bitofarambler
Q&A for any and all questions you might have about traveling.
FAQ
are there requirements to be an ESL teacher other than being a fluent English speaker?
nope.
some countries and schools require a TEFL certificate or prefer candidates with an associate's degree depending on the position, but if you want to teach English, all you need is to be a fluent English speaker.
how can you afford to travel long-term?
The cost of living in most countries is around $500 USD a month for transportation, rent, utilities and food altogether; teaching English pays $2000 USD a month with zero qualifications or experience.
every month I taught English, I had a few extra months of my cost of living.
I taught English for about 7 years.
as long as you're making more than 500 USD a month remotely in any job, you can travel long-term.
What's the best country?
Depends on what you're looking for.
For backpacking, Japan. For natural history museums, Ireland. For food, China. For cost of living, Cambodia or India.
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got it, always gotta keep efficiency in mind. That problem-solving sounds like a lot of fun. I helped a guy get into his truck he left his keys in last year, and we ended up using a wire and bending the truck door just enough to unlock the doors from inside.
i like the idea of buying simple padlocks just to practice picking myself, a friend and I did that in college as a hobby but i haven't got back into it yet.
You sound actual to me, no imposter detected!
Your description of getting into the truck is not far off from what we do, albeit we use an airbag to crack the door as to avoid damage alongside a rubber-tipped rigid tool to activate the lock.
And it's absolutely fun to practice! I think when you start doing it for a job, it becomes less fun though.
"when you start doing it for a job, it becomes less fun"
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me.
Somewhat related - I love teaching, like every part of it, but I still had to be real careful about getting spoiled and complaining about the parts of the job less fun than others. Many teachers I knew got to the point where they spent more time complaining about their jobs or than they spent teaching per week. I think for a lot of English teachers, our life improvements were so drastic and sudden that anything remotely irritating or troublesome, even commonplace work occurrences, ballooned in our minds to tragedies since the rest of our lives had become so easy. If we had still had our old jobs, where we were struggling or overworked, those "tragedies" would have been minor nuisances at most.
All that to say I agree that anything becomes less fun after it becomes a job, and I would have to practice awareness to make sure I didn't spiral when I got even momentarily tired of dealing with parents or creating a class schedule.
You sound like you have a good perspective on your work, though.
That complaining issue may be prevalent in all careers like that. I had a coworker that would get so angry over issues at work that it would affect his personal life.
Things aren't perfect at this shop, but I'm learning skills that will make me useful worldwide. And I try to think about that on the days where I'm beating my head against a while trying to program a car key while the customer asks "you think it's gonna work?" every 10 minutes.
haha, those outsider questions are always so funny to hear.
like no matter what job you do, people always have two or three questions that would never be asked by anyone familiar with the profession even for a day, but every single person who has never been a _______ feels compelled to ask.
That's a really good point about your developing skill set too, locksmith seems to be one of those future-proof jobs, knock on wood.
I hadn't thought about that, but I'm glad you brought it up.