Diversity of Work Skills Important for Travel

Work Skills Important for World Travel —

I am learning on The Farm. I am learning some little in between lessons that I will probably take with me through whatever else I do. I am also learning the basic skills of farming. From now on, I will be able to seek work on farms with confidence, for I now know what I am doing:

I am now comfortable with raising chickens from little chicks to adult egg layers — I know what they eat, how to keep them warm, how to prevent them from trampling each other in the corner of their pen, how to remove their eggs, and, soon, I will learn how to process them for meat.

Working the fields in Maine

I now know how to plant, weed, and harvest organic vegetables — when to plant them, when to pick them, how to pack them up to be taken to a market.

I now know how to care for pigs — what and how much they eat, what sort of structures they need to live in, how to build such structures, and how often the need their sty cleaned.

I now know how to properly use a hoe, a cultivator, a large roto tiller for farming purposes, and a variety of other common farm tools.

I have learned on this farm — whether they were skills I wanted to learned is impertinent. I can now approach just about any organic farm in the world and confidently ask for a job.

I know that I am taking a little more out of The Farm than a paycheck and a story: I am learning a few skills that I could ply anywhere in the world. Farms are everywhere. Farms always need people to work them. I am gaining travel work skills that I could potentially use on any corner of this globe. Add this to archaeology, English teaching, gardening, hostel reception experience, surveying, webmaster work, and journalism, and I am slowly acquiring a thick set of work skills that enable me to travel the world continuously.

Working as a field archaeologist

Diversity of work skills is important for any traveler whose intention it is to perpetually travel the world. To travel, you need money. It is a popular option to get money from working. The more professions I am employable in, the further I will be able to wander.

The summer of 2009 is for experimenting with different forms of employment — it is for breaking out of my comfort zone, it is for learning new skills, it is for looking like a nervous sort of fool when I clearly don’t know what I am doing.

This is how I learn.

I know that I could just make a few phone calls and take up work on a few archaeology projects around the USA, and make a boat load more money — I will probably have to soon — but this would not teach me anything new. I know the work of the archaeologist inside and out. Now that I am in the USA — my native land that speaks my native tongue — I need to learn as many new professions as possible that I could potentially find myself employed in overseas.

Running an organic vegetable stand at a market

Organic farming is one such profession. If nothing else, farming teaches hard work, early mornings, and long hours. These are good skills for any traveler to know.

In the forward of explanation to A Vagabond Journey Around the World, Franck sets the way points out for his attempt to work his way around the world by stating:

“As to my equipment for such a venture: I spoke French and German readily, Spanish and Italian with some fluency, I had “worked my way” on shorter journeys, had earned wages at a dozen varieties of manual labor in my own country, and had crossed the Atlantic once as a cattleman and once before the mast.”

In point, a diversity of work skills is of absolute pertinence if I intend to continue traveling the world. Each time I approach a new profession, I view it as a potentially new skill set that I can add to my repertoire of work experience, which will fuel my rambles about the planet.

Work is not just about obtaining money, it is also about obtaining the means, skills, and experience to travel the world.

Working as a gardener in Maine

How to make money for traveling project