Retirement Archives - Page 15 of 15

As retirement can be quite boring, most seniors have an urge to travel. But this dream is nipped in the bud as the majority of elderly people don’t have much savings, and the money they’ve stored is for future needs. In this scenario, having a post-retirement job that involves travel sounds amazing. You’d be surprised to hear that there are tons of retirement jobs that require you to travel. They can be a personal business, an affiliation, or a part-time or full-time job. You can also work as a travel agent, tour guide, cruise staff, photographer, campground worker, and event planner. All of these jobs pay differently and have their own particular prerequisites. There are tons of jobs that involve travel, but in this article, we’ll focus on the aforementioned 6. Now, without further due, let’s dive into the details regarding these retirement jobs that involve travel! Travel Agent Travel agencies have really stood the test of time. They remain relevant even after the advent of technology and the prevalence of online booking sites. One reason behind this could be that travelers like human interaction and getting to learn a couple of things about the foreign place they’re going to visit. Travel agents can provide data quite informally and are more familiar and realistic with the cost of accommodation, food, travel, and the overall ambiance of a place. Travel agents typically set up their own businesses, usually home-based or at a rented location. There has been a recent spike in the number of home-based travel agencies in recent years, according to the American Society for Travel Agents. The job involves spending a good amount of time on the phone chatting with clients and doing thorough online research to present to clients, along with making easy vacation plans for each location, so clients who don’t have to waste time doing it themselves. Your goal here is to make your client’s ease a priority. Plus, if you make multiple plans, you don’t have to go through the process for the next client, and you can just present what you already compiled. You can charge extra for custom plans. Of course, a person who works as a travel agent has to have a liking to travel themselves. The job requires you to make trips sometimes to evaluate resorts, hotels, restaurants, and other venues for potential clients. This requirement is more of a perk for travel lovers. Moreover, once your business has been established and you get clients often, some hotels and restaurants may offer you free stay or dinner for evaluation and in exchange for adding them for your next bookings. To become a travel agent, you don’t need any license. That being said, colleges do offer technical training for travel agents. Travel and tourism certification and degree courses are also available. The course is prepared to teach you everything from computer reservations, international travel regulations, marketing, and business dealing. According to PayScale, the annual salaries for travel agents range between $25,400-$55,400. Hourly wages can range from anywhere between $10.70 to $22.34. Photographer Photography is an art that people tend to undermine. In reality, only people with a true passion for capturing the best shot, skillfulness in handling the camera, and an artistic interpretation in their head can become successful photographers. If you love taking photos as much as you love traveling, then you should opt for photography. There are different fields in photography, of course. You can be a wildlife photographer, in which case you’ll have to visit islands, forests, deserts and many other places where nature thrives. As an elderly person, you can do this if you go along with a crew, as doing wildlife photography alone requires you to shoot in rough conditions. Wildlife photographers can be affiliated with channels, documentary producers, and wildlife magazines. You can opt for fashion photography, and this will require you to travel to every city where fashion shows are taking place, such as Milan, Paris, New York, London, and many others. As a fashion photographer, you can be affiliated with or working for a magazine, or your independent site, the latter of which requires investment. You can also become a fashion photographer for clothing brands and shoot in different locations. Travel photography is also quite popular. You can be an independent travel photographer, take eye-catching shots of different places and sell them to travel magazines, travel agencies, airlines, cruise liners, etc. You can work as a celebrity photographer, taking photos and making videos during tours, theatre skits, etc. And you could do shoots for different companies. You can photograph models for health magazines as well. However, this requires the least travel. Lastly, you can work as a freelance photographer. Businesses can hire you for a day and pay well. Art studios often look for freelance photographers. Festival management hires photographers too. Restaurants and bakeries, who need shots of their food for wall art and menu, often look for freelancers. To become a photographer, you must have an eye for the right shot. You must also have the ability to reject your own work, even if it was just seconds from perfection. If you aim to work for reputable brands, magazines, tv channels, etc., you need some amount of experience and an impressive portfolio. Building a portfolio is very important, and it should contain some of your best works. Frequently updating the portfolio is also necessary. There’s no qualification needed to become a photographer, though famous companies often like to see an applicant with a degree in Photography or Media Sciences. Pay varies greatly depending on the type of photography you do and how you earn money through it (by selling pictures, it being a full-time or part-time job, etc.). The average salary in the US is $30,367 a year. Tour Guide This job demands a love of both travel and history. Tour guiding fits people who are born to educate others while also possessing great communication skills. The task does require a lot of stamina, so you’ll have to be quite a fit elder to fulfill this role. Tour guides also require sharp observation skills to keep an eye on each and every one of your clients, plus a good memory to store all the data about different places. You have to have your interesting facts ready to grasp the attention of the tourists and help them better understand the significance of a particular place. Tourists usually go in groups, unless they pay extra for exclusive trips. Tourism is a huge industry, obviously. So there are many opportunities for you to become a tour guide as there are many fields. For example, you can show tourists around your locality, pointing out places of historical significance, sites that have been part of urban myths and conspiracy theories, areas that are being built into something innovative, and places that have a ton of visual appeal. It’s a small investment business that you can start at $1500. All you need to do is to make a website, hire a driver, rent a van, and market your business. You can also give tourists personal tours of a factory. People are often interested in seeing candy being made or seeing wine during its different stages of fermentation. You can work for a factory with a tourism agency that grants factory tours or you can start your own business. In this, you could target schools, as school management often arranges tours for its students. You need to learn the ins and outs of the factories you’re going to take people through, though. Other than that, you can become a tour guide for sites that fall under wild areas or wonders of the world. This requires the most travel, but also the most physical strength. You need to have visited these areas at least three times and have to research and learn as much as possible. You can work with tourism agencies or start a personal touring service. There are no qualifications that have to be met if you want to become a tour guide; your high school diploma works. The real skill you need is to be able to captivate your audience. That being said, employers usually require applicants to pass an exam, typically written, that aims to understand your level of knowledge about some locations and their history. You might find 6-month to year-long courses related to tour and travel in some colleges. The certificate you receive is generated by the National Tour Association. Being bilingual or multilingual is usually a plus, as you can communicate well with foreign tourists. Tour guides typically get paid $9.44-$24.14 every hour, according to PayScale. Additionally, we’d like to mention the Road Scholar program. It’s a non-profit initiative that offers more than 5000 “learning adventures” in all 50 states and 150 foreign countries. If you work on this program, you’re called an “ambassador,” and you have to promote it by speaking at public engagements. You don’t get compensation in pay, so you can opt for it if you’re into traveling only. You do get credits for participation. Campground Worker If you love driving long distances and are spending time in an RV, then this is a wonderful way to earn money. At different parks and campgrounds, you can take on work with a flexible schedule, and you can earn a good amount at hourly rates. Traveling to and from these places can be hectic for those who don’t love driving, but if you don’t mind cruising on roads for 2-3 hours, you can find a good campground in your state to park your RV. Being a campground host can hook you up with a discounted or totally free campsite, where you can pitch a tent or park your RV. You also get access to a campsite vehicle to drive short distances in case you need to shop. If you take up more responsibilities, especially the managerial ones, then you can earn a couple of bucks an hour, excluding the campsite access. As a host, you can take up tasks like guest check-ins, collecting fees, rental management, light cleaning, and routine maintenance. Living as a campground worker is like a semi-barter system. Typically, you are paid $7-12 per hour, but the arrangements vary from campground to campground. Compensation can be a combo of wages, campsite access, laundry allowance, store discount, and vehicle access. Having experience as a handyman, bookkeeper, or campground work itself is a bonus. You should expect on-the-job training if it’s something totally new to you. To find jobs, go to the Workamper site. There you can track down campgrounds offering jobs, plus links to the ones who post jobs on their own sites. Additionally, the retailing titan Amazon launched Amazon CamperForce a couple of years back. During peak seasons, when orders are in bulk, but the number of workers is small, Amazon recruits people for their fulfillment center from nearby campgrounds. The pay goes as high as $11.50, and half of that for overtime. The benefits of working for Amazon include a paid campsite location and a bonus upon completion of tasks. Unfortunately, for elders, the working conditions are very hard, and a lot of standing and lifting needs to be done. Event Planner As an event planner, the most obvious trait you should have is to love hosting parties. You'll need to be very organized and creative so that the logistics run smoothly. You must have great attention-to-detail and a very keen eye. Your job will be to be the architect of events like big birthday bashes, extravagant weddings, an annual gala, huge charity fundraisers, and many more. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, event planners who arrange meetings and conventions for business are being employed increasingly, and the total jobs for them are expected to see a 10% increase by 2024, which is really fast compared to other occupations. Since companies don’t want to go through the hassle of making arrangements themselves, they hire an event planner. If your first convention goes successful, you can expect to be hired again by the same company and many other businesses that were invited. Growth as a business events planner is rapid. You will get to travel to different cities to host events for your clients. As an event planner, you can work independently, though that would require you to spend at least $2,000. This will include marketing such as building a website, printing business cards, etc., booking a venue (or you can set up in a location picked by the client, in which case you might need furniture). You can always rent furniture, but decorations need to be customized and bought. Clients pay for everything, but you need to invest before you reap the benefits and get full payment. You can hunt for event planning jobs on online job boards that list hundreds of openings. According to PayScale, the average salary of an event planner is $48,922 annually, with the minimum being $33k and the maximum being $73k. You don’t need to have any certification or degree to be an event planner, but you can pursue a certificate or degree program in event management, which is offered by various colleges. They’ll teach you related to hosting an event. If you know someone in this business, work with them for a couple of months, just to get know-how. Cruise Ship Staff Working at a cruise ship is just like working at a hotel. The only difference, besides the cruise floating on water, is that you get to travel to the most popular tourist destinations free of cost. Cruise liners are usually off for about 60 days, and you might have to sign a new contract every time. This means you won’t be home most of the time, which is a drawback. Basically, you get employed by a company that owns cruise liners, and they can set you up with a cruise that requires staff. There are many jobs available on cruises. They include customer service representative, waiter, bartender, support specialist, cleaner, guest service agent, planner, supervisor, and manager. The latter two aren’t exactly post-retirement jobs, so you can strike them off the list. All the other jobs are available, and you can apply based on your experience. All staff receive a cabin, usually shared between 2-4 people. The cabin will have a TV and beds. Staff is allowed access to bars, crew swimming pool, staff gym, and lobby. There is usually no curfew for staff, even late at night. Cruise may stop for a few hours at each destination, and passengers often get off by swiping their ID. Staff members can also get off, though, for a shorter period and very responsibly. Cruise workers don’t need any special education, just experience in a similar field and a bit of training. Workers earn differently for each job. According to Indeed, on average annually, bartenders make $29k, servers make $21.5k, customer service representatives make $35k, support specialists make $21.3k, and planners make $33.5k. Conclusion In this article, we discussed six jobs available to seniors after retirement and that require travel. One thing common in them is that you need to have good stamina and physical strength as the constant traveling, standing, and rushing can make you quite tired. Of course, you shouldn’t live in the fantasy that you’ll get too much time to enjoy vacationing during work. In fact, schedules are almost always tight. But the work we’ve mentioned is comparatively easier and more accessible to senior citizens. Plus, you do get breaks and days off during work, which you can spend in the town you’re visiting. It’s not about spending time only traveling; it’s about living experiences. Sources AARP-5 Great Jobs for the 50+ Travel Lover Southern Living- 12 Of the Best, Dreamiest, and Most Unusual Jobs for When You Retire Location Indie- Jobs That Allow You To Travel