So you've decided to bust out of your corporate cubicle and go free agent. Why not go all the way and let your work take you to the islands or another continent at your clients' expense? There are a number of ways to build leisure travel into your solo business. Here are two of them:

If you're looking for a solo business that comes with a lot of travel perks, consider the travel business. Specifically, think about setting yourself up as a home-based travel agent.

Here's how it works: You take a course to learn the basics of being a travel agent. Then you affiliate with a host travel agency as an outside sales rep. You sell travel packages from your home and reap commissions, which you split with the agency, and gratis trips.

In the burgeoning cruise business, there are at least three ways to earn free or very cheap travel as a home-based agent, according to Kelly Monaghan, owner The Intrepid Traveler, a publishing company based in Branford, Connecticut.

• Book a group of cabins, sell them all (typically eight with accommodations for 16) and earn free passage for yourself. Know that once on board, "you're pretty much in charge of the group, whether you want to be or not," warns Monaghan.
• Specialize in one or two cruise lines and try to ingratiate yourself with their sales management. When you reach a certain level of sales with a given cruise line, the regional manager should offer to book you on free familiarization trips.
• "Once you're in business, it's very easy to take seminars where you pay a very modest sum to take a cruise and get some training," says Monaghan. A cruise that normally retails for $2,000 to $3,000 might cost you between $500 and $700.

The key to being a home-based travel agent is to specialize. "Pick something that lights your fire, something where you can add value by virtue of superior knowledge," such as scuba trips or walking tours of England, says Monaghan.

What can home-based travel agents expect to make? Even if you devote yourself to the occupation as your main source of income, it could easily take you a few years to make $25,000 annually. But with sales savvy and hard work, some home-based agents gross $50,000 or even $100,000, according to Monaghan.

Do keep in mind that travel is a service business. "Wait until you get an irate customer calling because the toilet in the condo in Barbados doesn't work," Monaghan cautions. When you get the call, you've got to be prepared to do more than just tell your client to jiggle the handle.

When journalist Josh Landis was considering a contract gig with travel perks, nothing as mundane as a free Caribbean cruise came to mind. Landis took an assignment that most would consider more of a prune than a plum: Senior editor of the Antarctic Sun, the newspaper of the US research station on icebound Antarctica.

For the past two years, Landis has packed a suitcase in early October and flown to Denver for meetings with his client, Raytheon Polar Services Co., which in turn has a contract with the National Science Foundation. From there, Landis and colleagues fly to New Zealand, then on to McMurdo Station on the south polar continent.

Landis and the paper's small staff cover all the offbeat news that's fit to print, from scientific research conducted atop icebergs to human interest. In one recent story, McMurdo inhabitants describe how they become so starved for animal companionship they adopt vermin that reached the research station by stowing away in crates of lettuce.

When February comes around, Landis heads north. "One of the great perks of the job is that you work here for four months and save all your money, then you can go to anyplace in the world," Landis said in an interview over satellite phone. "Last year, I traveled for four months in New Zealand, Australia and Southeast Asia." After that, he returned to New York to freelance for CNNfn and "Good Morning America."

As the four-month Austral summer wears on, Landis and his 700 to 1,000 coworkers at the research station are prone to whopping cases of cabin fever. "You give up a certain amount of independence, because you can't just drive somewhere," he says.

Here are three lessons to be drawn from Landis's experience:

• If your work necessitates travel to remote destinations, negotiate hard to be compensated for your exotic situation, even if you don't see it as a hardship. Ask your client to pay for travel and per diem expenses.
• Shop for benefits that are portable. Make sure your health and life insurance, for example, will be effective wherever in the world your work takes you.
• Plan ahead to ensure that while you're far, far away, you'll be able to stay in touch with your personal and professional networks by phone, email, etc.

By the way, about 100 stalwarts winter over at McMurdo, which requires a virtually irreversible commitment to the ice from March through September. Any volunteers?

• English teacher

• Global business consultant

• Import-export dealer

• Independent photojournalist

• International IT consultant

• Peace Corps volunteer

• Translator

• Wilderness tour leader

• Home-Based Travel Agent: How to Cash in on the Exciting New World of Travel Marketing by Kelly Monaghan

• How to Fly Around the World Almost for Free As an Air Courier by William Halken

• Home Away From Home: Turning Your International Relocation into a Lifetime Enhancement by Beverly D. Roman

• Global Road Warrior: 85-Country Handbook for the International Business Traveler edited by Joe Reif

• US Expatriate Handbook Guide to Living and Working Abroad by John W. Adams

• Dos and Taboos Around the World for Women in Business edited by Roger E. Axtell