How to Find a Yoga Teaching Job Abroad

When mindlessly scrolling through Instagram, you find yourself stopping to stare at the international yoga instructor who’s posing beautifully in front of a glowing beach sunset. You then go to her Instagram account to check out more of her pictures.

She seemingly has it all; practices yoga on the beach, drinks green smoothies, shops at artisanal markets and sneaks in time to surf between everything else. You begin to think to yourself, “I want to do that too…”

But where do you start?

Becoming a certified yoga instructor is becoming quite popular. 15,000+ people become yoga teachers each year. Studios are popping up all over the place.

Going abroad to teach is a great way to gain experience and can be an extremely enriching life experience how it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. Most places simply require a 200-hour certification at an accredited school.

Before traveling and teaching oversees make sure you have the following:

• Travel yoga mat –  We recommend the YOGO
• Carry-on size backpack – not required (but highly recommended)
• Your own yoga website – helps secure paid teaching gigs around the world
• Start building your email list:
  • Sendfox – the most basic email marketing tool and has a free option. Sendfox is great for Karma businesses — it is simple but you may outgrow it 🙂 
  • ActiveCampaign – this is the tool we recommend for any yoga teacher who wants to earn an income from their yoga/wellness business. It’s very easy to use and they have great features to help automate your email marketing efforts. They offer a free trial and it starts at only $29/month after that. ConvertKit is another popular option with a free tier for up to 1,000 subscribers.

Before we get started, it’s important to say finding good yoga instructor jobs abroad can be tricky. There are many opportunities but they can range from a simple work trade arrangement or a highly paid resort or cruise ship gig.

Make sure you take this job search process seriously. If you follow the necessary steps, I have no doubt that you’ll find several yoga teacher jobs abroad that work for you.

Pin me? Then keep reading 🙂

To help you get one step closer to your dreams, we’ve put together 10 tips on how to find a yoga teaching job abroad!

1) Find your niche as a yoga teacher

The market for teaching yoga is becoming more saturated everyday. This fact alone makes it increasingly important to find your niche as a yoga instructor.

Are you great with kids? The elderly? Maybe you’re bilingual and can teach in more than one language. Whatever it is, find what makes your offering unique to set yourself apart from the rest.

Here are “100 Yoga Niche Ideas” to get you started

2) Sign up for YogaTrade (or similar)

YogaTrade is an online yoga community dedicated to connecting students and teachers around the globe for work trade and job opportunities. Studios from all over the world post their opportunities for you to browse through after you become a member.

Learn more about Yoga Trade in our recent interview with the founder – Erica Hartnick.

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Becoming a member is extremely reasonable – just $13 a year. It has a pretty sizable list of jobs both paid and unpaid (volunteer or exchange). You simply type in your desired destination in the search box and a whole list of international opportunities are at the touch of your fingertips.

Create a profile for additional interaction within the community. Also – if you’re a writer, they accept posts on all sorts of topics related to yoga, health and well-being to further promote your personal brand.

Additional websites to find yoga jobs

• YogaTravelJobs.com – just got their site redone, worth checking out!
• Workaway.info – not yoga specific. Labor + Language immersion is common
• HelpX.net – offers all kinds of work exchanges, not only yoga jobs
• YogaFinder.com – yoga jobs and yoga studios for sale (mostly USA)

3) Create an online presence

For better or for worse, we live in a technologically dependent advanced  society. This brings about many benefits, however, it also means if you don’t have an online presence you don’t exist.

Showing a potential employer that you already have a following online (big or small) goes a long way in building trust. If two yoga teachers have the same experience, the one with the better online presence will get the job.

This includes BOTH a Social Media presence AND a website.

Before you get nervous about creating a yoga website, don’t worry, we created a free video training to create your first website. 100% free.

4) Create a yoga teacher resume

Having a yoga resume is another way to stand out from others. Once you create a yoga teacher resume, you can email copies to studios that you’re applying for abroad. This can help you secure a job abroad before you even leave your home country!

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Printing copies isn’t necessary, but could be a good idea if you find yourself walking into studios once you’ve already landed in your destination. In person connection is always more powerful.

5) Hyper focused Google search: “yoga teacher wanted + (location)”

If you have a specification location in mind, try narrowing your search results. For example, lets say you wanted to teach yoga in Bali. You would search “yoga teachers wanted in Bali.”

This works because it will narrow down the search results allowing smaller studios who are looking for a yoga teacher to appear in the search results. “Yoga teacher wanted” or something similar is a common phrase that we notice yoga studios posting for job opportunities.

Compare that to a more general search term like “yoga instructor job vacancies abroad” which wouldn’t be very helpful.

Obviously this only works if you already know where you want to teach yoga abroad.

6) Become the yoga teacher for a hotel/hostel

Because of the growing popularity of yoga, most hotels and resorts are offering yoga classes to their guests.

Benefits of teaching yoga at a hotel or resort

• They often pay more – they have higher margins
• If you do an exchange, you’ll stay in a nice room and eat good food
• Teaching donation classes? High end clients = big tips!

To hit up more hotels in a shorter amount of time, do research online to get contact information and make phone calls and send emails before you start traveling. Oftentimes these hotels call their open teaching positions as a yoga work exchange abroad program.

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7) Assist at a Yoga Retreat (or YTT)

If there is a retreat or YTT happening in an area you’re traveling to, reach out to let them know you’ll be around and can help teach or sub. Often times these positions can pay well!

Building trust with the leader will be crucial in order to be considered for this role. (hint hint: setup your yoga website)

If you find out about the retreat/training far enough in advance – consider finding another teaching gig nearby. That way you can maximize the price of your flight, while learning AND earning more!

Remember to network with the retreat leaders or YTT trainers to see about future opportunities.

Assisting or partnering with a more experience teacher is a great way to learn about the industry. If you’re considering leading retreats but you don’t have much experience, consider assisting on a couple retreats. You can think of it as your “yoga internships abroad.”

8) Donation classes at your hostel

Are you planning to stay at guesthouses/hostels while traveling? Let the owners know you are a yoga instructor and see if they will let you teach yoga classes to their guests. These helps both the hostel and you! Not to mention it’s a great way to meet people in the community.

Here are a couple ideas:

• Offer classes on a donation basis in a community space
• Work exchange – You teach yoga, they give you room/board
• Donation classes on the beach or in the park nearby

9) Networking to find yoga jobs abroad

Chances are, you’ll be finding places to practice as you travel. Be sure to network with studio owners and anyone else who could help you find a local teaching gig. Word of mouth is one of the best ways to lead you to opportunities. Maybe even find a mentor in the industry who can help connect you to more people.

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Social media is also a great resource to help you meet others on a similar path. Check out articles written by fellow international instructors or find them on Instagram.

We recommend the Facebook group Yoga Jobs all Over The World.  You can find yoga teaching jobs (literally) all over the world. 

10) Teach popup workshops

Are you already teaching yoga? Do you have a specific skill/workshop you can teach? Why not reach out to a few yoga studios and pitch your workshop. If you already have a following (website + social), the studio owner will be MUCH more likely to offer you a workshop space.

Inversions, back bending, meditation, pranayama, and astrology workshops all work great! We took a really fun pop-up inversion workshop by Duncan at Zen Yoga Nicaragua.

Limit your downside:

Instead of paying the studio owner $X upfront… Consider doing a “revenue share” with the studio owner. Aka you and the studio owner work out a deal where you share the revenue from each person who signs up. This makes it nearly impossible to lose money + incentivizes the studio owner to help you market the event!

Be sure to download our Beginners Guide to Creating a Yoga Website!

We’re offering this free download so yoga teachers like yourself can understand what it takes to create a website of your own! The guide is free and you can instantly download it to your computer. Join 1,000s of other yoga teachers who already downloaded the guide!

Until next time,

Anne

PS: Do you use Pinterest? Pin me! 🙂