The Buck Doesn’t Stop <i> En Route</i>

If you’re hoping to supplement your travel budget by picking up casual work during your journey, you can find a wealth of information and insights in the seventh edition of Susan Griffith’s “Work Your Way Around the World.” It’s written with the attitude that nothing is impossible, but it includes firsthand accounts of both good and bad experiences.

“Work Your Way Around the World” gives information on both paid and unpaid opportunities, ranging from working on cruise ship crews to picking fruit from France to New Zealand. Other job options include being a ski-tow operator, teaching English, working a passage on a yacht, signing on as a family helper, delivering a car, being a tour guide or volunteering on a conservation project in Latin America.

The book also can help you ascertain if you already have marketable skills that you haven’t considered. A number of travelers found that simply speaking English helped them either earn money or obtain free accommodations and meals.

One traveler earned income listening to Korean businessmen read English novels aloud and correcting their pronunciation, and another created his own small business by setting up an English-immersion social club in Taiwan.

It used to be easy to obtain employment teaching English in Japan. It’s tougher there now, but there are other areas where demand is growing, such as Russia, Eastern European countries, Korea, Thailand and Turkey.

One of the most intriguing aspects of the book is its collection of enterprising ideas that young travelers have conceived to cut their costs or supplement their budgets.

One woman hired a Jeep by the day on a Greek island to take other visitors on local excursions; another traveler learned how to braid hair with beads and earned money at resorts. One took photos of other tourists para-sailing in Corfu, then sold the photos. Another traveler offered to correct the English on museum labels and menus.

Griffith does point out, though, that those who have created opportunities for going into business “often find themselves on the borderline of the law. If you paint the sun setting over a harbor you are an artist; sell that painting to someone who stops to admire it and you may, in law, become a street trader requiring a permit.”

“Work Your Way Around the World” (Peterson’s Guides, $17.95) is available in travel bookstores.

Other titles from Peterson’s Guides include: “1995 Directory of Summer Jobs Abroad,” $14.95, and “1995 Directory of Summer Jobs in Britain,” $15.95.