Yaneek Page | Turning passion for travel into profits

Leaving your job to travel the world, become immersed in new cultures, meet diverse people, and enjoy the most exotic places, foods, and experiences around the globe would be a dream come true for many people.

In fact, over the last decade, I’ve met thousands of people at corporate events, awards, conferences, and in my own training workshops who have highlighted world travel as a leading life goal when asked to record their personal mission.

In fact, it’s one of the few goals that are common to most people irrespective of gender, age, ethnicity, religion, social status, stage in the life cycle, etc. Now, imagine the ability to achieve that life goal and generate multiple, consistent, and very lucrative income streams that are all related to the passion for adventure and globetrotting.

Cameron Seagle and Natasha Alden are millennial voyageurs who have been able to do it all. Three years ago, in their mid-20s, they took the audacious decision to quit their jobs and travel the world. Since, then they’ve travelled across all continents to more than 80 countries, and through aching trial and error, managed to carve out a viable business model in the form of The World Pursuit. I was so fascinated by their experiences and new enterprise that I beseeched them to divulge their most profound lessons and insights for this column.

Below are the top lessons and tips from their travel and entrepreneurial journey in their own words.

What motivated you to leave your job and travel the world?

For us, we knew there was still so much to see in the world, and we felt trapped working long hours for another person’s business. We lived in New York, a city we very much love, but the day-to-day life in New York is not something for either of us. It’s very easy to feel trapped in a rat race that is materialistic. More than anything, we wanted to learn a bit more about ourselves, and travel presents that opportunity. It’s been a long journey, but I believe we’re starting to find our voice and passions in life.

How are you able you get paid for travelling the world?

There are a lot of ways in which you can get paid to travel the world. We created our own job and income stream by influencing purchase decisions.

Whether that’s a decision about booking the next hotel or new suitcase, we’re able to generate a commission on products we recommend. This is referred to as affiliates, and it’s becoming big business in the online world, where website owners link to products they love and receive a commission on the click-through.

We also work with destinations and tourism boards on marketing campaigns, work with advertisers on our website, have been social media consultants, and have sold many of our own images and videos. (You can see the full detailed scope of this here: https://theworldpursuit.com/how-travel-bloggers-make-money/)

What has been the most rewarding part of your experience?

The inspiration that comes with travel. We are the same people that left New York almost four years ago, but our views on the world and our passions in life have changed dramatically.

Travelling has inspired us to live a more sustainable lifestyle so that generations after us can share our experiences. We have also taken up adventure sports like snowboarding and diving – two things we never had the time for before.

In addition, we’ve spent a lot of time travelling in search of wildlife, particularly in many countries in Africa and Central and South America. Wildlife conservation and environmental preservation has become a real passion of ours, and we’re only at the beginning of that journey.

What HAS been your biggest fear?

This entire lifestyle and business failing, the website crumbling, and having to move back in with our parents.

The first year of starting your own online business is pretty much an unpaid internship. You don’t know what you’re doing yet, and you make little to no money.

We came close to returning home after our first year of travelling through 20+ countries. We could have chalked it up to a great experience and gone back to working normal 9-6 jobs, but then everything started to click, and each year has been better than the last in regards to both income and experience.

What do you most regret?

Not jumping into this lifestyle sooner. As millennials, we grew up understanding the interwebs, but we didn’t grasp that you could be location dependent and work jobs that only required you to be online and not in an office. We were in our mid-20s when we started this, but we often say to each other “if only we would have done this five years sooner”. A lot of our peers now started much earlier and have reaped the benefits of that.

In my next column, Turning Passion for Travel into Profits (Part 2), Natasha and Cameron share how they survived the first six months after leaving their jobs, the long-term goals for their business, and the exact steps they took to turn The World Pursuit into a successful business model.

One love.

- Yaneek Page is an entrepreneur and trainer in entrepreneurship & workforce innovation. She’s also the creator & executive producer of The Innovators and Let’s Make Peace TV series. Email: info@yaneekpage.com.