Today’s employment landscape has changed significantly over the last decade. Technological ubiquity and advances were already making the possibility of employment abroad, or working remotely while living abroad, much more attainable than ever before. Then the advent of COVID-19 and its lingering after-effects propelled countless industries and workplaces into remote or virtual structures.
This reality has made it easier than ever to find a job or even turn your current job into a position that could be fulfilled from anywhere in the world. If you are interested in either finding a remote-ready job or taking your current job overseas and working while living abroad, opportunities are easier to secure than ever before.
Here are a few ideas for some of the best remote-ready careers and jobs you can easily take internationally.
Freelance Writing
The world today consumes unfathomable amounts of content. Whether for marketing or Search Engine Optimization (SEO) purposes, for manuals and technical needs, as journalistic content, or in a wide variety of other forms, writing and copy creation jobs can be easy to do remotely. Writing jobs can earn decent wages even at an entry level, and you can quickly increase your earning potential substantially after gaining some experience or by becoming qualified to write in a technical capacity or area of specialty.
If you have good written communication skills and enjoy creating content and ideas, freelance writing jobs can provide a solid income you can easily earn from anywhere.
Travel Nursing
Travel nursing can be a highly lucrative line of work that can also provide all the amenities you need to travel in style. Travel nurses take short-term contracts that might range anywhere from a couple weeks to a few months at a time. They are employed by hospitals and other medical facilities to help cover short-term staffing shortages, maternity leaves, need or volume increases, and more. Travel nurses can work for agencies that place them or can search for contracts on their own.
Travel nursing is often reimbursed with not only wages but living allowances and/or moving stipends, making this an incredibly attractive and sustainable profession to enter if you are interested in working short-term stints in a variety of places. While many travel nurses choose to simply take posts domestically, travel nursing jobs are available in a number of countries around the world as well.
English Teaching
Countless native English speakers have gotten to experience life in other countries by taking positions as academic English teachers. Some are employed as classroom teachers while others become private tutors. These roles can often be well-paying, especially in more affluent non-English-speaking countries. Some posts will provide room and board, and are sometimes equipped to provide tours or travel stipends as well to experience the country’s flora and fauna when you have free time or during school holidays.
This type of job is a bit different than the ones listed above — while the previous two usually involve being employed by a company or organization based in your own country, teaching English abroad almost always involves working locally.
Obtaining a work visa and working for a local entity rather than working for an American company while living overseas can offer some tax and living advantages in many countries that are well worth keeping in mind if you are considering this route.
High-Skill or High-Demand Careers
In many countries, work visas are easier to obtain if you can prove that you have skills or experience in specific professional areas or careers. These are sometimes called high-skill or high-demand positions. Sometimes this can be a highly advantageous route to securing employment in another country.
If you are interested in gaining a work visa and being employed outside the States, check to see whether the country or countries you’re interested in working in or moving to have such a list and, if so, if your professional background might make you eligible to pursue one of those positions.
Common examples include industries like computer sciences, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math), healthcare administration, licensed medical professionals, and more.
Information Technologies (IT) and Computer Programming
Computer programmers and other computer-related professionals are in intensely high demand, and this will probably not change any time in the near future. Computer-related jobs are also often easy to adapt to a remote-working arrangement. Roles that range from graphic design to coding to software architecture can often be taken on the road and performed from anywhere. And even a mid-level computer science salary will easily support a home and lifestyle nearly anywhere in the world.
These jobs are also often on high-skills or high-demand lists in many countries around the globe. Because of this, they can often make an easy option with which to pursue a local work visa and work for an organization within the country where you’d like to visit or live.
Virtual Personal Assistantship
Being a Personal Assistant (PA) looks much different than it might have a century ago, or even twenty years ago. There are now countless firms, organizations, and agencies that place or utilize virtual PAs. A virtual or remote PA often never steps inside their clients’ workplaces or meets their clients in person. Instead, they conduct all their work via phone, email, video call, and other correspondence.
Virtual PAs can perform a wide range of functions and responsibilities. These could include everything from arranging an individual’s travel and scheduling, to managing projects or employees for a team or company.
Acting as a PA can provide a wide range of opportunities and job types and is well suited to a traveling life, especially when one is willing to be available for times during the day when they might be needed in the case that they are in a different time zone than their employer or client.
This list is not exhaustive. These various professional careers are just some of many job types that are conducive to international travel. These and many others can be highly flexible to meet your needs and lifestyle goals.
Whether you are looking for opportunities to live abroad long-term in one place or are interested in taking a year or two to travel to a large number of locations over a short span of time, there are a number of careers that can facilitate your goals and make it possible to work while traveling internationally.
