A couple of weeks ago, while my friends were at their offices, I spent my morning on a long jog in the nearby forest. When I came home, I had an e-mail waiting for me from an editor, asking if I could squeeze in a quick, all-expenses-paid trip to a local resort town. By evening, my husband and I were on our way to a weekend getaway that didn’t cost us a dime. In fact, the brief report I submitted at the end of our trip earned me a few hundred dollars. I was able to take on this relatively lucrative last-minute assignment, because I’ve made an effort to be both adaptable and disciplined. I’ve made a point of keeping my schedule flexible throughout my career as a travel writer. Self-employed people often say that they are their “own boss,” and it’s no different when you’re a freelance travel writer. As my own boss, I create my own deadlines and then hold myself accountable to them. I worked as an editor for many years, and I always made a point of setting deadlines for at least a few days earlier than I actually needed stories filed, so that I’d have a buffer just in case a story fell through or got delayed. Now that I’m a freelancer, I give myself similar false deadlines. That way, if a last-minute opportunity to get on a plane comes up, or if I simply feel like going on a run in the forest, I’m able to go. Working as a travel writer also allows me to be more flexible with my free time. 
While I may sometimes have to miss social events because I’m off on a life-changing adventure, or just in the midst of writing up a story, I get a lot of opportunities to attend events and experience new things that I wouldn’t get if I were locked into a 9-to-5 way of life. Of course, the tradeoff is that I sometimes find myself hard at work late at night or on weekends, but when you love what you do, it doesn’t feel like work. And while I adore writing, traveling the world, seeing my name in print, and getting paid for it all, the freedom that comes with being a professional travel writer is perhaps the biggest perk of all. Share on Facebook [Editor’s Note: Learn more about opportunities to profit from your travels (and even from your own home) in our free online newsletter The Right Way to Travel. Sign up today here and we’ll send you a report, Get Paid to Travel as a Travel Writer, completely FREE.]
