Whether you want to work from home or you’ve got a bigger goal of being able to travel the world and make money online –this curated list of active location independent jobs will help you figure out what’s possible, no matter what your level of work experience.

The remote job openings we link to below are dynamically updated every week, so be sure to add this page to Pocket and swing by often.

Article updated September 2, 2020 –although listings below are automatically kept up to date.

What’s a Location Independent Job?

A location independent job is one that you can do from anywhere in the world with a laptop and an internet connection.

Location independent jobs often go by other names; remote jobs, digital nomad jobs, work from home jobs, or telecommuting jobs.

Digital nomad jobs are quickly becoming commonplace, with reputable businesses like TTEC, Amazon, Hilton, Dell, Robert Half International, BroadPath Healthcare Solutions, GitHub, VIPKid, and Convergys all hiring location independent job positions on a regular basis, just to name a few.

Why Work Remotely?

Location independent jobs come with a lot of benefits that regular jobs don’t:

Avoid costly daily commutes to work

Make an income on the side

Overcome physical barriers and disabilities

Work from anywhere you want

While much of our time at Hobo with a Laptop is focused on helping digital nomads make money online, most of the content on this blog will be just as helpful for stay at home moms (SAHM jobs) and anyone else looking for the best remote companies to work for, or how to build an online business.

There’s a lot of relevant overlap.

What’s a Digital Nomad?

A digital nomad is a person who works online with the flexibility of traveling often, typically earning a higher value currency like USD and living abroad where costs are low to stretch their working hours further.

Earning a higher value currency and spending a lower value currency day-to-day is called “geoarbitrage”. It’s a key benefit of being a digital nomad.

The best digital nomad careers are those that allow one to work remotely and have flexible hours. Flexible hours often help compensate for working in another time zone or spending more time with your kids.

A digital nomad lifestyle is attractive to people because it helps them save more for retirement over time, or work less hours every week. If that sounds like fun, check out this guide.

Other Good Reads

If you’re new here, you may want to add this page to Pocket and explore the following guides at a later time:

Top Companies for Remote Job Openings

According to Flexjobs the 2020 top 25 companies for remote job openings (out of their top 100) are as follows; click through to view quite a few current remote job listings for each.

Bookmark this page or check back often; this index and corresponding links to remote job openings are always changing.

Preventing Work From Home Scams

Work from home scams are common with employers offering digital nomad jobs. In our experience, the best way to avoid deadbeat employers is to search remote job listings that are vetted by a team of real people.

This is why we trust FlexJobs –and our readers do, too.

At last check, our FlexJobs review indicated that as many as 100 of our readers upvoted them. That’s dozens of votes higher than any other remote job site in our reviews database.

With this in mind, all location independent jobs on this list have been curated and screened for integrity. Although, a FlexJobs membership does come at a cost of about $50 USD per year.

Before you balk at the fee, consider that sites like Upwork take 20% off all of your earnings before the tax man comes and takes even more loot out of your pocket.

In our opinion, Upwork doesn’t vet employers nearly as much as they should, and they’ll often side with employers in a pay dispute. And their screen monitoring software is a huge turnoff.

Exclusive Flexjobs Discount Hobo with a Laptop readers get an exclusive discount on FlexJobs –use the NOMAD promo code to receive the following discounts: $44.95 for 12 months of FlexJobs (10% off)

$23.95 for 3 months of FlexJobs (20% off)

$9.95 for 1 month of FlexJobs (30% off) Learn how to get your first entry-level remote job with our how-to guide here. Visit FlexJobs

FlexJobs is great value for a tiny fee. A lot of people aren’t willing to pay for access to remote job opportunities –this lowers your competition for an opportunity and makes it even easier to get a legitimate digital nomad job.

Exciting Digital Nomad Jobs That Are Always Hiring

We wrote this list of location independent jobs with a wider audience in mind –any one of these digital nomad job ideas will be as attractive to a work at home mom (WAHM) as they would a person who wants to travel the world and make money online.

Considering that popular digital nomad destinations like Chiang Mai, Palawan, and Bali can cost between $1,000 – $2,000 per month to live, all in, even the lowest paying salary on this list could be life changing.

Tap any one of the job titles below to view a full list of location independent jobs that are available right now.

Annual Median Pay: $34,744

Digital nomad job seekers, parents, world travelers, online influencers, and bloggers make for great brand ambassadors and advocates because of their tried-and-tested lifestyle.

Explore location independent jobs to advocate for brands in different niches, such as health, well-being, children’s education, travel, or any other product or service you’re passionate about.

Got a Blog? How Much to Charge for Sponsored Content

Brand Ambassador Jobs

Brand Advocate Jobs

Annual Median Pay: $39,791

If you’re down with Adobe (or even Canva or Piktochart), being a graphic designer is one of the best digital nomad jobs there is. It pays well, schedules are flexible, and you get to build your portfolio.

I’ve taken on the occasional infographic or logo design gig myself, and this is definitely one job where you can learn as you go.

Graphic Designer Jobs

Annual Median Pay: $60,401

If you’re already a vlogger climbing your way to the top o’ the YouTubes, a video editor gig is an ideal way for you to sharpen your skills, travel the world, and get paid.

Worth mention is that video creation for hotels and resorts are a great way to score free accommodation while traveling. Bonus points if you’re a nomad with a drone.

Video Editor Jobs

Annual Median Pay: $79,840

Computer programming is by far one of the most in-demand location independent jobs there is. It’s been a long time since I dropped any lines of code, but I wish I kept it up.

Java, Python, C++, C#, Perl –you name it. If you’ve got any of the most common programming languages under your belt, check out these programming jobs from some of the top remote companies.

Computer Programmer Jobs

Annual Median Pay: $66,130

Web design and development jobs are a hot commodity for a number of reasons; mobile apps are increasingly getting web-based spinoffs as businesses are growing tired of monopolistic app store fee structures, and every business or personal brand needs a website.

And lucky for you, they all seem to prefer hiring remotely to fill these positions.

On top of traditional website design and development jobs, there’s prototyping, user interface design, user experience, user acceptance testing, and other related remote jobs.

So if you can code from scratch or you’re proficient with WordPress and a little CSS, you’ll probably want to explore these location independent jobs.

Web Design Jobs

Web Developer Jobs

Annual Median Pay: $41,326

Social media specialist jobs are great remote jobs that can grow and evolve as you learn the ins and outs of every platform (and as new ones emerge). Gigs range from part-time freelance to full-time.

Oshin has made a decent living as a Pinterest consultant, and we know plenty of Westerners who make a reliable digital nomad income as social media specialists.

Social Media Jobs

Annual Median Pay: $41,000

When I moved abroad, I took a pass on my old career in ecommerce and decided to start copywriting for SEO companies. I swear, I rewrote the internet.

Copywriting jobs and blogging for businesses is a great way to learn about new and interesting topics, while developing your voice as a writer. The hours are flexible and if you get the right client, it never gets boring.

Copywriter Jobs

Blogger Jobs

Annual Median Pay: $43,242

If you’ve got copywriting job experience and you’re detail-oriented, proofreading may be the perfect location independent job for you.

As a remote proofreader, it is your responsibility to ensure consistency, keep formatting in check, confirm facts and details, check grammar, and more. For some, it’s easy money.

Proofreader Jobs

Annual Median Pay: $53,000

There are countless marketing roles that are ideal digital nomad jobs, ranging from SEO and content strategy to marketing coordinator positions and beyond.

Even those with limited online work experience could likely find a location independent job as a blogger outreach specialist. When it comes to digital marketing, the opportunities are endless.

Marketing Jobs

Annual Median Pay: $37,000

Location independent travel jobs are more available than you might think –the internet hasn’t killed all the travel consultant jobs! Who knew!

Manage travel arrangements for clients that range from cruise lines, airlines, luxury resorts, or tour bookings. According to FlexJobs, many positions offer the benefit of travel credits that could also allow you and your family to travel.

Travel Consultant Jobs

Annual Median Pay: $45,150

Teaching jobs have always been a popular nomad career choice, and now you won’t need to live abroad to do it in person if you don’t want to. Hooray! Because Internet!

Whether it’s teaching ESL or tutoring children with their maths assignments, there’s bound to be an online teacher or tutor job that will suit your interests.

Online Teacher Jobs

Online Tutor Jobs

Annual Median Pay: $33,139

Yeah, data entry jobs aren’t the most glamorous. But they are some of the most highly flexible location independent jobs around.

Create your own daily routine –work when the kids are asleep or go to the beach every day after breakfast. If you’ve got strong typing skills and an eye for detail, this is a digital nomad job where you can take back the best hours of each day.

Data Entry Jobs

Annual Median Pay: $40,307

If you’ve ever been obsessed with your health enough to take online courses, experiment with various doctor-approved diets, learn about health supplementation, and can tell the difference between sodium benzoate and sodium nitrite –a job as a remote nutrition specialist might be for you.

All those years reading Nutrition Facts labels might pay off!

Nutrition Specialist Jobs

Annual Median Pay: $45,324

Both stay-at-home moms and digital nomads alike work hard to keep their health up and their body fit. If you look and feel great, why not help others learn how you did it?

Location independent jobs in fitness and mental health can be a great way to help others live a healthy lifestyle while keeping your own finances on track.

Health Coach Jobs

Annual Median Pay: $57,295

Virtual assistant jobs can vary from facilitating basic office tasks to managing appointments, copywriting, managing social media accounts, outreach, updating WordPress websites –this one’s a bit of a dog’s breakfast.

The idea is that you’re someone’s “right hand” and help them achieve bigger and better things. Virtual assistant jobs are a really great way to shadow a professional and learn more about the bigger picture of running an online business.

The median pay we found for this one seems a little high, though. I’d estimate the median salary for a virtual assistant job is closer to $35,000 per year.

Virtual Assistant Jobs

Conclusion

As you can see, there’s plenty of legit remote jobs from reputable companies out there and the salaries are quite decent –especially if you’re living abroad where the cost of living is lower.

Do yourself a favor and keep in mind that the best digital nomad jobs are the ones you can do right now, with the least amount of learning curve.

A little learning as you go will help keep things fresh, but we recommend against taking on an entirely new skillset just to get a location independent job at the beginning.

Figuring out how to become a digital nomad, get legitimate location independent jobs, and develop a routine is a lot of work, in and of itself.

New skills can take years to develop; my advice is to take on a location independent job you can handle today, and then learn new skills, over time, on the side.

It’s a less stressful approach, and one that will help you get started right away.

What do you think; did we cover enough bases? Are there any other digital nomad job categories you think we should research for you? Let us know in the comments!