Best "Work from home" / "Work from anywhere" job?

In My Humble Opinion
1

My spouse and I travel around quite a bit. We are often in different states for weeks at a time for my work. My wife is looking for work that can be done from home and while on the road.

We are looking into:

Computer programming
Writing children’s books
and…?

We are drawing a blank.

2

I’ve heard of these “work from anywhere” computer programming jobs, but when I’ve looked they’ve seemed awfully hard to find. Everyone I’ve ever met who has been a computer programmer who works remotely has fallen into one of these categories:

  1. Contractor/freelancer. Not necessarily a bad thing, but has all sorts of additional considerations you don’t have as a regular employee.
  2. Someone who worked for a company in the office for some time and then convinced them to let him/her work remotely.
  3. An absolute rock star in a specific field who was so in demand that he/she was able to convince someone to hire him/her remotely.

Do there exist regular full time employee computer programming jobs that let you work remotely and don’t fall into one of those categories? Or related jobs like project management? How do you find them? There are many places around I’d like to live that have low costs of living but abysmal tech job markets.

3

If you have reliable internet access while on the road, and a bachelor’s degree and/or teaching certificate, you could try tutoring via Tutor.COM . You set your hours (more pre-scheduled slots available during US evenings, of course), get paid around $11-12/hr, and your monthly pay is direct deposited to your checking.

I started doing this in 2007, the same time I quit delivering pizza (which became less profitable with the price of gas going to $4/gal). It’s really convenient to be able to finish my moonlighting job, stand up, and just walk to bed. (Rather than drive 25 miles back home at 11pm, only to have to get ready for my day job in a few hours.)

4

That’s interesting about tutor.com. My library uses the service, and I always wondered how it worked.
The proprietor of Kamitori told me he became a sushi chef because it allowed him to work anywhere in the world. He’s been around, too. I’ve always wanted to be a sushi chef. If I were younger, I would do it.

5

Moved to IMHO from Great Debates.

6

Translation work can often be done remotely, as can writing/editing work (for newspapers, magazines, or online versions of same), assuming internet access, if either of those fields work for you.