For my first trip I had a money saved up from part-time consulting and took out a credit card. I also sold my car. I really didn't care about the debt or how much money I would spend, I just wanted to stay out and away.
Of those first 12 months, I spent around 2 of them total working - spread out across that time. Most of it contract work.
I found some interesting work in Bosnia installing POS software and accounting software. There was a new consumption tax coming in and the government required electronic logging and submission, and nobody there in the IT industry had any experience with how to handle this.
The entire country was migrating from old physical paper based systems to electronic systems with internet based tax collecting overnight. I met a number of people in local IT and software businesses and helped them out. Despite the local average salary being $300 per month, I was paid well for the time I spent explaining open source and other commercial accounting packages to them and helping them out on the larger rollouts.
There is always an opportunity like that wherever you go - there is a gap in knowledge between the western world and the skills available in the second and third worlds, and you can exploit that.
Otherwise you can work for US or western based clients while living wherever you are. Most of the work I did in South Africa was for London based clients.
Register a business and open a bank account in a low regulation neutral nation, such as the Channel Islands, so you can do business from anywhere to anybody and not have to be tied up in a ton of regulation. Just don't forget to pay taxes on any income your bring into any country where you are a resident for tax purposes (usually 180+ days in a single year).
Of those first 12 months, I spent around 2 of them total working - spread out across that time. Most of it contract work.
I found some interesting work in Bosnia installing POS software and accounting software. There was a new consumption tax coming in and the government required electronic logging and submission, and nobody there in the IT industry had any experience with how to handle this.
The entire country was migrating from old physical paper based systems to electronic systems with internet based tax collecting overnight. I met a number of people in local IT and software businesses and helped them out. Despite the local average salary being $300 per month, I was paid well for the time I spent explaining open source and other commercial accounting packages to them and helping them out on the larger rollouts.
There is always an opportunity like that wherever you go - there is a gap in knowledge between the western world and the skills available in the second and third worlds, and you can exploit that.
Otherwise you can work for US or western based clients while living wherever you are. Most of the work I did in South Africa was for London based clients.
Register a business and open a bank account in a low regulation neutral nation, such as the Channel Islands, so you can do business from anywhere to anybody and not have to be tied up in a ton of regulation. Just don't forget to pay taxes on any income your bring into any country where you are a resident for tax purposes (usually 180+ days in a single year).