In books and movies, it’s perfectly possible to drop everything and spend six months in Fiji at the slightest whim. But few of us have the mysterious inheritances, lottery winnings or other means to travel at the drop of the hat. Most of us rely on some kind of work to finance our expeditions.

I’ve been asked whether it’s possible to travel for months at a time without having to work. My first instinct is to say no, but that’s not entirely true. If you can create passive income streams you can minimize the amount of work you have to do to pay for your lifestyle.

There are a variety of ways to earn passive income, but they pretty much all amount to investing either time or money and living off the resulting income. For instance, you might buy a house and rent it out. The rent you receive each month is passive income. Or you might set up a website and sell advertising on it. Your advertising revenues would be passive income, as well — as long as you don’t have to update the website on a regular basis.

Of course, most passive income requires at least a little work. With a rental property, you have to find tenants and arrange for maintenance. With a website, you might have to bill advertisers or update the site occasionally.

So, yes, it is possible to travel without working — but you have to have access to the time necessary to create a good website or the money to purchase a house. It can be worthwhile to build passive income streams, but it can be a lot of effort. And in order to make enough to cover all your expenses, you’ll probably need more than one house or website.