This essay is based on a conversation with Matthew Boutte, a Georgetown Law School graduate who gave up his legal career to travel and teach. It has been edited for length and clarity. Business Insider verified his education history and income.
In 2013, I graduated from Georgetown Law School and became a lawyer. In 2016, I decided I no longer wanted to practice law and instead could tutor to pay the bills until I figured out what I wanted to do next.
Tutoring took off very quickly. In my hometown of San Luis Obispo, California, I taught math, physics, and statistics for the SATs and other entrance exams for $135 to $155 an hour.
I integrate tutoring into my travels
In June 2017, a friend asked me if I would like to travel to Japan.
At this point, I had been doing all of the tutoring in person and I realized I could do all of the tutoring online and travel longer.
We spent three weeks in Japan. Then we went on to Southeast Asia, where I worked as a tutor the whole time. During this time, my student base grew throughout the United States, including some international students.
I settled into a rhythm of spending three months abroad and three months at home in California. I traveled around Western Europe and traveled through North Africa, South America and Central America until the pandemic hit. By that point, I was already making six figures from tutoring.
I work as a tutor wherever I am. I stay in the same place for a week and choose the hours I want to tutor. The rest of the day I explore the area.
One of my favorite pictures from my travels is of a small village in Guatemala that doesn’t appear on Google Maps. There was good cell reception there, so I put a few appointments in my calendar and connected to my phone’s Wi-Fi hotspot. There’s a picture of me sitting on a chair in the jungle tutoring. That always makes me smile.
Boutte tutors in a remote village in Guatemala Matthew Boutte
The pandemic gave me the chance to try new things
At the beginning of the pandemic, my tutoring was severely curtailed, leaving me with a lot of free time. I decided to teach myself data science.
A family friend’s farm near my hometown was short of staff, so I agreed to help with the coriander harvest for about two and a half weeks. It was very hard work and less financially rewarding, but I have always been fascinated by working in the fields.
Boutte always wanted to experience “the miracle of food” Matthew Boutte
Combining work, life and travel
One dimension of wealth I struggled with was choosing freedom over time. When a student pays me for an hour, that’s money for my time.
It was the same as being a lawyer. The firm I worked at charged me in six-minute increments, which messed up my sense of time. I didn’t like the idea of time having a monetary value.
With my travels and tutoring, I could have concentrated and worked more efficiently at home, but I wanted to combine work, life and travel.
In 2021, I started a new career as a data scientist, working at the intersection of law and data science. But after moving to Chicago, I started getting more and more requests for tutoring. Now most of my students are in high school and I help them take standardized tests for college admissions.
I recently started learning web development; maybe I can find ways to make money from it.
I don’t regret studying law, but I quickly realized that working as a lawyer wasn’t for me.
Looking back, I wish I had tried more things. I know the analogy of sails on a ship: you can’t guarantee the wind will come, but the more sails you set, the better off you are when the wind does come. So, throwing yourself into adventure, taking more risks, and learning new skills are all ways to set more sails.
