11 reasons why you should never think of being a Working Traveller
Have you ever thought of going off around the world to work and travel? Don’t! Its a suckers game for sure. Read the eleven reasons below why you should never do it and you will dismiss thinking of doing such a crazy thing ever again.
Get your parents to pay for you travel for as many years as you want
This is what parents are for no? Tell them you want a Gap Year or two and you want them to foot the bill – easy. Why tell them you just need some help with your first couple of flight and months on the road and then you will be able to pay your own way and travel for as long as you want without ever having to ask them for help again?
You will be expected to work for free.
You really need your brain testing. Any job you get at home will start to pay you within a month. When starting out as a Working Traveller no one will be willing to pay you until you have built up 2 or 3 really good references and can see your worth paying something when you stay with them. It could take your months to achieve that. OK it will not cost you anything whilst your working as a volunteer and… OK if you were at home your train fare, new suit and shoes will probably eat your first monthly page check any away but at least you will know all the hidden cost of working. Volunteering – they give you accommodation, there is not costs for getting to work, all your meals, heating, and wifi are paid for, but for sure must have loads of hidden costs – no?
The pay is a rip off.
You will definitely earn less than if you stay at home and get a really stressful well paid job in your city. If you work hard as a Working Traveller, you will only ever probably make enough money to pay for your travels. Even then you might only be able to travel in countries where the standard of living costs so much less than home – like Asia, South America and Africa. It might feel that your earning a good living and have a better life than you did at home because its so cheap where you will be traveling. Sure you will see lots of things, but you will probably make more dollars if you stay at home and push for that promotion.
You’ll be working all the time and never get to actually travel.
Think about it. Why work and travel when you can just work for a few years at home and never go out or have a life to save up before leaving? Why waist time working in different places all over the world with interesting people? You will only be able to get in a full year of travelling when you do it this way over, say a 2 year period – when you could travel all the time and get it all over and done in one go.
They will work you to the bone.
Hosts expect Working Travellers to work hard, you will be pushing your self to the limit. You will be doing things you never knew your body or brain could cope with. You will need to eat lots of good locally produced food to cope with the new muscle your building up. Far better to stay in the office chair where you don’t have to worry about what you eat to stay healthy.
You’ll not meet any fellow travellers
For sure you will not meet travellers that are on their paid for Gap Year, the people who are only travelling for a week and on holiday and the travellers that are drifting around the world until their money runs out, complaining they will then have to go back to their old dreary lives. You will only meet other working travellers where you will be when your working, they will be boring as they will too similar to you. They will have the same drive and motivation like you, they will love to travel and yet still be focused on building themselves a career. Yeah, people like that are not worthing knowing.
Better to get a job at home and never leave
Why go and work around the word? Far better to spend a year or two trying to get one good reference from one job than to gain 20 or 30 references from all kinds of different work situations. A future employer wants to see just one reference and know you have only worked in one place before they give you job. They will not want to see you gained lots of skills from all kinds of different places and experiences have over 20 references for the work you have done. That’s far too many.
You won’t get a normal reference like you would from an employer.
This is so right. References from employers are an email, a letter or often “ Let them call me if you need a reference”. When you are a Working Traveller you will get a different kind of reference. One that cannot be changed or manipulated by you, they are real references posted by real hosts and so any future host or employer will see for sure the real work you have done and your real abilities, not some piece of paper you, sorry, your ex employer produced.
You will never see the tourist sites
This is what your traveling for no? You will never see the tourists sites, as a tourist if you are a Working Traveller. You will experience the real culture of the people in the country your visiting that are not in the tourist industry and they will show you how to see their country and the sites in a completely different way. So you will not see it as all the others will. You will be missing out for sure.
Go to college like every one suggests
You know they know best. Getting £45,000 in dept to pay for your university is a small price to pay for a degree that every one else will have. Why would you want to go off and learn skills that no one else is learning and work experience and feel left out when you come home and don’t have a student loan.
You will feel like a loser.
Your Grandmother, friends and ex work colleges will be so disappointed in you. They will think your going a bit mad by having this huge sense of achievement for what your doing. When you see them again and you tell them you paid your way around the world by working it and gained some really good references…. yeah, loooooooser!
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