How to Make Working While Camping a Blissful Experience | Ep 26

Working from the RV

If there’s one thing a post-covid world has provided many RVers, it’s been the ability to work from home, which, in most cases, means the flexibility to work from your home on wheels. And, while no one can predict how things will shakedown over the long-term, the mass vaccinations which are currently underway do signal a light at the end of the tunnel which may mean the loosening of restrictions sooner rather than later.

That might mean you want to travel further afield this summer and do some work from a different location. After staying safe and staying home, no doubt this will be a welcome prospect for many people, since you can get the benefit of greener pastures in an environment that still makes physical distancing easy.

Unfortunately, this isn’t always the easiest (or the cheapest) to do in most of Canada. So, on today’s episode we’re doing to detail some of the challenges of working remotely whether in Canada or the United States and we’ll go over some best practices to solve those issues, and how to do great work while you have the family in tight quarters.

So let’s start with Coverage.

Cell Phones are Expensive in Canada

This is an unfortunate fact of living in a country of only 39 million people spread over 9.985 million square KM. Our family pays approximately $400 for the joy of sharing data between us – and let me tell you – that data can get eaten up quickly when your family is desperate to live-stream the NHL playoffs from a Provincial Park in the middle of July.

In fact, our initial podcast was uploaded via hotspot from Melina’s phone, and it took 45 minutes to get the job done. Not exactly conducive to a great work environment. So, what can you do?

How to Get Coverage

Adjust your location

• Stay at an RV park or RV resort that has guest wifi
• Travel off-location to a coffee shop, etc. while you have critical business to do. (Plus you get to enjoy Starbucks!)

Adjust your equipment

• Hotspot off your phone (You may need a cell signal booster)
• Install a WIFI Booster inside your trailer if a park has wifi
• Get some kind of MiFi service that converts Data into WIFI that multiple devices can tap into.
  • Shark WIFI is a Canadian Leader in this and they have seasonal packages which will give you signal for several months – packages from 5G to 50G (we are not affiliated with Shark at all, but just think it’s a great solution for seasonal campers)

Staying Connected Across the Border

• For Canadians Traveling Stateside, since 2017 at least, cellphones cannot be locked to a specific carrier, so the options open up a little bit, in terms of being able to purchase a pre-paid sim card in the states but there are a few challenges:
  1. The cost of pre-paid is usually at a premium
  2. Amount of Data you might get
  3. Some carriers don’t allow you to top up
  4. You will have a new phone number for your phone while in the states so you will need to provide it to any contacts you have
• WIFI Booster
• Travel plan from your Canadian Carrier. Most of them are $7/day But that’s per phone – so, for a family of four for 2 weeks, that’s $392.

This is the option we use in our family, however we don’t run all four phones the entire time. As a default we keep Melina’s phone connected to data, in order to use Google maps, or receive emergency calls, and Dan’s phone is generally powered down.

The girls use their allowance to cover their data and are each responsible for determining how many days they would like to use their phone. We are huge fans of this, as it teaches them the value of the plan, how to budget their usage to what they can afford, and teaches them the upside of disconnecting. To date, in the weeks we’ve spent on the road, neither girl has chosen to invest more than three days worth of data usage – it has made them superstars at finding free WIFI though!!

Working Successfully While on the Road

• “Ugh – you have ANOTHER CALL? But we’re ON Vacation!!”

We hear this a lot, and one of the dangers of working on the road is that you can get caught up in the loop where it’s easier to hop on a quick call or reply to an email to save time later – but I can’t stress this enough – you have to respect the family time you are giving your kids. Period. Of course emergencies crop up, but every day can’t be a work day.

• Deactivate work notifications when you’re not at work so you’re not tempted.

• Get a site close to, or within sight of a playground or sports field. If the kids are old enough, they have somewhere safe to play while you’re working and you can still keep an eye on them. This might mean you don’t have the most private site, but you can do that on your work week and then move to another park when you’re not at work.

• Set work hours and Stick to them!! This is not only for your family, but you need this to be on point and doing your best work. Use Tools to help you. I use Trello and not only do I make a daily list, but I also set a time limit to it – keeps me from getting distracted. (Finish Blog Post – 2 hours, etc)
• Try to pre-schedule calls so you can be in a place free from distractions – lay out the expectation that if parent A is on a Call the Kids go do something with Parent B – or Parent A can take the vehicle somewhere else
• Make the most of your Travel Days. If you’re hanging in the passenger seat – joining a conference call. Catch up on emails, give yourself a voice memo. Listen to an industry podcast for Professional development. There’s a ton you can do in a 5 hour travel day that makes it feel like you have true downtime when you get where you’re going. (Our kids have listened to so many conference calls they know every piece of corporate jargon there is – like “Let’s take this offline. How about we circle back on that.”)
• Create a ritual for the end of the workday – Go for a walk around the camping loop. Go for a drive and get a coffee. Manufacture a commute that lets you decompress.