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How I can afford to travel like this. There is a strategy to it.

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This is my work, in no particular order of importance. The five fingers of what I do. 

Writing articles, books, and blog posts; filming vlogs and documentaries. 

Generally speaking, I’m engaged with all five of these media formats at a time, often taking one project and splitting it five ways. 

I rarely travel to a particular location to do a particular story for a particular outlet. Rather, I travel to a particular location to do half a dozen stories for various publications on various platforms. 

This strategy keeps me solvent. My work would surly violate economic fundamentals if I tried to fund it via one job with a single publication. It just wouldn’t add up if I traveled somewhere to just do a single story in a single medium. 

This also keeps me cheap. As a rule, I fund my own travels, which keeps me on my own timeline and independent. So I can go wherever I want to go, stay for as long as I want, and cover the stories I want to cover. I’m on my own dime, and can do things my way. 

In each location that I travel to I will generally cover three to five topics, and for each topic I will produce articles for two or three publications, a couple blog posts, a vlog, a handful of videos to attach to articles, as well as some content to add to a book and/or a documentary. 

It’s like firing a shotgun. The pellets come from the same place but go everywhere. Fire enough shots and you stand a decent chance of hitting the target. 

Filed under: Journalism, Make Money for Travel

About the Author:

I am the founder and editor of Vagabond Journey. I’ve been traveling the world since 1999, through 91 countries. I am the author of the book, Ghost Cities of China and have written for The Guardian, Forbes, Bloomberg, The Diplomat, the South China Morning Post, and other publications. has written 3694 posts on Vagabond Journey. Contact the author.

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VBJ is currently in: New York City

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