List of Income-Generating Ideas While Cruising

[gettinthere]

Originally Posted by rover88

One thing that comes to mind is photography - as the ocean and many islands are a virtual photographer's paradise. Stock photo agencies broker photos to magazines, companies, etc. The downside is to make money at photographs requires skill and equipment.

Sorry, but it isn't that simple.

First, the BEST deal you can get with a stock agency is 50%. Most pay out about 35%, some as low as 20%.

Second, every stock agency is grossly overloaded with standard tropical paradise pictures taken by very talented photographers with very high end equipment. It has reached the point where the major agencies are rejecting new work unless it is truly outstanding & unique or from a current contributor.

Third, the volume of supply has chased down the payout. Dramatically. You need a collection of thousands of quality images of a wide variety of subjects to begin to generate a good income stream.

all this applies equally or more so to HD video as well.

I get regular e-mails from agencies giving pictures & HD footage away...free...of all kinds of 'tropical paradise' scenery.

Next idea...

[zee]

Know this is not for all cruisers, but if certain larger boats where able to add extra fuel storage through a clever way and able to carry an extra 500 gallons of diesel, you could then go to Venzuala and fill up and then resell at a profit along the way to your cruising destinations. Guess about two years ago Chavez diesel was selling for buck a gallon.

Would be interested in knowedgable cruisers for the best countries to fill up?

[Jetexas]

The proliferation of affordable digital cameras has more or less ended the ability to make money as anything except a high-end, speclialized niche photographer, i.e. Great Whites jumping out of the water, large format landscapes, medium format fashion and portraiture, etc.

Publishers now search Flickr for photos of whatever they need, then will contact the photographer and offer photo credit in the magazine or on the web site in exchange for using a photo for free. If they say no, they just move on to the next photographer.

If online subscription publications like The Daily actually succeed, there could be a resurgence in the photo market as publishers would need REALLY GREAT photos and would have the budget to buy them, but for now, it's an oversaturated wasteland of mediocrity.

As for writing, I dabbled in the e-book market last year just to test the waters. Mind you, business communications isn't the hottest topic out there, but my book went live in November, and I've yet to make the first $10 of revenue required before Amazon sends me a check. I've almost finished a comical reflective work about my experiences restoring my boat over the past year. That might garner a larger market, but I'm still not expecting much.

Blogging is even worse than e-books. After a year in Google's Adsense program, I'm just to the $5 mark, and it takes $100 in revenue before they send a check. Now, I'm not living a crazy life of adventure on the high seas, but I pull about 100 views per day. You would have to have a crazy amount of click-throughs to make any sort of noticeable income blogging.

[denverd0n]

Originally Posted by PCSailor

-Selling skills as a marine engineer
-Selling jewelry & crafts produce using local items
-Internet marketing, Affliate programs, & website
-Writing articles for internet revenue-sharing websites
-Day sails/charters

Three of the five you have listed here require work visas, or business licenses, in order to be legal. Such visas and licenses are far from impossible to get, but they also tend to be far from easy to get.

You could try to fly under the radar, of course, but then you're not going to be able to make very much money. Because the minute you start doing enough business to make a meaningful amount of money, the locals that you are competing with are going to take note and turn you in.

The easiest approach is to find a revenue stream that comes from your home country--which would include the internet marketing and article writing. Then you don't usually have to worry about visas and licenses and such.

[rowingdude]

You can make decent money ($50-$100/week) writing articles online for income revenue sites. This is the sort of work that I do, I'm strongly considering the cruising lifestyle as all I'd need to keep working is to buy a very powerful WIFI setup, which is a $200 investment. After that, it's negotiating work schedules with your clients. You can find wifi almost anywhere, most files won't be bigger than 300Kb, and that's an extremely large work order. Even at 56k speeds, you'd be able to work easily.

Now, you're not going to become a millionaire doing this, but it'll be enough to get by. Which is all some of us want. If something major happens, like your rigging disintegrates or a communist skipper luffs his spinnaker pole into your kite, you'll need to either work extra or find a really good deal on used stuff. But that's the price that you pay for being able to go anywhere.. anytime you want.

[idpnd]

Originally Posted by Jetexas

Publishers now search Flickr for photos of whatever they need, then will contact the photographer and offer photo credit in the magazine or on the web site in exchange for using a photo for free. If they say no, they just move on to the next photographer.

The market has opened up, prices are down, but they still pay:

BBC News - How to make money from your photos

[Hud3]

Long term cruisers are pretty self-sufficient and notoriously tight with their cash. In two years cruising the eastern Caribbean and Bahamas, I recall spending money only on a small canvas job, a windlass repair that I couldn't do myself, and for some really nice photos of our boat under sail.

The photos were taken by Tim Wright, a pro who lives on his boat in Bequia. He would come out to the approaches to Admiralty Bay in his dinghy and when a sailboat came along, he'd buzz around snapping digital photos. He was standing, tethered to the dinghy with a taut harness, one hand on the outboard tiller extension and one holding his camera. He'd stop by the boats later in the day with his laptop and show the owners the photos. The only other place we ran into this sort of thing was on the way in to Marin on Martinique, but the photos that couple took weren't up to snuff compared to Tim's.

If you're a really good photographer, you might be able to make a few bucks this way, if you pick a good, high-traffic location. I know that Tim sold a number of photos to cruisers the day we bought ours. I was happy to pay him US$50 for this one.

[Doodles]

If you have any bookkeeping/accounting/tax preparing skills, and you are cruising the US you can always hook up with a CPA firm during tax season (Jan-April). I had a friend on a HC33 that did that for several years. They cruised the East coast mostly, and would always make sure to be in St. Pete by the first of the year. The same CPA firm would hire her back each year to help with the work load. She wasn't a tax preparer but she could do bookkeeping and basic tax forms like W-2 and 1099's. She would work until April, then go off cruising again. Good work if you can get it and CPA firms are always looking for dependable people who come back year after year.

[gettinthere]

Originally Posted by idpnd

The market has opened up, prices are down, but they still pay:

BBC News - How to make money from your photos

The big money tossed about by the BBC in the story are EXTREMELY rare for the non professional. There is always the exception and the BBC managed to find some. A friend of mine has been interviewed by various news organizations and said that all 7 times he has been interviewed, the story was inaccurate or misleading.

[David_Old_Jersey]

These threads crop up regularly - always surprises me that many folks choose to restrict their thoughts to nautical based or themed business activity simply because they live on a boat

I live in a house. and although I would consider selling carpets to my neighbours I have never bothered as (so far) always found there be more money to be made looking at the larger market..........

One of the "tricks" to being in business is to stop thinking like an employee. as sometimes you will be an unemployed employee or (worse?!) always subject to the whims of others. As a businessman you are guaranteed a lifetime of employment 24/7 if not 48/7 ..........it's just the getting paid (sufficiently) for the effort involved where the art lies

and the best thing about being in business is that you can start anytime you want. even right now and do anything.

In the old days "all you needed" was an office, a filing cabinet and a desk. nowadays only need a PC. If a business venture is truly worthwhile £££ wise then the secret will be in the Management (you!) and not in the hitting things with a hammer side.......perfectly possible to build a buisiness(es) around you not being there (neither in person or online) 24/7...........just going to need to do more than pick up the cheques once a year - but I'm working on that one

[Blue Crab]

Originally Posted by rowingdude

You can make decent money ($50-$100/week) writing articles online for income revenue sites. This is the sort of work that I do, I'm strongly considering the cruising lifestyle as all I'd need to keep working is to buy a very powerful WIFI setup, which is a $200 investment.

The above caused me to go aGoogling to find:

"When readers visit your articles and click on the ads surrounding the article the site shares the revenue with you. Earning money through paid writing sites generates passive income." EHow.


In all seriousness, wonder if you would point out some your articles that you are gettting paid for, and how much, for instructional purposes. I read a lot of stuff on the net (I only read the articles), but the ONLY time I click on the ads is by mistake. Or, sometimes there is a fine-looking babe in the ad, and I'll click on it hoping there will be a larger, more detailed, pic but there never is.

We have countless forum members sailing the world on $500 a month. Even these frugal seafarers would invest a couple hundred for a high performance WiFi setup. I'd like to hear more about that too.

Another decent idea I read here had to do with importing/selling diamonds. Even a small world cruiser like mine could carry a lot of diamonds.

Where/how do I get the diamonds?

[David_Old_Jersey]

Originally Posted by tgzzzz

Another decent idea I read here had to do with importing/selling diamonds. Even a small world cruiser like mine could carry a lot of diamonds.

Where/how do I get the diamonds?

The cheapest way would be to take them off cruisers smuggling them in somewhere

and saves all those transportation worries........the odds are that the person selling them the diamonds would be very willing to cut a deal. especially for repeat business

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by tgzzzz

Another decent idea I read here had to do with importing/selling diamonds. Even a small world cruiser like mine could carry a lot of diamonds.

Where/how do I get the diamonds?

Try coastal cruising with the occassional anchoring and free diving of some of the dried up river beds where they meet the sea....
Best between Dooringbaai and work N as far as Port Noloth.... one small tip... keep your eyes open on the beach for guys who patrol with high powered rifles in an attempt to stop honest seamen from harvesting the sea....
Free diving you may get away with just recreational swimming... scuba gear..??
YOUR SCREWED

[Tia Bu]

I teach at a community college. Last summer I managed to teach online courses for three months while I went cruising. It's sort of a pain tracking down an Internet connection with enough bandwidth every day. But I earned a paycheck and went sailing!

[snort]

Originally Posted by Tia Bu

I teach at a community college. Last summer I managed to teach online courses for three months while I went cruising. It's sort of a pain tracking down an Internet connection with enough bandwidth every day. But I earned a paycheck and went sailing!

Hi Tia, I used to teach university and heard about these online gigs. Can you share how you found your online work? Or was is it through your regular job that you did this? Thanks in advance!