How to Live and Work on the Road - Advice from a Digital Nomad
Read about how you can set up your remote workspace in your home-on-wheels, and what work-life balance looks like on the road.
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📍- Your Mobile Office
If there’s one thing that the time of quarantine has gifted us, it’s the rise of the work-from-home initiative. All over the globe, employers are allowing their employees to punch in from anywhere via telework and it’s opened up a world of possibilities for those who have been handed this opportunity.
Suddenly, full-time travel is no longer limited to the naturally wealthy or reserved for retirement. Every year, more and more people are waking up to the fact that the ability to work from home can actually mean that they can work from anywhere. All of a sudden, we can make our #vanlife dreams a reality even if we still have to earn a weekly paycheck. But while working on the road is definitely feasible, it can be tricky to execute if you’re new to the world of mobile office space.
My husband and I have spent the past year as working, full-time travelers, and we’ve met friends across the country who made us realize how many people desire to take their jobs on the road but just aren’t sure how to begin the process. There's a definite need to educate these aspiring digital nomads on how to live their dreams, and today I’m here to give you a full guide on how to do just that.
Whether you’re interested in the lifestyle of a working wanderer, or have already decided to take the plunge, keep reading to uncover advice from a digital nomad on how to balance remote work and RV life.
Preparing to work from the road
Before you get started on anything else, it would be wise to share your idea with your employer. If you plan to live on the road full-time, it will be pretty hard to hide that from your boss for very long. And why would you want to? Sharing photos and stories of your travels with your coworkers is a fun way to engage and connect with your work team.
As a freelance writer, I don’t have a boss to report to who needed to be made aware of this change of lifestyle. On the other hand, my husband, Drew, works a more traditional job as a web developer and was able to reassure his employer that he would stick with a traditional work schedule which would ensure our lifestyle wouldn’t interfere with his job performance. He even changed employers while we were living on the road, and was upfront about how we live in every interview he did. He would share it as a “fun fact” about himself and always emphasized that it never interfered with him meeting his deadlines. If anything, I think it made him more memorable to the interviewers!
While not all employers will be supportive of this transition, my anecdotal experience suggests that most of them are. As an aside, while it’s really none of my business, if you’re company rejects the idea entirely, you always possess the power to find a more open-minded company to work for.
So you got the okay from your boss. That’s amazing! Now, let’s discuss what your ideal home-on-wheels looks like. Remember, this space will be both your living space, your vacation space, and your office, so there is a lot to consider.
You will hear a lot of varying opinions on this topic, and to help you get started on what type of home-on-wheels is right for you, I’ve made a helpful guide and quiz that you can take to help narrow down your search. For us, we knew a small Class A motorhome would give us a good balance of spaciousness and drivability, but we spent a ton of time researching RV layouts to pick one that would suit our needs the best.
Drew wanted a permanent table where he could code and sit comfortably. We knew this table needed to be big enough for multiple screens, be near outlets, not be impeded by a constant glare, and have a professional background so that he could take video calls without all of his coworkers seeing me eating cereal in the background. All of this led us to a Forest River, Georgetown. Some people are a lot less picky than us and are fine working with a lap desk or don’t mind having to deconstruct their bed every morning to get to their desk. There is no right answer to which choice will make the best mobile office, but you should start visualizing where you could see yourself working from the road to get a clear picture of what you’re aiming for.
You could even choose a rig like this one from Global Expedition Vehicles that we recently saw at Grand Teton National Park. This off-roading champion can take you anywhere you want!
It’s also important that you buy yourself some mobile-friendly working tools. While working from a sticks-and-bricks home, many people don’t see a problem with using chunky laptops or even occasional desktops for their work. On the road, though, you simply won’t have the space for that. Now is the time to upgrade to some slim and lightweight technology devices that won’t take up a ton of counter space when you are working and can easily be folded and stored out of the way when you are not.
Even for Drew, who relies on using multiple monitors to increase his efficiency with his work, we were able to pair a MacBook with an IPad, and by standing the IPad on a Hoverbar Duo Tablet Stand, we were able to give him a dual monitor that easily folds away when not in use.
Of course, digital nomads are not known to have a ton of possessions, but if you’re going to tackle the challenge of working on the road then you deserve a few treats to make the experience more comfortable. Odds are that you will be spending a lot of time at a table and chair setup that wasn’t truly designed for extended sits. Invest in some sort of lumbar support, whether it be a seat cushion or an addition to the backrest of your chair. A quality wrist pad can also do wonders in preventing tension in your arms.
For Drew and I, it was essential that we each purchased a set of wireless earbuds to ensure that our separate meetings didn’t distract the other person from their work. After all, if you’re traveling with a spouse, it is likely that you will be sharing your office space with them!
Additionally, while it is likely that you won’t use it very often, I still think it’s a great idea to invest in some sort of foldable, outdoor table that will give you the flexibility to take your work outside. There is nothing that screams vanlife more than kicking back in the woods and breathing the fresh mountain air, while getting paid at the same time. Even the occasional opportunity to make this fantasy a reality will be worth the investment.
As I said, it’s a rarity that we actually set up our outdoor office. In my opinion, these times are such a treat that it’s worth lugging this little table around with us.
The question that we have heard most frequently throughout our travels is “what do you do for the internet?”. It’s a bummer that today’s technology could use some improvement on this front, but there are still some pretty viable options nonetheless.
Drew and I use a hotspot from the Calyx Institute for the vast majority of our internet needs. The Calyx Institute is a little-known secret in the digital nomad community. Essentially, they are a non-profit organization that is dedicated to providing low-cost, un-throttled, internet. For just $750 a year (and $500 a year every year after that), you will be provided a T-Mobile hotspot with truly un-throttled internet access. And when I say un-throttled, I actually mean it, unlike almost every other mobile internet source that will make you this promise. Since Drew’s work phone runs off of AT&T and my personal line runs off of Verizon, we have additional coverage when we are in a pinch. We pair all of this with our WeBoost Cell Signal Booster which is essentially a powerful antenna that you can attach to your rig which will help you reach cell towers for greater connectivity when you are just out of reach.
When we started our RV journey, Starlink was still geo-locked and couldn’t be used for mobile internet quite yet. Since that time, all of that has changed and Starlink has started offering mobile satellite Internet which is perfect for newly starting digital nomads who don’t mind the hefty startup price. Since we haven’t personally tested out this product, I can’t give you a personal recommendation on it, but everything I’ve heard about it so far has been stellar.
One of the great things about our WeBoost hotspot is that it’s small and easily portable. This makes it possible to work from anywhere, even if your rig doesn’t come along.
Sustaining working on the road
Now that you’re all set up, you’re probably itching to get on the road and start your adventure. We were too! Still, I would caution you that life on the road is a marathon, not a sprint. In order to make this lifestyle sustainable, you’ll need to maintain your traveling stamina and avoid burnout at all costs.
This means that you may not be able to travel as quickly as those lucky few who don’t have full-time jobs. Or perhaps you travel frequently, but your drive time between stops is quite short. This may take some experimentation throughout the first few months, but if you continue to monitor your energy levels, you will strike the right balance eventually. For us, we travel every 7 to 14 days and generally try to stagger stays on the shorter end with ones on the longer side.
Here is Drew at the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone! While we spent two weeks here, we only invested three days to explore the park and used the rest of the time to relax and have quality time in our home.
As you live out your dream, remember to take internet connectivity into consideration when planning your travel stops. While boondocking in national forests can be extremely fun and give you loads of freedom, these more remote destinations tend to be the worst for connecting to the internet. When I am planning our stays, I use the T-Mobile coverage map to get a better picture of what I can expect our internet to be like before we get to a particular destination, so be sure to check the coverage map of your own internet provider in the same way. As full-time workers, we also tend to favor staying at campgrounds that provide WIFI because it gives us a little bit of added security knowing that some sort of internet will be waiting for us.
If all that fails, there’s always a local coffee shop, right? We may or may not have had to resort to that once or twice.
Finally, always remember that digital nomads are entitled to time off just like everybody else. Do not confuse your new sense of freedom with a stress-free vacation. These two scenarios are very different from each other.
Since you will have little to no separation between your workspace and your living space, it is perhaps more important that you cash in those vacation days you have stashed up. Whether you choose to take your home-on-wheels on an off-grid national park stay or you ditch your rig for an all-inclusive resort doesn’t really matter. What matters is that you take the time to disconnect from your job to give yourself the mental space and clarity that will make this lifestyle sustainable and enjoyable for years to come.
We recently went off-grid at the Grand Tetons which was an amazing reset for our brains and souls. On our way out, we drove with the sunrise beside the mountains as they reflected the light.
We hope you enjoyed reading this guide to working and living on the road. If you have any questions, or you have a piece of advice that you think I may have missed, comment down below so that we can help future travelers together!
Thank you for joining us at Discovery Detour, where the destination is always unknown.
