How Do You Make Money While Traveling Full-time in Your RV?

Posted in How to Make Money on the Road on July 16, 2017 Last Updated on April 5, 2020

This is by far the question we see come up the most. Even though living in an RV can be super inexpensive, you still have to cover your basic needs, like food and fuel.

First thing – no, this isn’t one of those big long lists of every job you could imagine. These are jobs we do, the ways we currently or in the past have made money. These “jobs” can be done from anywhere, any time, and will earn you an income if you work for it.

As we find new ways to make money, we’ll add them to this list so you can benefit too.

Amazon FBA is currently one of our main sources of income. While getting started isn’t as easy as it once was (several categories require approval to sell in, and approval requires wholesale accounts), there is still plenty of money to be made. You simply buy products, send them into Amazon’s fulfillment centers, and wait for the sale and the money.

We’ve put together a section on our blog to help you get started with FBA – check it out!

That’s right, ebay. You see people mention it, it’s been around forever, and you may think of it as a big yard sale. But, that’s not all it’s good for. As we mentioned above, there are items that you aren’t allowed (authorized) to sell on Amazon. These items can often sell quickly on ebay, causing you to not have to keep them in your RV long, and helping you quickly make a nice side profit.

Get in the tee-shirt (and other wares) business. With POD (Print on demand) sites like Merch by Amazon, Redbubble, Teepublic, and others you can start your own online tee shirt business, with no start up costs. Simply design a pile of tee shirts, upload to the POD sites, set your price, enter the details, and wait on your sales. You get paid out when a sale is made and can make anywhere from a little to a lot, depending on how much effort you put in. Some people report making enough money off these sites for it to be the equivalent of a “normal” salary. Want more info? We put together a post on Starting Your Own Tee Shirt Business.

Start a blog! Blogs are a great way to share your travels, talk about items you have tried and love (or hate) and you can run a few ads, and use affiliate links for sites like Amazon. Free accounts, like those hosted with WordPress.com and Blogger do not allow you to use of all the features to monetize your site, you’ll need your own self-hosted WordPress.org install.

If you need help setting up your own website, we offer a assistance through our web company, Southside Studios.