One of the questions I'm asked most often is, "how can you live on permanent vacation? Is it really possible to make money as you travel, without being cooped up in a hotel room, slaving over the laptop most of the time?" The answer is yes, you can live the laptop travel lifestyle by developing residual streams of income. And the good news is you don't have to wait years before you're ready to head out. Here are a few options that are open to you.
Network Marketing
One of the most lucrative streams of residual income you can develop is a network marketing business. Choose a company with international sponsoring options and you can develop a larger network wherever you travel or live. In fact, you can write off your travels, putting network marketing at the top of the laptop travel lifestyle residual income list.
Robert Kiyosaki in his Rich Dad books, and Robert Allan in Multiple Streams of Income, both promote the addition of network marketing as one of your streams of income.
A network marketing income can provide true walk-away income. This is a stream of income I'm currently researching. Know any good programs I should consider, with a good compensation plan, in the health and wellness industry, with a proven internet-based lead generation system? Be sure to post a comment.
Affiliate Marketing
This is the residual income vehicle I'm most familiar with. I love writing and a few hours a day spent writing for one of my websites today can build a stream of income that will continue to come in even when I'm traveling and taking time off. While part of my income comes from blogging, a well built affiliate site differs in that daily (or at least very frequent) posts aren't required to maintain traffic. Google, Yahoo Search and MSN Search provide the traffic. I could be kicking back at GTA Hotels for a week, check my PayPal account and discover I've earned another $2,000.00 during my week off.
If you're considering the laptop travel lifestyle, affiliate marketing is one the best choices for generating the residual income you need to enjoy plenty of time off with a dependable and respectable income. And you can continue to build your income while you travel, if you like. One to three hours a day spent with your ThinkPad Notebooks
, publishing new articles, can develop this stream of income on an ongoing basis.
Two years ago I came across an article that changed my life. It put me onto URL: The Affiliate Marketing Handbook by James Martell. I printed the eBook out, three hole punched it and put it in a binder. Then I began feverishly highlighting the pages and making copious notes. In that eBook I found a blueprint for making a very substantial residual income and a way to realize my laptop travel dreams. You're reading this post today, thanks to James Martell :-).
Writing Royalties
If you have a flair for writing, you can make a great residual income writing a novel or perhaps a book on travel. My younger daughter is pursuing a career in writing and one day I expect the royalties will provide her with a substantial stream of residual income.
You could of course write for travel magazines and do copywriting for websites and publications (Helium), but you'd have to write on an ongoing basis to maintain your income, much like the blogs I publish. To fully experience a travel lifestyle, more and more of our income needs to have a residual component.
I welcome your comments, particularly if you know of another way to make a stream of residual income while you travel.
What's your 'laptop travel lifestyle' dream? I'm developing the ability to live in Europe for an entire year at a time, working a few hours a day on my laptop, kicking back semi-retired. I think Paris would be nice for 3 months, Tuscany for 3 months.... maybe share the time with someone special (still looking; thanks for nothing Lavalife :-)...