Staying Connected & Working on the Road

Staying Connected & Working on the Road

In this episode of TravelEssary, we’re diving into one of the most common questions we get: How do you stay connected and work remotely while traveling?

We’re sharing our honest experiences with internet options on the road—what’s worked, what hasn’t, and why Starlink has become a game-changer for us (plus what it costs and what you can expect).

We also chat about different ways people earn money while traveling—think DoorDash, Uber, mobile businesses, work camping, and more. If you’re dreaming about hitting the road but wondering how to make it financially sustainable, this one’s for you.

And of course, we couldn’t forget about public wifi. We talk about where to find reliable connections (hello libraries and coffee shops) and how we make those spots work for us.

To wrap things up, we touch on finding a good work/travel balance—because let’s face it, remote life still needs boundaries—and we give a little teaser for next week’s episode with a guest expert on all things RV gear and essentials.

Transcript

  We're the Essary family and we're exploring America one destination at a time. On this episode of TravelEssary, we are going to give you guys some suggestions on staying connected and working remote. Let's chat.

Welcome and thank you for joining us on this episode as we talk about working remote and staying connected. Now, this is going to lead into a whole bunch of different ideas, tips, and tricks, because not only have we had to do this in some of our past.

Travels, but it's also something that our friends and families have done, . There's just so many different ways that this can be done, and the great thing is because there's so many different ways

it just proves that this can be done because there's so many different ways. No, so it's not one of those simple things where it's like this is the one way, the only way that you can make this work. There are so many different ways I. And we're not just talking about for full-timers like us, we're talking about anyone who travels in general, whether it's a weekend trip or you're doing it long term like we are, these are helpful and useful information.

Yeah. And it doesn't even matter what job that you're trying to do. Either you have an office job and you're traveling and you're having to do something, or you're actually traveling and working at the same time. , Because of the way that the world is right now, there's so many diverse things that you can do remotely.

Mm-hmm. And, you know, majority of the world, it just doesn't work without internet. That is the number one factor in almost anything. . Yeah. You need internet. And there are so many options for people that travel or , work remote. , Even like all over the world, there's people that have different plans that they use. Oh yeah. And they take it all over the world.

Mm-hmm. And it enables them to access the internet where they need to. , There are a lot of options and we looked at all of them pretty extensively and how much they were, and what they offered and what kind of coverage they had before we made a decision and for our family. We ended up going with starlink.

Now, I do suggest that everyone researches the options that are available to them in the areas that they will be in, but for us it was a no-brainer. I mean, it was one of those things where , it really comes down to cost and reliability. Mm-hmm. And as long as those two are giving you the best value, then that's the one that we went to.

No matter where you go, , they have really good coverage, but they're not the only one. And there's other, I. Competitors that are starting to make their way up in the field and really offer really good deals because they're trying to get into this because they understand that so many people are starting to do this.

Honestly, I wish that it would become more competitive because we do pay a hefty monthly fee for that starlink because, you know, what they offer is, in my opinion, so much more. Especially as far as coverage is concerned, right? In North America than anyone else. And so they don't have, the.

Competition to lower those prices. They know what they have and they're getting the money for it, and we pay it because we need it. Well, and you're also paying for the convenience, right? This isn't like a home base where you have fiber coming in, this is something that. No matter where we go, we're gonna have pretty good coverage. Right. So let's tell our listeners a little bit about starlink. Absolutely. Um, 'cause this is what we'll be using. It's what will enable us to continue doing what we're doing, our podcasts and stuff while we're on the road.

They have different options, just like everyone else. There is a mini starlink option, which I think is great for people who don't use a lot of data. They. Maybe just use it for work and not so much streaming. Or for people that like to go hiking through the national parks and they still want access to the internet.

Maybe they're uploading vlogs or something like that. Or maybe just to stay connected to friends and families to say, Hey, we're okay. You know, there's not a lot of cell service in those areas. So there is the mini option. So the mini option you're talking about like a portable one, like you can personally carry.

Mm-hmm. There are a lot of solar batteries that, , can definitely take care of that option. And then for us, we have the big daddy.

We have the one that you set outside and it's a lot bigger. You're not gonna put it in a backpack. And it enables us to have unlimited data, which we've talked about we absolutely need. With all of the travel eary stuff that we do. And having a family of five, we do use a lot of internet. Yeah. With all the devices that we have going not only for our work.

Um, but for the kids' school and, , their job and their progression in life as well. I mean, there's so much that we use, and it doesn't necessarily only have to be on the ground. There are people that mount 'em to their RVs. There's people that mount them to their cars whenever they go camping.

They just, they have like a little mounting bracket that they put on top of their car. Then they do all their camping around it. , So there's so many different ways that you can make it work for your situation regardless whether you're going camping or you're hiking or you're doing the mountain trails where you're just kind of driving off in the middle of nowhere.

Starlink. What we have found through our research is one of the best to get you in it. This isn't a plug for like everyone to go buy starlink. Yeah, we're not affiliate, although I won't complain if they would like to add me as an affiliate, but it is one of those things that we have experienced, this, we have seen, watched.

Listen, red, other people's experience, and they're like this, this is the Mac daddy. Oh yeah. This is the one that will get you what you need in order for you to work live stream. I mean, do whatever you wanna do with it. So starlink is definitely one of those. Kind of premium items that are out there right now.

And a lot of people use it for their residential. And honestly, I can see why even though it is more expensive than most residential plans, because this sucker is nice, it works way better than the highest tiered package that we had in our residential. It worked so much better than that. Like we never have problems with stuff uploading and downloading and whatever it is that we need, and it's been so great and the speeds are phenomenal.

So yeah, we have had really, really great experience with it so far. Of course, we have yet to experience it under trees and coverage. 'cause right now we're in a big, wide open space, but this weekend we'll get to test that out for the first time.

So we'll definitely be sharing in our YouTube video of how well that goes. And so it's not that we haven't had any problems with it. It's all weather dependent. So we did have a storm come through a couple weeks ago. We actually had to move it underneath the rv, which then killed our internet.

But if you're going mobile and you're gonna be out and about, this is definitely the most reliable and we're gonna get into some other ways for internet as well. But this is definitely the most reliable that we've found. Yeah, and as of right now, it is July of 2025. We pay $165 a month for that unlimited.

Roaming package. It also enables us to use the internet while we're going down the road if need be. Mm-hmm. Like I can work on, you know, a vlog or edit a podcast while Jeremy's driving. So that's really nice. What I love for that price to go lower. Absolutely. Will it probably just get more expensive through the years?

Probably. 'cause that's just how life seems to go lately. I believe the mini option is $50 a month. Um, and I don't know if they. That have any other options? Doesn't give either. Yeah. It doesn't give you quite the data package, but. You can carry it. Mm-hmm. And set it up. And that makes it extremely useful.

In every situation where ours is kind of, wherever our RV goes, our our vehicle goes, that's kind of where it's gonna go. And I love the starlink because there's no contract. Right. You pay for your equipment up. Front before it's even delivered. You pay for it upfront and then you can pause it month to month, like so for you that just go out in the summer and you're going out for a couple weeks or maybe a month and you want internet, that mini option that you can get and pause it when you're not using it.

It's really nice. To be able to do something like that. Yeah, not having the contract is definitely a a plus. And then, you know, you only travel during the summer months and that's the only time that you activate it, then you're not paying for it year round one. You're not getting any use out of it. That is a huge plus in my book.

So we use it, and plan on using it for staying connected with our friends and family through of course our social medias. And we are gonna use it for our travel esry. It's what enables us to keep up with our podcast and keep up with our vlogging and do our work. , You know, we do have another way that we plan on staying connected with our listeners.

And if you are on our Patreon and you're a part of our Gold member, we send out handwritten postcards every month. We have a little subscription for people who want to do that, and we send out, um, nice little postcards that we collect during our travel. So that's another way that we like to stay connected with our listeners.

But for those of you that are going full-time, like I cannot. Express enough how important it is to stay connected while you're on the road. Because it's very important to us to stay connected with not only our listeners and the people on our social media, but also our friends and families, and every acquaintance that we make along our adventure and our travels we wanna try to keep those friendships, those acquaintances connected as much as possible.

So staying connected has always been number one on our list and will continue to be number one on our list, social media, phone calls, text messages, the whole nine yards. , Just checking up on them.

Give an encouraging word, say hi, just catch up. Because we definitely don't wanna feel like we're all alone in the world. Whenever we're not all alone in the world where someone out there cares for us, they wanna hear from us. Mm-hmm. They're listening to us, they're watching us. And so we definitely wanna make sure that we stay connected with as many people as possible.

We absolutely encourage anyone who is a full-time traveler to make sure that they, you know, find room in their finances, that they can do some sort of plan that enables them to stay connected. Or if you can't do that, we're gonna share some other ways here in just a minute, but making sure that you stay connected with your friends and family, one for their peace of mind while you're full-time traveling.

Oh, absolutely. I mean, all the horror stories of. They couldn't get ahold of so and so for like a week and a half. Mm-hmm. And they thought the absolute worst because that's where our minds go. And then another reason is for your own mental. Fortitude. Absolutely. Like Jeremy said, it's good to know that you have those connections. It's good for your soul, it's good for your mind, it's good for your heart to keep those connections. And sometimes we make connections while we're on the road and we wanna make sure that, Hey, I've met this really awesome person and I wanna be able to stay connected to them.

So if you are a full-timer, we do highly and greatly encourage you. To make sure that you stay connected you've gotta have that interaction. We as humans are social creatures, and so you have to have that,

so for everyone not traveling in an rv, one of the ways that we stayed connected in the past, and we just did on our little trip to Oklahoma is when you're in a hotel, almost every single hotel that I've ever been at has had free wifi. In fact, I don't think I've. No, we, that one time for your work conference, they wanted to charge us for the wifi.

Yes, yes. It was like $10 a day to use the wifi. Yeah, it was. But other than that, they almost always have a free wifi. It definitely is one of those things that every hotel, motel.

That you go to. Yeah. Even the motels these days , they offer free wifi. It may not be the fastest. Yeah. But they do offer something so you can get on a mobile device or a laptop or something like that.

Mm-hmm. There have been many times when we were traveling, , for instance, what pops into my head is our. Big trip. Our two week trip that we took to Disney World, I think it was in 2016, and we took that trip and every night at the end of the day, I got to the hotel, hooked up to the wifi, and edited and posted the YouTube videos that I made during that day.

That's what I did, and I used it every single night. And so that's really, really nice to have when you're traveling if you wanna stay connected., I will caution everyone though, if you do go to hotels and motels and you're using their wifi for.

Work, specifically work, depending on what company that you're working for, they're gonna want it to be as secure as possible. Some of those hotels and motels are a little sketchy, so just be cautious if you're trying to use their wifi or you're trying to get onto their system, that it's probably not the most secure.

So just be aware of that and . Make the changes that need to be made. So number one, you don't lose your job while you're working remote and that you are safe and secure with your own personal data. So a little information to tag onto that, I don't know if you are aware or not, but a lot of companies, of course now that we're five years after 2020, a lot of companies, , no longer.

Are offering remote or they're becoming super, super strict on it, and it might be because of. You know, situations like what you were just talking about, but now , a lot of them are requiring, permanent addresses for your internet it has to be a permanent home address, right?

In order to work those remote jobs, a lot of them know longer allow the traveling. And working remote at the same time anymore. Yeah. , If they still do allow you to work remote, which is becoming more rare, they're calling those people back into offices. But, um, you have to do it inside your home.

Yeah. With all the it and the data. , They're tracking everything. They're tracking how many keystrokes you make, how many clicks you do, how many cases you work on. , Yeah, we have. Friends and family who do work from home. Right. And , they know when their computer's on, when their computer's off.

Mm-hmm. Like Jeremy said, they know what you're typing, you know, every single thing. So you definitely wouldn't be able to just travel anywhere. You have to do it from your home.

Another great thing is public spaces. The main one that everyone talks about, of course, is always the coffee shops, coffee shops, which is the number one thing that people think about, but the other public spaces that you can go to that I didn't even really think of as far as like open wifi or free wifi that you can either use or get on.

. So like Starbucks local coffee shops. Internet cafes, , those are definitely the number one spots to go to. So public spaces are great for full-time travelers, weekend travelers, it doesn't matter what your travel style is, if you have no other way of connecting.

Then these public spaces are a great way to take advantage of their free wifi. And sometimes you'll find a few places that may charge you a dollar or two for the wifi, but then you can hook up and be there for hours. So it's not a big deal. And like Jeremy said, coffee shops the number one most well-known places, but there are other places as well.

, Libraries a lot of times now offer free wifi. If you're an RV traveler like us, a lot of times if you're staying in a, like a communal high activity type resort or park, there are common spaces will offer wifi.

It doesn't work very well outside of their common spaces, but , they do offer them and sometimes they're slow, but it is another option. Most towns have several spots where there's free wifi and you can get on Google sometimes and look it up. Or you can go ask around at the chamber, the city hall, they'll probably know, Hey, where can I go?

, Sit and use wifi, that's so true, and I really didn't think about it. Until just recently, but going to like event centers mm-hmm.

Or , informational places. Mm-hmm. Usually they have some type of wifi that you can get onto. Yep.

And so if it's not a coffee shop or an internet cafe or, or even a public space. There are a few restaurants out there mm-hmm. That have wifi specifically for their customers and they're gonna have, now it's usually like your bistro style. Yeah. Restaurants, a lot of ours here in our small town, a lot of the bistros offer wifi.

Yeah. Would it be a little weird for you to walk in with a laptop , in a briefcase, in your whole setup? Mm-hmm. And sit down and order like a lasagna. I'm not gonna podcast in there and do your work in there. It probably will be. It's not as, um, comfortable or, you know. Normal to, to do something like that if you were to go to a cafe.

But, uh, there are a few out there that do it. And of course there's always a phone package, so it is probably one of the cheaper options. There are so many out there, I'm not even going to mention any, um, because there's just. There's just so many options of data packages and phone plans and phone companies and what coverage they have and where they offer them.

So that is another option. And you know, some come with hotspots, some come with unlimited data, they all have different coverage. I will just say we just use at and t because. Most of our friends and family all have at and t and where we live locally. It's been great. Now, , when we start traveling in certain parts of America, we may start having some issues, but that ties us back up into our starlink, which enables us to get full coverage all over North America.

And that includes Canada and Mexico too. So, when we do have issues with our phone data, then we have our. Roaming internet that will fill in those gaps.

Phone data. Not always reliable, but it is an option. For, you know, if you're gonna be near major cities, majority of the time, yeah. If you're gonna be on interstates or you're gonna be in the metropolitan areas, you're gonna have coverage. I mean, absolutely it's gonna be 5G or better and it's gonna make your life a whole lot easier trying to navigate or doing work or , looking up places to eat yeah. So let's talk about working remote.

So we are a part again, of a lot of. Pages are full-time RVs or just full-time travelers in general. Maybe not just those that RV and I have discovered so many different ways that people work and travel that I didn't even know, like it didn't even click in my mind. Were options and I'm not, before we go through this little list of what, what we've seen other people do and then share our personal working remote experiences, but I'm not guaranteeing these are like big bucks.

I do believe a lot of them depend on location of whether they're successful or not. And then of course, if it's a very demanding type of job, it may be a long wait list or hard to get into. So just, you know, public service announcement. I'm not saying and encouraging anyone and be like, go do this and travel and live your best life.

I'm saying it is an option that you can look into.

Now we are gonna go into. What kind of jobs you can do remotely or if you contract and go to a certain place for a length of time, or if you're just bouncing from from one city to another. Yeah. I wanna start with the list of things that we have found other travelers that they do.

Sometimes these are. People who full-time travel like us, and these are options that they do or these are people that, Hey, I just wanna take a summer while I'm in between jobs, or you know, before I go from. School to work, and I wanna take some time, but I need to make money while I'm doing it on the road.

And the first thing that I've seen that people do is DoorDash, Instacart, Uber. Like those are like the three main things. Those are the three that are pretty simple, that as long as you have a vehicle mm-hmm. They're pretty simple to do. You're not gonna get rich off of it, but you will make money to survive.

I think, again, how much money you make absolutely depends on the location. , Because if you're in a, oh yeah. Bigger, larger city or a metropolitan area, you might. You might bring in the bucks doing those things. But if you are working more in the role areas or even like really remote areas, you're not gonna, like around here, we don't even have Uber.

Like we don't have Uber, but we do have DoorDash and Instacart. Mm-hmm. And you would be surprised even with the population we have. So give you a quick number, a very rough number, below 30,000. You would believe how many people actually do this for like their full-time job? Mm-hmm.

And they do decent at it. Now they're not gonna get super rich, but it's enough to pay their bills. Or , maybe they have a part-time job and this is their second one. And so they just travel around every once in a while and Yeah. And if you're traveling, they do really good.

On the cheap. Especially, maybe if you're backpacking and you're doing DoorDash jobs or something in between backpacking excursions or people that like to, you know, canoe down a river for a week and do stuff like that. Maybe you're doing it in between excursions. It would more than fund that because you're not gonna be spending a lot of money while you're traveling.

Right. , You won't. Be spending a whole bunch of money trying to go from one spot to another. So, I mean, these are definitely doable and it doesn't matter where you go, they're always set up. Another option is a mobile business.

A mobile business is so many different things. So I've seen people that have, you know, mobile pet walking businesses. Mm-hmm. And they may offer services like nail clippings or pet washes and haircuts, stuff like that. I've seen people who offer mobile mechanic type businesses.

Or maybe car wash or even RV wash and detail type businesses. And they offer their services wherever they go on, like local community Facebook pages. , If they're in an RV park, , they'll get permission and ask the people there if they can post a little flyer while they're there. Something like that.

There are a lot of mobile business options that people do. You know, some people they travel from flea market to flea market and they set up their stalls and then they stay in their rv or even in a hotel so mobile businesses are definitely one of those things that it's kind of up to you at that point how much work that you want to do mm-hmm.

When you're on vacation or traveling. In order for you to make the funds that you wanna make? Yeah. I feel like the most difficult part of a mobile business would be advertising because with like Uber, DoorDash, Instacart, the company advertises right for itself. Everyone knows what they are, and you just get on and they request someone and you accept or you deny that request.

But with a mobile business, like you are your own advertisement, and some places it may be harder to. Get that word of mouth out than others. And I think it would also depend on how long you're gonna stay in a certain area of whether it would be successful or not. Right. Especially whenever no one knows you, and especially if you're going into a rural place, they're all skeptical.

. Other jobs that we have seen people use with traveling are things like traveling nurses. So sometimes they can be stationed somewhere , three months to six months to two months. They have different, um. Terms? Is that what I'm looking?

Yeah. They have different terms. They go from one hospital to the next depending on what that hospital needs at that time. And so, uh, we actually have friends that do this. Mm-hmm. They're traveling nurses, , they're all over the United States. They make really good money doing it, and so they just travel from.

One location to another, they sign a contract, they stay there for whatever their tenure is, and then they move on to the next one. , And then there are other traveling jobs that are like that. , Traveling, labor style jobs, like maybe oil field, oil field's, a big one. , Contractors like, , electricians and, , construction.

Construction, concrete, uh, gas line, right, is another one. Mm-hmm. Uh, pipeline of course. And. They may be stationed in one city, but they're having to travel to another city because they have a contract mm-hmm. With some of these big box offices and they build all of them all over the nation.

So it doesn't matter if you know you're stationed in Texas and they're building one in California, well, hey, guess where you're going? You're going to California to get the job done. Yeah. We have a few friends that do these type of jobs. Yes. And. If they're gone for like six weeks at a time, then they come back for two weeks.

And so that's another way that they're able to travel and see the country. Um, Jeremy's gonna be kind of doing a contracting type job. It, it'll be a little different though, because he'll get to pick his own hours and stuff like that. We'll be talking about that more. Later. Good. I think mostly, again, mostly on our Patreon or our YouTube.

. But, um, his job is what is gonna enable us to work remote on our travel RY and to travel and things like that. And it is a traveling style job. It's a traveling, yes. So we're very excited about that.

. And then there are options like work camping.

Of course work camping is very specifically for RVers. , But you go and you get contracts for three to six months. Yeah. Usually , the vacation season mm-hmm. Is where you're gonna be and they need you to do. All sorts of different work. , And then every park or resort has different requirements for their work campers.

Mm-hmm. , And what they offer, every single one is different. And as long as you come to an agreement with that park, then that is another great option for traveling. No one is going to get rich from work camping. I will tell you that it is not a high paying job. It is something that enables you to travel.

And have a little bit of money for your personal expenses, and that's about it. So if that's all you're doing, then that's fine, but if you're gonna wanna do more than that or need more than that, you'll need to add something on top of your work camping.

, You know, they have amenities and they all need to be maintained. So there might be some maintaining that you have to do, replacing floors, maybe doing a little bit of, of plumbing work. Um, they try to cleaning.

Yeah. Um, working the gates is the number one thing. Number one. I mean, that's what you're gonna be doing is keeping up with their schedule. Who comes in, who leaves, who's all at what spots, that typical type stuff. , Maybe mowing. Here and there. It's not usually a very intensive job for hours and most for eight hours require like 25 hours or so a week.

Yeah. It's, it's pretty much a part-time, but they give you a place to live and they put some money in your pocket. Mm-hmm. So it's definitely one of those things that if you're looking to stay in a specific area for a length of time, , usually three months is their minimum.

, Then. Work camping is definitely an easy route to take. And of course there are online jobs. , Of course there's, if you work for a company, but then there are things people do, like maybe they sell insurance or they are travel planners or things like that. And again, um, you're gonna need a way to stay connected, which goes back to what we talked about in the very beginning.

I like to consider travel Esri, our online job, you know, you do podcasting or maybe you write books or something like that. No matter what it is, you're gonna need to stay connected. You're gonna need access to the internet, which you know, will come around full circle, which is why we have starlink and that enables us to.

Do our jobs. Like even Jeremy with the job he's gonna be having, um, needs internet, for whenever he's on the road. You just can't do anything. You can't stay connected, you can't work remote, hardly can't do any of these things without some form of internet and.

, The world just revolves around it.

And so having some type of data package or something that allows you to stay connective. , As fast as possible, is always gonna be your number one goal, unless you are on one of those vacations, and I suggest taking a vacation every once in a while that's like this. Mm-hmm. You disconnect. Yeah. Nothing, , you have your cell phone that you make phone calls if there's an emergency, but other than that, , there's no apps that you use, there's no data that you're using.

You're not getting online at any point in time, and you just kind of. Detox yourself a little bit. Yeah. From all the, the media.

So balancing that work and travel life is super important. We're gonna be doing that soon and we will keep you guys updated on how well we're able to do that. Yes.. you just have to have that balance because if not, you're gonna stress, you're gonna overemphasize something that probably wasn't that big of a deal with a balance allows you to just have that. Natural flow of life and to be able to breathe every once in a while.

Mm-hmm. I totally agree. So next week we have our first guest on the podcast who is not one of our children 'cause we've had our children before. We are going to be talking about RV Essentials . And must have gear. We're gonna be talking to someone who has owned multiple types of RVs and they do a lot of camping, and we are super excited about that.

So stay tuned.