Product Description

Want to travel the world but can t afford to? Written by the world expert on working around the world, this book is crammed with information and tips from people who are out there living their dream. It explains the best job opportunities, how to get work permits, travelling safely and more: A broad range of jobs from the everyday to the extraordinary Up-to-date contact details for hundreds of jobs Advice from other travellers who have been there and done it Help on finding and securing work whatever country you are in Working your way around the world is an adventure and yours starts here! Jobs inside include: -Film making on a Greek Island -Archaeological dig in Israel -Turtle monitoring in Queensland -Chalet worker in Austria -Working in clubs in Tenerife -Picking strawberries in Denmark -Yacht crewing in the West Indies or the Cote d Azur -Busking in Amsterdam -Alligator farm hand in Louisiana -Teaching English in Moscow or Mexico -Horse trekking centres in Iceland or New Zealand -Croupier on a cruise ship -Grape picking in Alsace -Youth worker in Uganda -Soccer coaching in North America -Selling ice cream in Cape Town or jewellery in Crete -Season Worker in Val'd Isere or Vail

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #8907 in Books
• Published on: 2009-05-15
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 608 pages

Review
The globetrotter's bible --The Independent

Guaranteed to give you wanderlust --The Sunday Telegraph

From the Publisher
The idea of going all the way around the world holds more than a touch of romance. From the early heroic navigators like Ferdinand Magellan to the fictional traveller Phileas Fogg, circumnavigators of our planet have always captured the imagination of adventurous souls. More recently Michael Palin's globetrotting television series and award-winning travel blogs like twoguysaroundtheworld.com attract huge audiences, perhaps because so many of us relish a chance to imagine ourselves - impossibly ambitious as it sounds - as round-the-world explorers.
Nothing can compare with the joy of the open road. The sense of possibility and adventure brings feelings of exhilaration, long submerged in the workaday routines of home. Cheap air travel has opened up parts of the globe once reserved for the seriously affluent. When travelling in far-flung corners of the world, you can escape the demands of modern life in the Western world, the chores, the clutter, the technology. Whatever your stage of life, travelling spontaneously means you have the freedom to choose from an infinite spectrum of possibilities. Those who have experienced independent travel normally catch the bug and long to visit more places, see more wonders and spend a longer time abroad. Today trekking in the hinterland of Rio de Janeiro or diving in the Philippines can be within the grasp of ordinary folk. The longing might stem from a fascination left over from childhood with an exotic destination like Madagascar or Patagonia.
The motivation might come from a friend's reminiscences or a television travelogue or a personal passion for a certain culture or natural habitat. At some point a vague idea begins to crystallise into an actual possibility.
That is the point at which the purple prose of brochure-speak must be interrupted by hard-headed planning. The first question is always: how can I afford such a trip? Magellan had the backing of the King and Queen of Spain, Phileas Fogg was a gentleman of independent means and Michael Palin could call on the resources of the BBC. How can ordinary people possibly move their dreams on to reality? The conventional means to an exciting end is to work and save hard.
A grim spell of working overtime and denying yourself a social life is one route to being able to join a safari in Tanzania, a water sport instructor's course on the Mediterranean or a bungee jump in New Zealand. But what if it were possible to skip this stage and head off towards the horizon sooner than that? Instead of trying to finance the expensive trips advertised in glossy travel brochures, what about trying to find alternative ways of experiencing those same places at a fraction of the cost?
The catchy phrase `work your way around the world' may contain the answer to the thorny question of funding. Picking up bits and pieces of work along the way can go a long way to reducing the cost. Even if it is unrealistic to expect to walk into highly paid jobs in Beijing or Berlin (though they do exist), other informal ways exist of offsetting the cost of travel. Work-for-keep arrangements on a New Zealand farm or Costa Rican eco-lodge will mean that you have to save far less than if you booked a long-haul package holiday to those destinations - in some cases little more than the cost of the flight.
Short of emigrating or marrying a native, working abroad is an excellent way to experience a foreign culture from the inside. The plucky Briton who spends a few months on a Queensland outback station will have a different tale to tell about Australia from the one who serves behind the bar in a Sydney pub. Yet both will experience the exhilaration of doing something completely unfamiliar in an alien setting.
Anyone with a taste for adventure and a modicum of nerve has the potential for exploring far-flung corners of the globe on very little money. In an ideal world, it would be possible to register with an international employment agency and wait to be assigned to a glamorous job as an underwater model in the Caribbean, history co-ordinator for a European tour company or snowboard instructor in the Rockies. But jobs abroad, like jobs at home, must be ferreted out. The hundreds of pages that follow will help you to do just that.

From the Author
Because the world is always changing, a new edition of this book is necessary every two years.
Since the last edition, the world's economy has suffered a huge blow resulting in an alarming rise
in unemployment fi gures worldwide and a dramatic collapse in the value of sterling. This book has
been around for so long that I can remember the last major recession at the beginning of the
1990s. Ironically, that crisis seemed to create more opportunities for casual and temporary work
because employers did not want to commit to taking on more permanent staff.
In these troubled times, the idea of fl eeing to a new place with potentially new opportunities
and a stronger currency might appeal more than ever. If job prospects are dire at home, why hang
around to become depressed? Travel can transport you to a new universe where credit crunches
don't seem to matter so much. If you are convinced that fi nding work at home will be next to
impossible, one idea is to broaden your horizons and your skills elsewhere, by working in a Rocky
Mountain ski resort or temping in an Australian city. Volunteering or interning may also prove a
worthwhile investment in enhancing future career prospects, perhaps a placement teaching in a
school in the Andes, or joining a marine research project in Madagascar.
Nowadays, working abroad has become such a mainstream idea that it has spawned scores of
websites, been featured on primetime television and is serviced by a huge infrastructure for those
who want to combine work and travel. This book has grown up with the travel industry and takes
account of all those shortcuts to fi xing up work abroad that now exist. The inclusion in its pages
of hundreds if not thousands of potential employers, mediating agencies and useful internet sites
sometimes makes me feel like a walking database.
Yet the swashbuckling kind of traveller who is prepared to carve out his or her own adventures
is also alive and well and using this book to navigate. For this fourteenth edition of Work Your Way
Around the World my network of informants included a new graduate who exchanged Spanish
for English lessons in Santiago Chile until he was in a position to land a teaching contract at a
prestigious English institute, a New Zealander who has found casual work from Buenos Aires to
Stockholm, an Irish woman who ignored the discouraging recruitment and visa info from Disneyworld
and spent a terrifi c year in Florida, a man no longer in the fi rst fl ush of youth who has
worked in exotic places like Mali and Mauritania, and is now in a small city south of Beijing as an
English teacher, saving some of his salary for his next adventure, a young English woman who
used an agency to fi x up an internship in a video production company in Sydney, and a school
leaver who busked in Paris and Seville and is now exchanging a few hours of work a day in order
to stay free at a lakeside hostel in Guatemala. Almost with one voice, these travellers urge people
whatever their backgrounds to give it a go and expose themselves to the unexpected friendliness
and generosity of foreign residents and fellow travellers.
Anybody who occasionally feels the call of the road, the spirit of adventure fl icker will, I hope,
enjoy reading this book and dreaming. My aim has been to make the information in these 404
pages as concrete and up-to-the-minute as possible, to cut all the vague generalities and waffl e.
But amongst all the specifi c contact addresses, websites and realistic practical advice, the stories
of working travellers are interwoven to inspire and encourage. This book is written to renew optimism
and spark the imagination of all potential travellers.
Susan Griffi th
Cambridge
July 2009

Customer Reviews

Better than excellent
This book changed my life.

It showed me one doesn't have to follow the route of college, then graduation, then job for life. I bought this book, then worked for three years in London, Spain, and Cairo in the late 1980s and early 1990s. I supported myself and even managed to save money.

While personally enriching, my experiences have impressed -- bar none -- every employer with whom I have interviewed over the past seven years.

Had I not taken time off, I'd be like many other adults who regret not taking advantage of their youth and lack of committments to explore the world and themselves.

If you have any desire to explore, do yourself a favor -- buy the book, then buy your plane ticket.

Great book for ideas, but reality depends on luck
I bought this book looking for practical tips and actual addresses and phone numbers of employers, but realized the contents aimed more at a generalized perspective of working around the world.

In my opinion, Griffith focuses on subjects and situations that require common sense and courage--these come from within you. The rest of it, whether working in olive groves in Greece or picking strawberries in Denmark, depends completely on luck and your own flexibility/perseverance. I found work in 20 countries only after learning some of the language, changing jobs often and having the emergency financial means to escape bad situations if they arose. I didn't need or miss this book on the road (I left it in California after glancing through it one month before leaving), and now I live in Greece.

If you weren't curious and didn't have courage or adventurous spirit, you wouldn't be thinking about working your way around the world to begin with. So, you really don't need this book unless you want some reassurance about the uncertain future or don't have a clue about seasonal harvests or possible options. At the most, it's a voice of reason to discourage those who aren't ready or a haunting voice that motivates you to get out there.

Amazing book - concise information without missing bits out.
This book provided the motivation to get myself out of a slum in my career and get out to see the world, I had been thinking of travelling for a while but had been daunted by the thought of actually leaving behind what I knew, this book re-assured me that there had been people in my situation before who had enjoyed leaving behind their old lives!