Wild We Wander: Life on the Road
Posted on 11/27/2017 by Nicholas Jones
GUEST BLOG POST
Hey, everyone! We’re the Champions and we live, work, and play full time in our Airstream, Dot and truck camper, George. This year, we explored the country for over three months all while working full time. Here we will talk about our home, travels, and how we stay connected from the road.
Our Home
We’ve lived in our Airstream Dot for about nine months and it’s been a smooth adjustment for us! Before Dot, we were living in a 200 square foot apartment in New Hampshire. So, moving into the Airstream actually meant more space because the layout is way more efficient than the apartment (and the bathroom is bigger!).
Justin installed this reclaimed-wood wall using peel-and-stick panels from Timber Chic. The natural wood makes our home much more warm and inviting.
We love the versatility of our living room/dining room/office. We usually leave it as a couch for use as a cozy reading nook or during movie nights. It also serves as an extra bed. In about one minute, we can change it to be set up as a dinette where we have comfortably fit four people.
We love to cook and that did not change on the road. We cooked most of our meals either in here, over the campfire, or on our outdoor Coleman stove. We have two burners, a deceptively large fridge, and a convection oven.
Our bed is a cozy oasis! We both fit comfortably. Plus, most of our storage is underneath!
Road Trip Highlights
Earlier this year, we traveled over 10,000 miles in 100 days crossing mountains, beaches, deserts, plains, and everything in between. We visited seven national parks and two national monuments, spent a lot of time in nature, and saw black bears, a grizzly bear, marmots, bison, elk, antelope, and a ram! We experienced our first hail storm in the Tuskegee National Forest in Alabama, hiked through the cool misty Smoky Mountains, danced at a honky tonk in Nashville, sun tanned on the National Gulf Shore in Florida, danced to a brass band in New Orleans, peered across to Mexico at Big Bend National Park in Texas, witnessed the Marfa Lights phenomenon, trekked through the White Sands National Monument in New Mexico, drove up the Pacific Coast Highway and stared in awe at the redwoods, looked out on miles of flat land on the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, jumped into glacier-fed water in Wyoming and dry camped for a week in Grand Teton National Park, drove Iron Mountain Road while towing the Airstream in South Dakota, and hiked ten miles on a hot day through the Badlands. And there was so much more!
We are blessed to live in such a beautiful, diverse, and wild country. We encourage everyone to explore it.
Staying Connected on the Road
We were able to fund our trip across country because Justin did a content marketing workshop tour with Hubspot Academy along the way. He still held the daily responsibilities of his position, so it was imperative we had an internet connection at least five days per week. We used a mifi device connected to our Verizon plan as a wifi hotspot. Wherever there was a Verizon signal, we were able to go online. We had to plan our camp spots around a Verizon signal. For instance, because cell service is spotty, we couldn’t go out into many national forests where we would have been able to find free camping. Something we came to rely on was the WeBoost Drive 4G-X that we hooked up to our truck. When there was a hint of cell service, but not one strong enough to be productive, we could turn on the 4G-X and be able to go about our work. There were a few days we camped in Malibu on the beach along the Pacific Coast Highway (not complaining) and the the only way we could get a signal strong enough for Justin to have his video calls was by having the 4G-X! We are excited to install and use the RV 4G when we go on our next trip early 2018.
Other than finding a signal, working from the road was natural for Justin and me. Justin is inherently more efficient than he is in the office (he likes to say how he can work on his laptop and make coffee at the same time without having to get up!). The flexibility to work in our truck camper or in the Airstream, be outside, or take a walk in a new place during the workday helps us both feel more creative and inspired. We wrote a resource on how to become a “digital nomad,” as we like to call it, that dives into everything you need to know to be a successful remote worker!
Why We Love This Life
Deciding to simplify our life and move into a smaller space has expanded our horizons. We’ve gained so much respect for each other, ourselves, and all living things and have evolved into the humans we want to be. We attribute that to seeing new places, meeting new people, and learning to live in the present moment. When on the road, we often don’t know what the next couple of days holds for us or even where we will park that night, but we know we have each other and our home rolling along behind us. The rest we figure out through a positive attitude and love.
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