WORKING ON THE ROAD - THINGS WEâVE LEARNEDÂ (and some other general tips because weâre so obviously experts now)
Pay for unlimited data. You will burn through it very quickly.
Organize your time for offline mode and online mode. If you are moving quickly to a new place almost every day, it is inevitable that you will lose service. Plan for writing or editing in offline mode at these times. You will become desperate for service so you can upload. If you do have service in a certain location, plan to stay for an extra day if you can schedule it so you can crush on some work. Also, plan for every guest wifi to have terrible upload speeds. This affects mostly large photos and videos.Â
It helps to travel with a buddy if you are working the road. Perhaps someone who can do some driving for you while you work with a laptop in the passenger seatâŚas long as you donât get carsick!
If you are blogging or doing photography...adjust to working in the past. You will have a slight delay in your content if you want to be curated and edited. We are always working a few days behind and playing catchup with our blog posts. You want to be able to enjoy what you are seeing and experiencing, but also gathering enough photos to jog your memory once you are ready to write about it.
Spend more time in less places. Donât rush from one to the other unless you have to. We are hustling to get to different cities for craft shows, so we are forced to move quickly on this month long trip. It is exhausting and frustrating, so if you can slow down, DO IT.
Be as open as possible and ready for anything. Use your connections, even the smallest ones. People are surprisingly eager to help. We had no place to park after leaving SF and we reached out to the owner of a company we have been buying ink from for years. It was super last minute but they let us park in their big lot for a night. The next day we got a tour of the factory and enjoyed a special visit that was totally unexpected.Â
Be ready with a plan B, plan C and plan D. Having a plan is great, but loose itineraries with backup plans are so important. For example, a wildfire completely blocks your road and campground plan for a night. Time to reroute and stay somewhere else. Our plan B for this event turned out to be one of the most gorgeous campgrounds weâve ever been to.
Order of operations for finding a place to sleep for the night - SAFETY, then COMFORT, then BEAUTY. It doesnât matter how amazing the view isâŚif you donât feel safe, itâs a no-go for the night.
Donât try to be everything to everybody. You will lose your mind. Only take on projects and events that you can handle. Travel is stressful enough, donât spread yourself too thin with other peopleâs expectations.
If you are traveling for a living and trying to make social media your thing, make it your priority to travel and document. Our priority is to get to shows and keep our artwork safe. If we were only planning to make the trailer our âworkâ it would be a much easier trip.
Meet with friends along the way. It will keep your spirits high. You will start to feel lonely and isolated out on the road. Surrounded either by people or totally nothing for long stretches of time. Having a dog with you helps, but that presents itâs own set of issues.
Leave your pride at home. Life on the road is messy, dirty, stinky. Bring little creature comforts to help (candles, special hand soap, a certain pillowcase, etc), just so youâre able to get real work done. We find it difficult to get anything done when everything is stinky.
Working specifically in the Basecamp
Always plug in your electric to the tow vehicle, it will charge your trailer batteries while you are moving.
If off grid, the AC doesnât work...so find campgrounds with electricity/wifi if youâre in a hot place. You (and your equipment) will be very grateful. Or just donât go to the desert in July!Â
The outlets in the trailer are very convenient and abundant, but they will not work or power a laptop unless you are plugged into an outside source of power. There are USB outlets that will charge phones, but nothing bigger. Maybe we are doing something wrong, but this is what we have found in our four weeks in this trailer.
A place for everything and everything in itâs place. Clean up often. There are lots of surfaces to work on but your food and dishes will start to consume you if you donât upkeep. If you want to keep enough room for whatever work equipment you have, just remember to tidy up. Staying on top of it will help you feel less cramped. There is plenty of room in the Basecamp for all sorts of activities, just one at a time. Try not to spill your coffee on your laptop!
If you are moving quickly from place to place, keep the bed open instead of resetting it to the dinette every day. Work on the bed. While it is pretty easy to do, you will get very tired of setting it up.Â
Finally, donât forget to take a breath and remember how lucky you are to be doing this! Working remote presents challenges, but when you wake up in a different place all the time, you start to realize that you are a part of the world in a very unique and special way. Your perspective can start to shift. You become more empathetic to everyone around you because you have to be in tune to survive. The more people you meet and experiences you have will open your heart and mind. Be mindful of cynicism and stay focused on your tasks and the experience as a whole. Itâs part of your journey. Enjoy it while you can!