Ruth that was so thoughtful of you to share. So nice to read the good, the bad and the ugly, kudos to that young couple for telling it how it is and being so candid in their write up. I have to say though that Alaska is probably one of the most trying of all the states we've ever been in to maintain any semblance of (affordably!) a connection both cellular for phone calls even paying a travel plan to our provider and usable internet. I would imagine being on the road workers it's enough to try the patience of a saint or could be the straw that finally broke the camels back up there. Did you pick up on Cheri of Technomadia commenting how her and Chris have restructured their business models from the early days to not be "quite so" shackled one location for internet 24/7 365? Albeit when they need to get some serious work done they do anchor themselves down for a while in one spot.

Kudos to you all that have found that elite balance of embracing travel whilst full time working on the road. I'm not sure we could effectively have achieved that ourselves for the benefits to outweigh the negatives = wish I felt that confidence to have been able to do so as we would have been gone on the road a decade and half plus before we are.

When we first started getting into serious RVing, the only thing available and it was very unstable in the beginning was Pocketmail. Nevertheless, some folks such as, Nick Russell/GypsyJournal built themselves a wonderful business whilst travelling. Whatever the mind can conceive ........

Another decade from now the landscape will look a whole lot different again for communications and affordability of them, but equally it's important for us all to remember that most things have a window of opportunity time frame - ie; TV's, VCR's etc. With Jet.com in the news right now getting promo'd I wonder how that might affect those in the near future that have worked so hard to build a business through affiliate incomes and similar online income generators.

Of course there's no guarantees in life and quite rightly as Ms Snowmad said, not everyone gets to even enjoy a retirement, so if you have the courage/personality to do so, you should always go whilst you can.

It is a very good article and I can tell it speaks from the heart. I suspect Alaska being extra hard prompted it to be written, just because it was the worst case, but you can have these issues in the lower 48.

I can so relate to this blog as I am tied to the desk 5 days a week. I still feel very, very fortunate to have a job that I like, it pays well and we're aggressively saving for retirement. However, that doesn't stop the feelings of wishing I had more free time, wanting to be "out there" more instead of inside at the laptop.

I agree with Bill that Alaska would be extra hard, we've struggled in places to have reasonable connectivity. Even though technology has exploded and it's easier to find good connections, I have seen an explosion of new systems and tools at my job that require connectivity. No longer do I work on my hard drive and then upload, now most of the work is actually done in the online systems. My company has also switched from using conference call lines to using Microsoft Lync for ALL internal conference calls which chews up an amazing amount of bandwidth and marginal connections are worthless. 20 GB used to be plenty, I now leverage my hubby's Grandfathered Verizon unlimited a few days a month just to make the 20 GB last for a month.

We're planning Zion and the Grand Canyon this fall between the summer and winter art shows and I'm already finding connectivity to be a challenge as I research campgrounds. One skill that has definitely improved for me with this life on the road is logistics planning, I'm getting to be a master at it after only 2 years on the road.

Love this life on the road, love being able to work and travel before retirement age, we've had friends say we make it look easy and it's so nice to hear there are other people out there who know it's not as easy and carefree as it looks and sounds.

Hi everyone! Thanks so much for posting our blog, Ruth! I found this because RV-Dreams was sending a bunch of traffic to our site and I wanted to thank whoever it was that shared our article.

We don't have an 8-5 type schedule in the sense of needing to be at a computer specific hours every day like some nomads we know, but we do still have to be online for around the equivalent of a full-time job every week, and as was mentioned above by Ruth, everything has shifted to work needing to be completed online as we do it, not uploaded later, with bandwidth requirements that keep going up and up. We have to use a proxy/VPN, a chat system, and do some video and voice calls over the internet - all of which eats through bandwidth like crazy.

We also have a Verizon unlimited plan that's great for in the lower 48, but hasn't helped us up here where service is super limited. AT&T has been strong in quite a few areas, but we only have 30 GB a month and are going through that like water! We're adding a T-Mobile line for the way back at Chris and Cherie's recommendation after spending some time with them up here, and have a pre-paid Rogers plan too for Canada. It's been a whole lot of a stress, and that definitely inspired me to expose the uglier side of working from the road, since so many make it look so effortless and I believe them to be liars! Canadian wi-fi in BC and YT has been crazy too, in that we had to buy it by the GB in some RV parks and public places, or you were just automatically cut off at a certain data cap in others. I can't wait for the day that this isn't such a big hassle anymore!

When we started full-timing we used to do project-based web design work, and while that meant we could work offline for a while and then seek out a good connection later, it also meant we often had crazy deadlines, changes thrown at us by clients last-minute that affected our travel plans to the point of pulling off the road and having to take care of emergencies right that minute, and a really variable workload from week to week that didn't allow for much planning. I actually prefer having a little less flexibility in where we stay, while knowing that our work will almost always be consistent and we can make plans to take afternoons and weekends off to enjoy this lifestyle we worked so hard for!

I certainly don't recommend this for everyone, least of whom people who get overly stressed by things going wrong, and it's definitely not an option for every profession. If you're able to work around internet issues and look forward to adventures during non-work hours (we often park our rig near decent internet then take our Jeep exploring on afternoons and weekends - more fun than trying to get the RV into crowded places anyway) it can still be worth the added stress. If you're also happy not moving around all the time, it's much easier. We're kind of insane in our wanderlust and do this to ourselves, driving a lot more miles and more frequently than many who work and live nomadically.

Thanks again, and I look forward to participating more on the forums!

Snowmads - welcome to the RV Dreams forum!! I actually found your blog post from a link Technomadia shared, love how we can connect in so many ways.

I appreciate this as well. I'm still kind of a "newbie" at this -- only been f/t for a year -- and I've only been on the east coast so far where Verizon service has been pretty good. But I can certainly relate to this not being a vacation, and the only difference between working in my s&b house and in my rig is the view out the window. But I'm still stuck in front of my laptop for most of the day.

I know I don't have to be, but I'm still having a really hard time breaking myself of the habit of working the same hours as my clients (who are spread out from the UK to CA, so that's pretty much a 12 hour spread!)

Learning to deal with the stress of the unexpected has been the biggest adjustment for me, we were already traveling 25% of the time in our old TT when we decided to FT so we were used to travel days, changing locations frequently, dealing with Internet issues, etc.

However, days like today, when we had to check out of our campground by 2 PM, drop off the RV for a repair where we couldn't leave the fridge on overnight so all the food is in the fridge of our extended stay hotel, checked in, then found out their original promise of a late checkout tomorrow was not going to be honored, Tazzy Kat wasn't a happy pet at that point and was meowing loudly about being removed from her comfort zones, (she's happy in either the truck or 5th wheel, but not so happy about hotels) sent me in a bit of a tailspin, until the RV shop called and said they were ahead of schedule and we'd have our RV back much earlier tomorrow than anticipated. Took a deep breath, realized it's just another little bump in the road and tomorrow's work schedule has just enough flexibility that I can make this work. Next week would have been impossible, we'll be "planting" ourselves in one location for the next month so we can get through another couple of art shows and I can get through the next 2 weeks of really, really long hours that I know are coming.

Combining mobility and work can be tough to balance for sure... 9 years so far, and maybe one day we'll get the hang of it :)

Having firm deadlines, places we have to be and keeping hours was super stressful for us. For my several first years on the road I had a government client that I was on call for every single weekday. When we had to opportunity to adjust, we took it - even if it did mean no to low income during the transition as we built up new income streams.

Remaining adaptable is so key to navigating this stuff.

We were up in Alaska this summer as well, but not in our RV (ours is currently undergoing a major renovation) and we've been traveling by cruise, rail, rental RV and hitching rides with The Snowmads. ;)

We stuck mainly to areas with great AT&T signal, and were able to keep online quite well. But we were mainly 'on vacation' (meaning we only did about 10-15 hr work weeks). We have a lot of catch up now.

Sorry we didn't get to connect in Seattle, Ruth! Hope everything goes smoothly for you.

- Cherie