Finding work for nomads can be a challenge in some ways, but there are some advantages for you too: you can go where the work is ― economic mobility; you can live on less income and can therefore work a wider variety of jobs; and you can work for things other than money: parking, a place to stay, food, etc. This page lists some of the many options that may be available to you.
Note: NomadLife.wiki makes no endorsements or claims about the quality or reputation of the services, opportunities, and agencies listed on this page. It's up to you to make sure these are a good fit for you and your needs.[1]
Regular jobs
It is common for nomads to work "regular" jobs like anyone else. If you have a job while living in a sticks-and-bricks home, can you keep that job while living in a vehicle? If your job is tied to one physical location (office, warehouse, etc.) you'll need lots of places to stay nearby, because staying in one place is harder than it sounds.
Many nomads work regular jobs but only for a short time before moving somewhere else for a similar job. For example, bartenders, traveling nurses, waitstaff, or electricians.
Jobs with nomad benefits
Some jobs may have side benefits (official or not) that are useful for those who are living nomadically:
Instant work
These apps allow you to find work "instantly" when businesses need quick help, such as workers for an event or to cover for an absent regular employee.
- ShiftNOW - jobs at restaurants and other hospitality businesses
- WorkWhile - jobs at warehouse, light industrial, foodservice, hospitality, delivery, and more
- Instawork - hospitality, restaurants, warehouses, and more
- Traba
- GigPoint
- GigSmart - inventory, furniture assembly, etc.
- Upshift - hotels, foodservice, catering, events, manufacturing
- Bacon.Work - local gig work
- Qwick - hospitality work
- Wonolo - retail, hospitality, manufacturing/warehouse, food production
- Angi Pro - jobs from homeowners for tasks including painting, cleaning, appliance repair, remodeling, etc.
- TaskRabbit - complete tasks like furniture assembly, moving, and more
- AirTasker - complete tasks like cleaning, repair, construction, pet care, and more
- Fiverr - focused on freelance digital work like programming, graphics, writing, marketing, and music production.
- Offer services on dog-walking and pet-sitting apps: Rover or Wag.[6]
- Offer your services in person to local businesses; for example, go to a farmer's market and ask each booth if they need help staffing the booth, or ask to wash the windows at a strip mall.
- Search Google maps (or similar) for "day labor near me" to find local work opportunities, many with same-day payment.[7]
Delivery gig work
Delivery gigs work nicely for nomads since they can "live" near delivery locations before and after deliveries. However, you may not want to put a lot of miles/kilometers on the vehicle you also use as a home, because that will wear it out a lot faster. If you have a large vehicle, your poor fuel economy will eat into your profits significantly. If you have an e-bike or bike, some services allow you to use that for deliveries, which could increase your profitability due to lower transportation costs.
- Amazon Flex - deliver Amazon packages
- DoorDash - deliver food from local restaurants
- UberEats - deliver food from local restaurants
- Instacart - shop for groceries and other items and deliver them
- Walmart Spark - deliver Walmart packages
Seasonal and temporary work
For areas and jobs where there seasonal hiring demands, nomads can often arrive early to get the best jobs.
- Coolworks has listings of seasonal jobs in interesting places.
- Temp agency jobs - you get hired by the agency and other companies buy your labor from the agency.
- Temporary jobs listed on general job search sites.
- Harvest work - in Michigan, Minnesota, and North Dakota, participate in the sugar beet harvest, end of September through October. What's the beet harvest like?
- In winter, work at an airport de-icing airplanes.
- Amazon CamperForce - a discontinued program which has been rolled into Amazon's normal seasonal hiring.
Campground work
Work at campgrounds varies by location. Many campground jobs are unpaid other than by offering a free campsite for the duration of your stay. In private campgrounds, this is generally a site with hookups. Some campgrounds provide a stipend, meals, and free use of laundry machines or other amenities. If working above a certain number of hours each week, hourly wages or other compensation is typically added.
Assigned tasks may include[8]:
- Checking in campers and taking reservations or other clerical duties.
- Custodial chores like cleaning showers, bathrooms, and fire pits.
- Maintenance of campground equipment and facilities
- Landscaping duties like lawn mowing, weeding, raking, and trimming.
- Work in camp store.
- Escorting campers to their sites and helping them connect their campers to the utilities if needed.
Find campground jobs:
- Workamper
- KOA
- Coolworks
- Search Facebook for "work camping" groups.
- Check any nearby campgrounds' web sites for job listings.
Tourist attraction work
Many hotels and towns that are in or around National Parks in the western United States will need to hire staff for housekeeping, front desk, kitchen and retail positions for only 3-4 months of the year, and many will even provide basic housing. There's also often seasonal jobs with the National Park Service directly, doing trail maintenance or other minor construction work. It's very normal for the people doing these jobs to live in vans or RVs in the campgrounds while working, and the locations are typically very beautiful with lots of outdoor rec opportunities.
Ski resorts are another frequent location that needs a lot of temporary jobs filled during the ski season which don't have a lot of preexisting requirements. They'll also often provide accommodation, giving the nomad a chance to settle down for a few months and earn some money before bouncing onto their next adventure.
Theme parks, water parks, and similar attractions often require lots of summer workers. You might get permission to stay in their large parking lots.
Skydiving dropzones are a great place to find seasonal gig work packing parachutes, and dropzones are often highly accepting of van-life. Plenty of skydivers themselves live in vans, and many dropzones have campgrounds attached to them with varying levels of amenities.
Remote work
Digital nomads are folks who "work from home", but living in a van means they can be working from anywhere. Stable internet connections tend to be critical for all digital nomads. Some career paths like photography, graphic design, writing, proofreading, marketing, transcription, or medical coding may have a relatively lower barrier to entry. Many customer service positions that were formerly done in call centers have gone fully remote. These jobs require a quiet environment without much background noise.
- Entry Level Remote Job
- FlexJobs
- Freelancer
- Netfor - work as a customer service or customer support agent
- Remote|OK
- Remotive
- SkipTheDrive
- Toptal
- UpWork
- We Work Remotely (WWR)
- WellFound (formerly AngelList Talent)
Tutoring and teaching
If you can help others learn, you can provide online teaching or tutoring services. In many cases, you don't need a teaching degree to get started. Search online for things like "remote tutoring", "teach ESL" or "teach EFL" (English as a second/foreign language), etc. If you can teach your own course, look for services like Outschool, MyTutor, AmazingTalker
IT jobs
For field technicians, find gigs anywhere at Field Nation. Typical careers that have good remote potential are usually highly technical in fields like software development and many avenues of IT.
Phone jobs
Many jobs that require making or receiving phone calls all day can be done remotely. This includes call center jobs, customer service, remote order taking, political phone surveys, sales, etc.
Content creation
You can earn some revenue from creating engaging content online. For most people, this will not produce enough income to live on, but it may be a way to earn extra money doing something you enjoy.
- Big content producers ("influencers") can survive on monetization, but it's hard work to get there! Your content will likely competing against hundreds of other content creators on just about any subject matter. You may wish to start with the YouTube Partner Program or Earn Money on Instagram.
- Writers on Substack can offer paid subscriptions for readers
- Writers on Medium can join their Partner Program
- WordPress shares ad revenue for premium customers
Affiliate income streams
While affiliate programs aren't going to generate a lot of cash, even a little bit helps. Sites like Amazon and WordPress pay for referrals and it doesn't cost the consumer anything extra. This wiki includes some affiliate links.
Tax issues
See the taxes page. These states have no income tax: Alaska, Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Texas, Washington, and Wyoming.[9] Note that the state you are in and the state where the company is located may both have tax claims.
Non-monetary compensation
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Instead of getting paid in currency, these opportunities give you a temporary place to park or live.
- Workamper
- Housesitting
- Workaway
- World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms - stay at a host farm.
Work relationships
One topic of debate is whether to tell employers or co-workers that you live in a van. Reactions can vary from curiosity to hostility to jealousy at your freedom. The reactions of co-workers have more to do with their own relation to work than to your living situation.
Resources
| Resource | Description | |
|---|---|---|
| Work from Home While You Roam | E-book detailing additional remote work opportunities | |
| We Need WorkCampers | Private Facebook group with 55k members as of August 2024. "A place to find work camping jobs. A place to list said work camping job." | |
| Workampers | Public Facebook group with 161k members as of August 2024. "... for discussing workamping jobs, seasonal, and/or remote onsite employment for RVers." | |
| Money matters forum | A sub-forum of VanLivingForum.com | |
| Search forums and groups | Search van life discussion groups for "work for nomads" | |
| Search related sites | Search van life sites for "work for nomads" | |
| Search NomadLife.wiki | Search other pages on this wiki for "work for nomads" |
Some or all of the content on this page was originally sourced from this page on RVWiki
- ↑ See our disclaimer.
- ↑ https://reddit.com/r/VanLife/comments/1bd7mph/i_sleptwalked_at_work_bloody_embarrassing/kuo1ktp/
- ↑ https://reddit.com/r/TruckCampers/comments/1d8dcv7/went_from_paying_3000_a_month_to_this/l75ise3/
- ↑ https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/finding-a-job/how-to-get-paid-to-sleep
- ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/VanLife/comments/15mora7/any_tips_for_jobs_that_allow_for_van_life/jvhvg12/
- ↑ https://reddit.com/r/vandwellers/comments/1b9zmh6/im_a_mobile_petsitter_heres_a_few_of_my_clients/
- ↑ suggested via email from a NomadLifeWiki user
- ↑ https://www.facebook.com/groups/274725956018515/posts/2970552949769122/?comment_id=2970599099764507
- ↑ https://www.fool.com/retirement/2016/11/23/here-are-the-us-states-with-no-income-tax.aspx