This essay is based on a conversation with Matthew Boutte, a Georgetown Law School graduate who gave up a legal career to travel and tutor. It has been edited for length and clarity. Business Insider has verified Boutte's educational background and income.
In 2013, I graduated from Georgetown Law School and became an attorney. In 2016, I decided I no longer wanted to practice law and decided to tutor to make a living until I could decide what I wanted to do next.
My tutoring job took off quickly: I was teaching math, physics, and statistics for the SAT and other entrance exams in my hometown of San Luis Obispo, California, making $135 to $155 an hour.
Tutoring while traveling
In June 2017, a friend invited me to go on a trip to Japan.
At that point, I was doing all my tutoring in person, but I realized I could do all my tutoring online and travel longer periods of time.
We went to Japan for three weeks, then I went to Southeast Asia and continued tutoring there, while my students were spread across the United States, including international students.
I got into a routine of spending three months abroad, three months in California, traveling through Western Europe, bouncing around North Africa, South America, and Central America until the pandemic hit, at which point I was making a six-figure salary tutoring.
I do my tutoring work wherever I am, I settle in to one place for a week and set aside the hours I want to tutor, and the rest of the time I spend exploring.
One of my favorite photos from the trip was of a small village in Guatemala that doesn't show up on Google Maps. I had good cell signal, so I blocked some free time on my calendar and connected to my phone's Wi-Fi hotspot. I also have a photo of me sitting in a chair tutoring in the jungle. It always makes me smile when I look at it.
Matthew Boutte, a tutor in a remote village in Guatemala
The pandemic gave me the opportunity to try something new.
At the beginning of the pandemic, my tutoring work was cut down significantly, so I had a lot of free time, and so I decided to teach myself data science.
A family friend's farm near my hometown was short on manpower, so I volunteered to help harvest coriander for about two and a half weeks. It was hard work and not very financially rewarding, but I'd always been fascinated by the hands-on aspects of agriculture.
Bouté has always wanted to experience the miracle of food.
Interweaving work, life and travel
One aspect of wealth I have struggled with is choosing freedom over time. When students pay me for my time, it's money for my time.
The same thing happened in law practice: the law firm I worked for charged in 6-minute increments, which distorted my understanding of time. I didn't want to think of time as having a monetary value.
I could have travelled and tutored whilst staying focused and working more efficiently at home, but I wanted to combine work, life and travel in a good way.
In 2021, I started a new career as a data scientist, working at the intersection of law and data science. However, after moving to Chicago, I started getting more inquiries about tutoring. Now, most of my students are in high school, and I help them prepare for standardized tests for college admission.
I recently started learning web development and maybe I'll find a way to monetize it.
While I don’t regret going to law school, I quickly realized that practicing law wasn’t for me.
Looking back, I wish I had tried more things. I've heard the analogy of a sail on a ship. You can't guarantee the wind will blow, but if you have lots of sails, you'll have an advantage when the wind does. So going out, taking more risks, and learning new skills are all ways to get more sails.
