

By: linguaholic

linguaholic — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 18:55:36 +0000

Sorry, I didn’t mean to attack you. I probably should have balanced my comment a bit more but I had about 3 minutes left before my laptop died. (Note to self: If you don’t have time to comment properly, don’t.) I didn’t mean to imply you didn’t care about the environment or anything (btw, being a vegetarian is also good in terms of climate ) Reading your post I got a bit of an “hey, flying is so cheap, go for it!” impression, but then again you mentioned hitchhiking as well. I just wanted to mention there are initiatives for at least “balancing” your footprint after flying.

I like reading your blog (especially as my mission for next year is to learn some Czech), even though I already know/do many things you propose.
I look forward to the post about freelance translating, as it is something I know very little about but am interested in.

PS: Are German or Dutch on your list of languages you want to learn?

By: benny

benny — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 18:22:33 +0000

Thanks for the compliment. However, I think introducing environmental issues is going far outside of the topic that I am discussing here.
Where exactly was I advertising cheap flights? I’m not getting paid for any links on this post so I’m not advertising anything. The only link relevant to flights I gave was skyscanner. I’m not encouraging flying by any means (I take maybe 5 or 6 flights a year), but environmental issues are outside of the scope of this blog. I don’t own a car (or even have a driving license) and always choose green products whenever possible and always recycle. According to statistics provided by dopplr, my personal carbon footprint for the first 6 months of the year is equivalent to someone driving a car for an hour every day. This is not ideal, but being equivalent to a daily car driver means that I will not be made to feel guilty about this compared to the average Joe. I encourage people to live in a country for several months or longer, so my philosophy of travel is very different to round-the-world tickets compressed into a year etc.
I never fly unless necessary. For example, I’ve travelled from the very south of Brazil, Porto Alegre, to the north-east at Natal and this was entirely by bus (it’s approximately 3,500km), but of course I went to Brazil by plane.
If possible, please comment on the topic at hand and feel free to click the link at the top of my site (Contact me) for any unrelated issues you’d like to discuss

By: linguaholic

linguaholic — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 17:09:59 +0000

Nice post. However, I find advertising cheap flights a bit problematic with climate change and all. :p I know hitchhiking or going by train isn’t always an option, but if you HAVE to fly, you could at least try to “compensate” by donating to initiatives like atmosfair.de (dont know of an English equivalent, sorry). But maybe you already do?

By: Chiara

Chiara — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 14:15:29 +0000

Aww I love your website!

By: benny

benny — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 08:03:03 +0000

Hi again bailint!
I didn’t know you were also a translator and an Elec. Engineer! Yes, I will never claim that specifically translating is the way to travel the world; I’ll share my story of how I got into this job just for those curious, although I won’t suggest it for everyone because my path was complicated and would be too hard to reproduce. I’m well aware that translating to English from languages like French and Spanish for a specialised field like technology makes things a lot easier for me compared to other translators!
Being a native English speaker isn’t actually that necessary to teach it. You can still teach English if your level is good enough. In fact a quarter of those taking the TEFL certificate course with me weren’t native speakers, but spoke it well. I have met plenty of Brazilians and French and other nationalities that make a good living from teaching English. In the very top schools (like the ones I mentioned in the links) they would only hire natives, but nearly all other ones wouldn’t care as long as you are qualified for it. It’s more work to convince them, but still possible.
In fact, non-natives do a much better job at teaching English up to upper-intermediate because of their unique perspective. Then of course, you can teach other languages in the same schools and privately and I know lots of people who travel as non-English language teachers. Of course it is easier to do it with English, but it’s not impossible to do it with other ones Of course, in your case, Hungarian does make it harder! Teaching English it in Australia is also not practical; of course I expect most people reading the blog to be natives wanting to live in a country speaking a non-English language, but my tips can be applied in one way or another to everyone
No need to say “our case” as foreigner. I’m always a foreigner too!

By: benny

benny — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 07:54:41 +0000

Hello Glavkos!
Good points; I updated the post (in the paragraph before “You can teach English”) to mention the issues you raised.
My bachelor degree in Electronic Engineering never made much of a difference in nearly all job applications in my first 4 years travelling (apart from internships I did in Paris and Spain), so that’s not a valid excuse; most of my jobs were unrelated to my studies and I got them fine.
Thanks for the well wishes! Hope some of the other links were useful to you

By: balint

balint — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 01:08:24 +0000

Great summary Benny, but the previous comment made a point.

I’m also an Electrical Engineer (although I’ve never worked in that profession), and I’ve been doing freelance translating for 4 years now and I really like it (translating games from English to Hungarian ) – I can do that from everywhere. Earning Hungarian money from translating was quiet good while I lived in Hungary, “unfortunately” I moved to Australia, and I could hardly make ends meet if I only translated.

And as you (and many of you actually ) are a native English speaker, of course you can teach English in other countries. But in our (foreigner) case, I doubt it that someone would hire me as an English teacher (despite my English skills) just because I’m not a native. And no complains here, this is how it should be. I just wanted to point out that teaching is (almost always) for natives. And unfortunately Hungarian is not that popular that I could teach it (although I love it) in the wide world.

So I decided to create my own business (of course language learning related ) with the help of Tim Ferriss. At the moment I’m in the developing phase, but I’d like to make money with it in a few months. I think an own business is the ultimate solution to travel and money problems. Because office work 9 to 5 is not for me. But I think there are a few people here with the same attitude.

Cheers
.-= balint´s last blog ..Alapelvek =-.

By: Γλαύκος

Γλαύκος — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 00:08:23 +0000

This post is very usuful for a person without family , native english speaker , with a bachelor degree and without any commitments at all. Life is discovered for the Anglosaxon world after all …
Despite that, all the information that you provide in your article is really usefull for a going to be traveller or one who cares about learning languages …and this is the reason i follow your posts…..
Have a nice time since you go to Brasil
(dont forget that most of Brasilians use Orkut social network)
Best Regards , Glavkos
.-= Γλαύκος´s last blog ..�?λβανικ�? γλέν�?ι �?�?ην Σ�?�?ά�?�?ιανη =-.