What kinds of careers in tech will pay for me to travel?

I travelled a lot when I worked as a manufacturer rep in the tech field. I had a territory of several states and had accounts to visit and service to meet my sales objective and quota. There were times I could take my spouse and even my family that allowed me to have time with them when I was not working. Or even add vacation days to take advantage of the company paid travel for me and just add my spouse or family to save the expense of my portion.

Travel can get old quickly though. Dealing with flights, hotels, weather etc was not something I enjoyed after the newness was over. Plus I had to deal with illness being around people and weather change. It can be hard on a family too.

I hope this was helpful.

Definitely. You're more likely to get to travel if you're in sales or marketing (and there's lots of technical sales and marketing roles), but there's travel opportunities with lots of different tech careers. Lots of job postings advertise the percentage of time the role is expected to travel, so you can even apply for jobs that have high travel expectations.

I have visited 21 countries till date & have stayed in over 10 countries for at least couple of weeks. 50% of my travel is sponsored by my company as it was related to the work i do. As others have mentioned sales & marketing folks will normally have more travel, but if you are a network consultant like me & if you know the technology you support, then for sure you would travel.

The best travel jobs allow you to earn income while exploring the world. Here are real-life examples of people living the dream – making money traveling abroad.

If you love traveling as much as I do, but can’t afford to completely quit working, you’re in luck. There are actually many different travel job opportunities to make money traveling the world.
Whether it’s seeking opportunities to trade work for accommodation, or landing a location independent job that gives you the freedom to travel abroad — you have options.
The reason I’ve been able to travel the world for the past 5 years is because I’ve slowly turned my travel blog into a business.
However that’s certainly not the only path to long-term travel.
Make Money Traveling
First a little disclaimer. If all traveling jobs were easy, everyone would be doing this. Many of these professions require passion, specialized training, time commitment, and talent. For those that don’t, the pay just isn’t great.
There is no magic way to instantly make lots of money traveling.
The truth about becoming location independent is that it takes years of hard work and sacrifice behind the scenes — something too many people conveniently ignore.
That said, it’s not impossible to work and travel either. The people who have fun travel jobs invested their time and resources to learn how to make it work — which means you can do the same if you make it a priority.
We all have the same 24 hours, how will you spend yours?
Expat, Digital Nomad, Or Vagabond?
Not all “travel” jobs are created equally. The wanderlust opportunities listed here fall under one of the following categories — expat jobs, digital nomad jobs, or what I’ll call vagabonding. What’s the difference you ask?
Expat Jobs
Expat stands for “expatriate”. Meaning while you are a citizen of one country, you choose to live/work in a foreign country. Expat jobs are only related to travel in that you’re working in a different country from your own. You may live in that country for months or years at a time, so you aren’t exactly nomadic.
Examples: English teacher, nanny, foreign service, etc.
Digital Nomad
Digital Nomads work from their computers. This makes them location independent. As long as they have access to the internet, they can earn a living. Blogging falls under this category, so it also describes my lifestyle. Digital nomads are free to travel at will, working from coffee shops or hotels.
Examples: Online business, freelance writing, social media, etc.
Vagabonds
Vagabonds do work that I’ll call “alternative” travel jobs. The type of work that may not require a computer, but a more hands-on approach. Think musicians, artists, or manual labor. Access to the internet or owning a computer aren’t mandatory requirements. Pay could be under the table.
Examples: Street vendor, musician, farm work, etc.
Best Travel Jobs (2016)
The following travel jobs encompass one or more of those categories. If you crave the safety of a permanent job, but you also want to live in a different country, then working abroad in a regular full-time type position might be best.
Keep in mind not all of these jobs are suitable for everyone. If you have a university degree, you might not be as willing to pick berries on a farm as someone else might be. Or maybe you are! I won’t judge.
We all have different backgrounds, skills, and comfort levels.

Hey Anina,

Any type of tech sales would allow you to travel quite a bit. I am a Technical Trainer for Dell and I get the option to travel all over the country to train various customers and partners of ours. Just today i got an email asking which of several cities I wanted to travel and deliver a presentation. Some of those cities included Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Toronto, Atlanta, San Francisco, etc. And usually once or twice a year we get to travel for tech conventions as well (one of which is in fact held every year in Las Vegas).

I hope that helps!

Greetings Anina,

Many tech jobs provide tech conference opportunities, but it would be wise for you to ask this during an interview conversation. If you position yourself during in your interview, ask the following "What types of professional learning tech conference attendance does your company provide to allow for employees to improve their performance and creativity within this company?" It will showcase your willingness to learn and bring back your new gained insight and creativity to invest back into the company as an added bonus and positive spin to the interview process.

Hope this helps,

Naomi Harm

All credible jobs should remunerate you for travel--all jobs should reimburse you for business travel.

Tech jobs that will often require travel:
- Sales / Sales Engineering
- Consulting / Business Process Improvement
- Marketing
- Procurement
- Engineering

Network Consulting Engineer, Sales Engineer