Tag: work

Great Plans & Lost Motivation

Published on by LostViivi36 Comments

I am here again. Maybe I am back, maybe I am not. At least I am trying and that’s the most important thing, right? I wanted to start blogging again by sharing my future travel and blogging plans with you. I just returned from Italy and I am leaving again next week so that alone should tell you that the rest of my year is going to be full of adventures.

Budapest and Something More

So, next week I am flying to Budapest. I will stay there a few days before continuing to Bratislava and Prague by bus. I still haven’t planned the last week of my two weeks adventure in east Europe so if anyone has any recommendations of cities to visit I would be more than happy to hear them. Budapest has been on my “visit as soon as possible” list for some time now so when I got good flight deal there was no way for me to skip this possibility. The other places I am going to visit are just extra thing to make this adventure perfect.

Iceland and NEW YORK

I have wanted to visit Iceland for the longest time but combining it with my first USA trip is like a dream come true. I am going to New York. NEW YORK!! Can you believe that? I surely don’t. My trip happens in November and December. I will be staying almost week in Iceland and after that a few weeks in New York. Once again if you have any recommendations or travel tips for these destinations I would appreciate any help. The trip is going to be even better because I will meet one of my travel blogger friends in Iceland. It’s always so amazing to see someone else who is as passionate as I am about traveling and writing about it.

Copenhagen and Malmö, maybe?

Because I have long free period between this east Europe adventure and my trip to Iceland and USA there is enough space for one more bigger trip. I have been thinking about going to Copenhagen and Malmö. It’s not that expensive from Finland and both of these cities seem interesting. Has anyone visited them? Are they worth of going? Or then if I can get cheap deal I will literally go anywhere. We will see…

Remote Open University

And for those who don’t know yet… I think that I have finally found the right university path for myself! This autumn I will start studying towards creative writing degree in Finnish remote open university. After I have used about three years (if I don’t run out of money first…) to studying I will transfer to “real university” and graduate from there. Then I just have to start looking for interesting master’s degree. For the first time I think that this will be the thing I can study for the next three years or even longer.

Working, working, working…

To live this life style I have decided (paying for open university tuition and traveling too much for my own good…) I have to earn money. Currently I am working on Fiverr and have my main income coming from there. I have also been thinking about finding other freelancer sites like Fiverr to get even more customers. I haven’t yet found way to make money with my blog but I am not even sure if I want.

Plans for my blog

And finally we can talk about some plans for my blog. I am currently trying to make proper time for blogging in my not very busy schedule but I have lost my motivation. I think it must be because so many people are reading what I have to say and it’s stressing me out too much. I will try to return to my two times a week schedule. I have already planned a posts for the next few weeks and I have at least one guest post coming up here in my blog next Wednesday. There is also many travel stories I haven’t yet shared with you so hopefully I will find my motivation and write about them.

Also don’t forget to follow my Instagram, Facebook and Twitter!

Like always all comments are welcome and I would appreciate all travel tips for the destinations I have mentioned. What do people do when they have lost blogging motivation? I truly want to write more but it is just so hard to start…

I hope you are having an amazing day!
With love,

Lost Viivi

Earning Travel Money: Fiverr

Published on by LostViivi5 Comments

“Earning Travel Money: Fiverr” or maybe better said

 

My First Month In Fiverr To Earn Extra Travel Money:
What You Should And Shouldn’t Do…

 

I have been super busy lately and so had hard times having time to write blog posts. I was trying to come up with easy to write post idea when it was standing right in front of me. Big part of my busy schedule has been earning money in Fiverr. If you don’t know what this site is about you will soon find out!

What is Fiverr?

I think we have talked about this before here in my blog but Fiverr is internet site that lets you work as freelancer for anyone wanting to buy your services. Fiverr takes small part of your earnings for providing you the easy way of finding jobs.

What can you do in Fiverr?

Literally anything. I have been doing translation and blog writing but you should decide the jobs depending what you are good at. Give advises, take photographs or teach languages. I have also seen people sending post cards, cursing people or depending to be someone’s boyfriend online. Any gift you have can make money for you in Fiverr.

If you can’t come up with any gig ideas you should look ‘buyer requests’ board where anyone can search workers for their projects. I have found few interesting projects to take part from here so I can totally recommend using it.

My Tips

So now you have been introduced to the amazing world of Fiverr and I bet you want try it too. I mean who wouldn’t? Specially if you are traveller extra money is always handy. I have learned many thing in this short month so I wanted to share them with you. Enjoy this list of things you should and shouldn’t do in Fiverr:

  • Don’t expect someone to hire you just because they contacted you. I have been contacted by many people telling me about their super interesting projects. We have been talking for few days and then they stop answering to my messages. Don’t feel offended they have probably found someone more fitting for their project or someone who is cheaper than you. Or they just decided to not hire anyone.
  • Always answer for everyone. If you don’t answer in your profile “Response Rate” percents are going down. And yes you need to answer even if they say something stupid. And you need to be the one who gets last word in every conversation. For me as quiet Finn this is super hard and sometimes my response bar has been under 50%.
  • If you start to regret promising to do gig just cancel it. Same goes if you realize you can’t do what you have promised. I had one $60 dollars gig that I realized was too big and hard for me to handle. I told to the orderer that it was too much for me and then cancelled the gig. It is easy!
  • Count how long it takes to finish your gig and decide the price with that in your mind. How much is your hourly wage? I decided right away when starting Fiverr that mine would be a little under 10$. When you get better you can decide to get more money per hour.
  • Watch out for cheaters! Some people will try to cheat you and make you work without pay. Be careful and you should be okay
  • Use the ‘holiday’ mode when you are busy. When you are on holiday mode in Fiverr people can’t order from your gigs. Use this when you are too busy to work in Fiverr.
  • Be friendly and always do the works as well as you can. Even if it may seem like few euros gig isn’t worth of doing properly you never know what can come out of that small gig. People tend to first buy small gig and if you do well they will order more. So if take every work seriously there is better change of getting bigger and better paying gigs.

My First Month in Fiverr

So now you may be interested how well have I done in my first month. I have to say I was surprised by the amount of gigs I have done! 13 gigs and earned $200 in my first month. It has taken me approximately 20 hours of work and too many cups of tea.

My first gig was translating product descriptions and made me totally anxious. I know I can write well in Finnish and I know I am fluent in reading English however I had never done any translation work. Surprisingly the client liked my translation. I got four stars out of five (because few compound mistakes with the product names) and new order from them.

After that first gig I have only got five stars out of five stars review and positive feed back out of my translations. Apparently I am quite good at it, who would have guessed! So my first month went mostly doing translations and getting better and quicker at it. In the end of September I saw someone searching for Finnish travel blog writer and I got my first article writing job. And apparently I am quite good at that too!

Right now during my second month I have done more article writing, longer translations and archived level two as seller. So I could say I’m totally hooked to Fiverr.

 

Do you have any experiences from Fiverr? Or other sites like it? I’m always happy to hear your stories and experiences!

So today I had to break off from my Friday posting schedule because we returned from London yesterday. Guess what that means! Next Friday you will get travel diary from my trip to London. If you want to have sneak peek to what I did check out my INSTAGRAM photos.

With love

Viivi Severina

 

Tokyo Ueno Starbucks

Ups and Downs of Hostel Worker

Published on by LostViivi14 Comments

Hello there! I was going to write this article from tent in the middle of forest (with 17 000 other people) but then my unlucky nature took over. I was on summer camp (that will have its own short post later on) but of course I got sick after the first day. So no more camping for me but rather sleeping and super long Netflix marathon…

But now lets go back to today’s topic and the working in hostels subject. If you haven’t yet, go and read the GOOD and the BAD hostel volunteering memories I shared with you earlier this week. And to clear you more about my own hostel experience:

I worked/volunteered almost two months as housekeeper in small Kyoto based hostel. Before that I had volunteered in another hostel in Tokyo but left after my first week because the place was hell. On both times I lived in the hostels and met a lot of amazing people.

So I have perfect and terrible experience as hostel worker. That’s why I wanted to share with you the pros and cons of hostel volunteering I encountered. Despite all the bad points the goods make up for them and in my opinion everyone should try it at least once in their life.

 

The Bad Points:

  • Being on full time work mode. If you live and work in the same hostel, you are always on work mode. Something is dirty and you will clean it. Someone looks lost so you will help them. You will always have your customer service smile on.
  • Being “conned” to work more than promised before hand. If you are not careful and write contract, there is danger of getting used. This happened to me on my first work place. They promised 3 hours of work but I had to stay in the hostel almost 24 hours to wait for people to come and check-in. So be careful out there.
  • Feeling lonely. If you are traveling solo and only volunteer/long time stayer in your hostel, this may become problem. At day time you have your co-workers and other times there are the quests. However when everyone only stays for short times and no one seems to getwhat you are doing, there si no one to talk about your problems.
  • Sharing the room with bunch of strangers. There is a big probability you will sleep in dorm room. Sometimes it’s nice and way to get better picture of your new friends. Usually it gets annoying quickly.  Snoring people, couples having sex, someone packing at night and lights going on at stupid hours. Lets not even talk about trying to be considering and finding your own bed in the darkness.

 

The Good Points:

  • All the amazing people you meet. Every day new people come and go. There is no way you won’t meet new person every evening.
  • All the interesting stories you hear. Living and sharing the place with always changing travelers grants you an unlimited amount of crazy travel stories.
  • Never being alone. Yes, I know one bad point was being lonely BUT you are never alone when staying in hostel. You may feel like there is no people left in this world however that feeling won’t last a long when you hear someone shouting on the corridor or the man in neighboring bed starts snoring. There is always someone near you and for me it was assuring.
  • Learning new languages and skills. Meeting people around the world is useful. More than once someone wanted to teach me their language. And of course you will learn the language that is major in your work place. For me Thai family taught how to make food and German man told me hiking tips for pilgrims. 
  • You will get inspired and bitten by multiple travel bugs. Hearing about unforgettable travel destinations from people who have first hand experience is lethal. There is (at least for me) no way back to your normal life. Your bucketlist will grow and the travel passion get out of hand.
  • Work experience. When you are seeking for real job in the future, volunteering in exotic country will draw attention. You willeem like someone having life experience and depending on the job you are trying to get you have learned womething fitting from your volunteer. It gives you experience of custom service and making the customers happy. Working hard and in team. Coming to quick learner and proving your skills in surviving any work enviroment. You can basically get anything out of your volunteering time if you are good enough at writing the CV.
  • Being the one others admire. I talked about this in my first hostel volunteering memory. When you tell someone staying in the hostel that “yes I just happen to work and live here” they will right away look you differently. Usually your confession will follow a lot of questions from them or just plain comment how they would love to do what you are doing.

 

Have you ever worked or volunteered in hostel? Or would you like to try? I would love to hear more about your stories and experiences about this subject. So don’t be shy and comment below!

I will post again soon so see you then!

With love,

Viivi Severina