Travel tutors can earn 6-figure salaries, but at a high personal cost

• Travel teachers can earn six figures a year, but that price tag comes at a personal cost.
• Tutors often have to deal with little or no social life while maintaining professional boundaries.
• They also need to be flexible, accommodating a family’s plans and travel delays.

When a missed flight leaves travel teacher Joanna Dunckley and her client stranded in a hotel, she wastes no time turning the room into a makeshift classroom.

Her job required the most flexibility: some days, she taught math classes on a superyacht. Other days, she turns an ant bite into a science lesson about ant colonies and formic acid.

Dunckley’s role is anything but traditional. For the past 14 years, she has worked with Tutors International, a company that provides private travel tutoring services.

Dunckley’s lessons could take place anywhere—she taught marine biology on yachts in the Mediterranean and covered history while exploring the killing fields of Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

“It’s the best way to teach because you can customize your curriculum,” Dunckley said. “If your student is a golfer, you can tailor all of your physics questions to their relationship with golf.”

Tutors International, a UK-based company that offers these services, advertises positions with salaries ranging from $150,000 to $380,000 annually.

Founder and CEO Adam Caller said this high price is designed to “attract the best from the school system to work one-on-one with a family for several years.”

“We basically get paid like really good lawyers,” said Nathaniel Hannan, who has worked with Tutors International as a travel tutor for 18 years and has lived in 13 different countries.

But the high pay comes with significant caveats, said four current and former journeyman teachers who spoke to Business Insider.

Living someone else’s life means compatibility is key

Travel tutors become an integral and cohesive part of their clients’ worlds, which often means putting their own on hold.

“You’re living their life and making yourself available to their life,” Dunkley said.

Tutors make a lot more than most teachers, but leave their families, friends and lives behind, said Ian Jones, director of education at Britain’s Beacon Education, which offers tutoring positions paying between $117,000 and $150,000 a year.

The close relationship with family is both a challenge and a reward.

“The relationship we develop with those families lasts many years after we finish teaching their child,” said Hannan of Tutors International. “My professional obligations to a family expired four years ago, but I’m happy to fly across an ocean and spend time with them on my own dime.”

Hannan said candidates for Tutors International answer rigorous essay-style questions and undergo interviews before the Caller presents two lists for a client.

In the end, the choice often comes down to which tutor the client connects with best, which Tutors International’s Dunckley compared to matchmaking.

She said that while many guardians may have similar qualifications on paper, their ability to meet the needs of the family is usually the deciding factor.

“One family might want to travel and use the locations as inspiration for learning, and another family needs their child to get into Harvard,” Dunckley said.

The process of matching tutors to families goes beyond academic expertise. Dunckley says guardians and families need to match each other’s personalities and lifestyles.

“You don’t just show up, teach for a few hours and then live your own life,” she said. “You spend time with them in airports and drag luggage through high-stress situations.”

Professionalism is a non-negotiable

Living so closely with the families they mentor presents professional challenges. The caller told BI about a tutor who learned this the hard way after being filmed drunk at a private party.

“You can’t go have a glass of wine with them at the end of the day,” Caller said. “Regardless of how your clients would behave, the teacher shouldn’t have done that, but it’s difficult for a tutor to understand.”

As tutors work and live close to their clients, maintaining boundaries becomes paramount. For Hannan, maintaining a professional distance means adhering to one cardinal rule: not living with clients.

“It’s hard to maintain a professional distance from your student if your bedroom is next to theirs,” Hannan told BI. “You’re there to do a job, and while you might become friendly with the family, you’re not their friend.”

Beacon Education’s Jones told BI about a Canadian family tutor who spent a month in Thailand. While the family stayed at a family home, the guardian arranged accommodation in a separate home.

He said his company guardians usually do not live with the families they work for because the arrangement can become overwhelming. Instead, tutors usually travel with families and stay nearby, but are not responsible for the students’ care.

The meeting takes a break

With constant travel, finding time for love can be difficult.

“That’s probably a big part of why I’m single,” Hannan said of his busy travel schedule over the past 18 years. “That’s something I have to accept if it’s something I want to do for my career. So it’s just par for the course.”

Tutors International’s Dunckley said that being a travel tutor is likely to be very difficult for teachers with “a very close social network” and becomes much less suitable for teachers who want to settle down.

When Dunckley had her baby, residential assignments became difficult.

“It’s possible, but a lot less flexible, once you have a family,” said Dunckley, who filled a two-year role with her husband and child traveling with her.

Dunckley has since stopped traveling tutoring and, after starting a family, has taken on a role as a client account manager with Tutors International from her home in Spain.

It’s not all work and no play

In addition to regular school holidays, teachers also have time off from work to relax and explore the cities they are in.

Dunckley said tutors have to weave their free time wherever they are, even at sea.

“I remember, in Tonga, I took a day off and dropped off the side of the boat in the kayak and disappeared into the day on the island and kind of chilled out with a boat,” Dunckley said. “It won’t be where you can plan to go on the weekend.”

Dunckley also said guardians must learn to balance her time and find hobbies “to do to make sure you’re not hyper-alert all the time.” Dunckley said he relaxed by reading a book or visiting restaurants.

“It’s not good if you’re exhausted and resentful or unhappy,” Dunckley said. “For me, it was just making sure that when I had the time, I made the most of it and didn’t just sit back and stew or worry.”

While the constant travel satisfied Dunckley’s wanderlust, she said the most fulfilling part of her job was being a part of her students’ lives.

“It’s not just educational stuff. There’s also life stuff like changing a car tire, figuring out where you’re going and doing laundry in the middle of nowhere in China,” Dunckley said. “Kids benefit from having someone on their side, building their confidence as role models and mentors.”

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