9 Location Independent Jobs That Make Bank (WITHOUT a degree)

Looking for high-paying jobs that allow you to travel full-time? 

Aren’t we all! 

The good news is, there are plenty of fun travel jobs that pay well. 

The better news is, you can do some of these high-paying travel jobs without a degree. That’s nuts.

Today, we’ll cover 7 location independent jobs with the potential to earn big money, even in “high” cost of living countries. 

And if you take that high salary and move to a place where the cost of living is cut in half, you could literally live like royalty. Instant lifestyle upgrade.

Here’s how to do it.

9 Fun Travel Jobs That Pay Well

Prefer watching? I got you covered.

A quick caveat.

All of these highly-paid travel jobs are fun in their own unique way, but none of them are going to make you rich quick. 

They require hard work, some require skills, and most take time to build up (although you might be able to start a couple of them right away). 

But if you’re willing to put in the time and effort, most of them are jobs anyone can do.

Also, please note that these aren’t the only ways to make money traveling — these are just a few no-experience travel jobs that earn the most.

For a complete list of over 100+ other travel job ideas, grab this free report:

#1.) Copywriting

Why it’s fun: Learning the psychology of persuasion and what makes people tick is fascinating, challenging, and fulfilling. Tweaking copy elements to optimize conversions is like a game. 

Copywriting is one (lucrative) path that freelance writers can take. 

Unlike content writers — who write more educational content like articles and blog posts — copywriters focus on writing material that moves readers towards taking an action (usually buying something). 

They write things like sales pages, sales emails, ads, sales scripts, website copy, etc.

Since their work is tied to a tangible ROI, it’s easier to justify charging more.

For example, if an ad you write makes a company $100k, it’s not outrageous to charge thousands of dollars for that ad. 

In some cases, you can even set up royalty deals where you receive a percentage of the earnings that your copy sells — so the more persuasive you are, the more you earn. 

Now, copywriting is often marketed by “gurus” as an easy thing anyone can do to make loads of money.

But in reality, it isn’t as easy as people make it seem (speaking from several years of experience working as a freelance copywriter). 

Developing the writing chops to earn high salaries takes time. 

Earning potential: 6-figures or more for experienced copywriters who get results. Don’t expect to make this right out of the gate though.

Resources to get started:

👉 The Boron Letters

👉 The Adweek Copywriting Handbook

👉 Copyhour — awesome course I’ve taken 3 times.

#2.) Content writing

Why it’s fun: If you love to learn new things and understanding how everything works, content writing will be a blast. With every article you write, you research topics and eventually become an “expert” in that topic by default.

I know what you’re thinking.

Content writing? Like articles and blog posts? How can that possibly be considered a high-paying job that allows you to travel?

Let me tell you from experience, the riches are in the niches.

I’ve worked as a content writer for years to pay the bills while getting this blog off the ground.

When I started, I charged $0.03 per word. It’s true, if you stay at those rates forever, you’ll never get rich. 

But as I grew my portfolio and became an “expert” in personal finance (through researching and writing hundreds of personal finance articles), I raised my rates TENFOLD. I have friends who charge even more.

If I ever decided to take it full-time (which I won’t, because I love Project Untethered too much and like being my own boss), earning a six-figure income with content writing would be no problemo. 

The key is choosing niches that have plenty of money to go around — finance, health, B2B, and marketing are all good picks. 

You don’t have to have a degree in any of these topics to get started. You learn through your research.

Earning potential: The average content writer’s salary is $58,500, according to Talent.com, but your goal is not to be average. $100,000+ is common for experienced writers in lucrative niches.

Resources to get started:

👇 I created a free 5-day course that’ll teach you how to make your first $1k as a freelance writer 👇

#3.) Digital agency

Why it’s fun: This is fun for people who don’t like getting their hands dirty with the grunt work. You get to work with a team that does that for you. 

A digital agency (or drop servicing business strategy) is the next level up from freelancing. Instead of doing all the client work yourself, you outsource it.

You can do it with pretty much any digital service with a high perceived value, like:

• SEO
• Copywriting
• Graphic design
• Video animations
• Web development

Unlike a normal freelancer, your income isn’t tied to the time you spend on client work. 

Since you’re not doing it yourself, your earnings are only limited by the number of deals you can close (and your margins). 

By offering services that require long-term or ongoing work, you won’t have to constantly land new deals.

The easiest way to dip your toes into starting the agency model is with a strategy called drop servicing. If you’ve heard of drop shipping it’s ‘same same, but different’…you sell services instead of products. 

With drop servicing, instead of hiring a bunch of employees for your agency, you outsource your work to a shortlist of reliable freelancers. 

Earning potential: The sky is the limit. It all depends on how many clients you land and how big of a team you build — whether that be one person or 100. 

Resources to get started:

👉 3-hour drop servicing training (free) — the good stuff starts about an hour in. 

👉 How to start a drop servicing business, step-by-step

👉 Drop Servicing Blueprint course review — review of a popular course I took. 

#4.) E-Commerce

Why it’s fun: There are many levers you can pull to affect your sales — from product tweaks to marketing strategies to sales copywriting. Each time an experiment works, you get a huge dopamine hit — it’s like an addicting game.

E-Commerce basically means selling goods online through various strategies, such as:

• Dropshipping
• White labeling
• Amazon FBA
• Original products

My first ever attempt to earn money online was with Amazon FBA…and it was an epic failure.

That said, it was totally my fault. 

I accidentally infringed on intellectual property because I saw multiple people selling similar items and assumed that meant it was ok. (Spoiler alert: it wasn’t.)

This led to me calling it quits, but I wish it hadn’t because this business model is hugely scalable. 

Best of all, you can set it up to manage everything remotely, making it one of the best digital nomad jobs.

Who knows…I may dive back in someday and give it another go. 

Earning potential: Unlimited. It’s not something that happens overnight. But if you put in the work, it can be one of the highest-paying travel jobs out there.

Resources to get started:

👉 Amazon FBA Masterclass (free)

#5.) Blogging

Why it’s fun: I like to think of blogging as a mix between gardening and a puzzle. It’s thrilling to plant seeds (i.e. publish content) and watch them grow. It’s also neat tweaking your site and puzzle-piecing together strategies to attract more and more traffic. 

Blogging is weird. 

On one hand, it’s a very new job and very much still like the Wild West. It didn’t even exist a couple decades ago. On the other hand, many newcomers are scared it’s too late to start. 

This is just silly. 

Yes, some niches are competitive. But the internet is a GINORMOUS place, and you just need a teensy corner of it to make good money. 

You can monetize a blog in many ways — ads, affiliate marketing, services, sponsored content, digital and physical products, etc. — which means even more income stream opportunities.

Many of these are ways I personally use to make passive income while traveling.

These income streams don’t magically appear overnight — they take blood, sweat, and tears to grow. 

But once things start to grow, they quickly snowball. (The same is true for Youtube, btw).

Earning potential: Blogs like Smart Passive Income, Making Sense from Cents, and Smart Blogger make six figures per month. Some bloggers, like the creator of Fat Stacks, create portfolios of multiple sites that when combined, earn upwards of $100,000 per month. 

Resources to get started:

👉 6-Figure Baseline Blogging Course (free)

👉 Fat Stacks course review – A review of my favorite blogging course (and I’ve taken many) that seems to fly under the radar. I’ve used the forums of this course daily for years. This one’s specialty is getting oodles of traffic and earning with ads.

👉 The Affiliate Lab review – A review of the best course for starting and monetizing websites with advanced affiliate marketing strategies.

#6.) Web/software development

Why it’s fun: Software engineering involves solving many complex puzzles. So if you’re a puzzle person, it’s right up your alley. Plus, with coding knowledge, you can dream up any idea, then create it. How fun is that?

Programming is the job that often comes to mind when you imagine digital nomads. 

Coding can be a super fun travel job that pays well….but only for the right type of person. Constantly solving these puzzles requires patience, creativity, and attention to detail. 

The cool part is, you don’t need a degree. 

Recently, we took a long road trip from Bulgaria to Turkiye with a senior software developer friend I met in Bansko.

Naturally, I assaulted him with questions about his job. He explained it’s possible to learn the skills to land a high-paying junior programmer job within 6 months by taking online bootcamps.

If you don’t want to work for a company, you can freelance or build your own app or software. 

We once met a programmer in a small Dominican beach town. He saw the need for a food-ordering app for tourists who didn’t speak the local language (no Uber Eats or DoorDash there). He made it himself and earns a cut of every order. 

Earning potential: Salaries vary on many factors (type of developer, freelance vs. employed, experience, etc.), but the median salary is well over $100,000.

Resources to get started:

👉 Skillshare (free trial) — lots of beginner programming courses you can use to test the waters for free before committing to a full-blown bootcamp.

#7.) Remote work

Why it’s fun: Compared to many other jobs on this list, working as a remote employee involves less responsibility and stress. When you clock out, you can fully enjoy your travels.

When living in Bansko, we joined a coworking with a few different locations. The “Quiet Space” was full of entrepreneurs and freelancers who needed laser focus. The “Social Space” was where many remote workers hung out. 

It was way more chill — with people chatting with friends while putting in their time. Sometimes you’d even someone get up and start juggling balls in the air as they listened to meetings. 

Now, obviously not all remote jobs are like this, but in general, they require less mental energy than running your own online business (where the to-do list NEVER ends and your income is tied to your productivity). 

You can also start earning with a remote job way faster than building a business from the ground up. 

And while working for a remote company generally involves a salary cap, some positions earn surprisingly well.

Some companies require degrees, but many realize that your portfolio and ability to get results are way more important than a piece of overpriced paper from a university.

Earning potential: Depends on the position. But unlike entrepreneurs and freelancers, you can go from zero to full-time income in a matter of days. 

Resources to get started:

👉 FlexJobs – Curated job search site designed specifically for remote positions. 

#8.) Pilot

Why it’s fun: Zooming around the world through the air — it doesn’t get much funner than that. 

Surprisingly, most pilot jobs do not require a college degree. Many just require whichever flying certifications are needed for the position you’re interested in. 

Now, that’s not to say you can get any pilot position without a degree. Generally, major passenger airlines prefer or require a bachelor’s degree. 

But with the current pilot shortage that airlines face, degrees are becoming less important. 

Since you can’t do it from anywhere, being a pilot technically isn’t a location-independent job. But with no degree requirements and crazy-high salary potential, it’s worth mentioning.

Earning potential: According to the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median commercial pilot salary is a touch under $100,000. But pilot salaries skyrocket with experience, and captains of major airlines earn well over $300,000.

Resources to get started:

👉 How to become a pilot

#9.) Consulting

Why it’s fun: It’s fun to see people growing and thriving thanks to your advice. 

Most people don’t realize they likely have some sort of expertise others are willing to pay for.

This doesn’t necessarily need to be something technical like legal consulting, business consulting, marketing consulting, etc. (although more value = more pay).

The most obvious type of consulting to offer is something related to the expertise you’ve learned in a previous job. 

Another option is to choose based on your strengths.

Good at helping people with problems? Life coaching is overwhelmingly popular.

Good at health and exercise? Consider nutrition consulting or online fitness training. 

Good at singing? Sell voice coaching calls (I actually met someone who does this!). 

The world is your oyster. 

Just remember, while you may not need a degree, you do have to actually be an expert. Nobody is going to pay big bucks to get advice from someone who doesn’t know what they’re talking about.

Earning potential: $50 to $5000 per hour consultation. If the value you provide is clearly worth more than what you charge, the sky’s the limit. 

Resources to get started:

👉 How to use your expertise to start a consulting business

What are the highest-paying location independent jobs?

As you can see, some of these jobs have essentially no income cap. 

There’s no limit to how many blogs you create or how much website traffic you can drive. 

E-commerce can always add more products and reach new audiences. 

Even copywriting is somewhat scaleable if you earn royalties based on the sales you drive.

With these jobs, you can’t really compare salaries. It all comes down to your ability to scale your systems (or how big you want to scale things). 

To make the most money possible, you’ll have to eventually scale to a large team.

But that’s not what most digital nomads are after. Most nomads are fairly minimalistic — they just want a lifestyle business that allows them to live the way they want to live, without any unnecessary added stress.

Can you really succeed in these high-paying travel jobs without a degree?

Pretty much, yeah.

Could a degree help with some of these jobs? 

Perhaps.

But a degree is by no means required to succeed.

Nobody asks for a degree when you start blogs, apply to freelance writing projects, start online stores, or build agencies. 

The only exception might be with a normal remote job working for an employer. Depending on the company, they may require a degree (or at the very least, it’ll make you a more competitive candidate). 

All the other jobs simply require skills you can teach yourself on the internet, or by trial and error.

If you’re willing to put in the time and effort to learn, you can create your dream “untethered” lifestyle business.

Don’t forget this!

Just because you’re location-independent doesn’t mean you don’t have to file taxes.

This can get quite confusing, so I recommend checking out this service to help you make sure you’re doing things the right way (you’ll also get a free $25 credit).

This video may also help: