ETHNOBOTANIST

• The Work: Be like Dennis Alan from The Serpent and the Rainbow and trek to remote jungle outposts on the prowl for medicinal plants, herbal remedies, and other unique characteristics of the local flora. Pick up tips from local shamans; then log research hours in the lab or the herbarium. Or sign on with the USDA, tracing old strains of wheat, corn, and potatoes.
• Time Outside: 20-50 percent.
• Payback: Academics earn $40,000-$100,000 a year. Sign on with a private company like San Francisco-based ShamanBotanicals.com, which collaborates with native healers in 70 countries to develop dietary supplements, and you could bank more.
• Prerequisites: For many nonprofit positions you need only basic botany skills, a valid passport, and a quiver of immunizations. For an advanced degree, check out Tulane University (504-588-5374; www.tulane.edu/~eeob).
• Networking: Log on to the Center for International Ethnomedical Education and Research Web site (www.cieer.org) for a list of training programs and conferences.
• Peon to Pro: There are plenty of able botanists, but few have mastered the "ethno" angle. Stand out among more than 200 American ethnobotanists by building a rapport with healers.
• Drudge Factor: International travel inevitably brings intestinal woes. "Running to the outhouse every ten minutes," says Steve King, vice president of ethnobotany at ShamanBotanicals, "is not a pleasant experience."
• Outlook: The field is well watered by pharmaceutical companies, college course offerings are sprouting like, well, weeds, and following the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity, foreign nations have begun documenting their flora and fauna—good news for ethnobotanists enlisted to help with the inventories.

ARCHAEOLOGIST

• The Work: Tough it out on campus for nine months a year, then morph into Indiana Jones and supervise summertime digs around the world. Or work as a contract archaeologist for a private company or the government, surveying and excavating building sites and federal lands.
• Time Outside: 30 percent.
• Payback: Academics, $35,000-$100,000; contractors, $60,000.
• Prerequisites: A B.A. in archaeology, history, or anthropology for contract work—but you'll need a Ph.D. from a school like the University of Pennsylvania (215-898-7461; www.sas.upenn.edu) for the rest.
• Networking: The Society for American Archaeology (202-789-8200; www.saa.org) posts private and academic job openings.
• Peon to Pro: 15 years to tenured prof or chief investigator.
• Drudge Factor: Think highbrow blue collar: digging with axes.
• Outlook: Jobs are scarce in academia, but the National Historic Preservation Act, a law that requires archaeological surveys be conducted on federal lands before ground can be broken for construction, has created a steady market for contract work.

ODD JOBS
Eight way-out gigs to satisfy the rebel within

Cryptozoologist
Mythical-beast sleuth Loren Coleman, 52, has a job worth envying—the hunter of Bigfoot and the Himalayan yeti treks the backcountry and interviews eyewitnesses. "So many flakes used to contact me about strange sightings," he says, "I had to get an unlisted address."

Truffle Hunter
Tramping through French and Italian forests on the prowl for these underground delicacies can be lonely work—just you, your shovel, and your hypersensitive-snouted pig, to sniff out the fragrant fungi. "It's every man for himself," says Rick Benito, an Atlantan who imports white and black truffles for www.freshcaviar.com. "But first you have to train the hog."

Surf Researcher
Be like University of California wave scientist Bill O'Reilly, 39, whose offshore duties include planting undersea sensors along the southern California coast. Back in his lab, he crunches data to create a surfer's road map to the biggest breakers. Next stop: Hawaii.

Venetian Gondolier
Poling through canals is the easy part. It's landing the job that's a grind: "They pass it down from family to family," says Carlo Santoro of the Italy-America Chamber of Commerce. Those determined to buck centuries of Old World tradition should enroll at Venice's famed Academy of Gondoliering (011-39-041-529-871).

Hurricane Chaser
Get paid to ignore evacuation orders! That's what Lt. Karl Newman does when he straps himself into a turboprop research plane and flies straight into the eye of the storm, bringing first-hand wind and weather data back to the University of Miami meteorological center.

Navy SEAL
In this have-a-nice-day world, you've got to love a place where they answer the phone, "Naval Special Warfare Center, this is a nonsecure line!" Consider it a job for hard-core, hard-body adventurers who are partial to mapping coastal shallows, trekking jungles—and blowing up enemy bridges.

Treehouse Architect
Tap into a soaring market for high-end, high-up forts. Take your cue from Pete Nelson, who runs Seattle's Treehouse Workshop (www.treehouseworkshop.com) and nets $2,000-$20,000 for each treehouse he builds.

Butterfly Ambassador
Wildlife conservation meets international diplomacy: Enlist in the Butterfly Sanctuary Foundation, brainchild of University of Minnesota ecologist Karen Oberhauser, and lobby Mexican officials and villagers to preserve the winter turf of 200 million migrating monarchs. —P.S.

Photo: Louis Psihoyos/Matrix

Reported by Gillian Ashley, Jill Davis, Eric Hansen, Nate Hoogeveen, Joe McCannon, Marc Peruzzi, and Danielle Wolffe. Edited by Katie Arnold.