We had a few people raise eyebrows when we said we were leaving our jobs to hit the road. There are of course a bunch of people who plan long in advance of taking off on life affirming adventures – we did not fall into this category.
A few months into our first season on the road, we celebrated (in a train station car park in Switzerland) a year of dating. So you can see, there was very little consideration that went into jumping in a van and heading to the hills.
How Did We Earn A Living on The Road?
James’s Job
James was a plumber. He embarked on this first trip with the idea that he would find a new vocation, one that didn’t involve getting a regular face full of other people’s faecal matter and gave him a better chance of advancing in years without arthritic hands and crippling back pain.
He achieved that – he knew what he wanted – to give himself a time buffer to work that all out. He saved up. That simple. Nothing complicated, just worked hard and made some sacrifices.
The weird thing is, he misses plumbing a bit. Not enough to start filling his diary with bathroom remodels but he does miss elements of it – you would if you’d spent your entire working life in the same job right?!
My Job
I’ve been a freelancer for well over a decade now so adjusting to not working from a desk is not something I struggled with but I wanted a change in direction too – something more suited to life on the road. Completely by accident, in that first season, I ended up with a seasonal job (as well as retaining some old clients that I will no doubt work with until the end of time) that fit that remit perfectly – the digital editor of a well known ski magazine. It was brilliant and saw James and I hoofing it across Europe to park the motorhome in a car park in the gorgeous town of Galtür, Austria for a major industry event that will go down as one of the lasting memories of that trip. The Annual Ski Test.
As well as daily updates to the ski website, I managed several events remotely during the season (to this day I still don’t quite know how I managed to run a major event at the NEC in Birmingham from Vaujany Aire) and I even managed to persuade a client to join us in Italy for a ‘very important meeting’ which took place on a chair lift in San Domenico. That’s how we roll.
My Life Pre #Vanlife
Working on the road
Basically what I’m saying is you can work on the road, sustain an income and be in pursuit of a contented life all at once. That however requires planning and/or experience or balls of steal and zero commitments.
There are loads of ways people continue to earn whilst travelling but it needs real thought before you give up any level of security. Blogging from the road, whilst glamorised by the insta-famous and YouTubers is unbelievably hard work and will not pay for your LPG and your lift passes over night. Things are far harder now for those without EU passports and so you really need to decide where your talents lie. With that in mind, if you already have a plan, here are some tips you might find useful.
Top Tips for Working Whilst on The Road (Digital Nomad Style)
- Be a digital nomad before you leave. If you don’t know if this kind of work suits you, or even how to you personally work with this kind of freedom you could easily screw it up – or spend the same 10 hours a day you do now, in a van, doing the exact same thing but with FOMO that might kill you!
- GET MOTORHOME WIFI. The world is nowhere near as connected as you might think. Unless you want to spend hours every day in cafes and bars, spending more than you are going to earn on cappuccinos and croissants, this is essential. With data packages being a bit of a minefield and a massive data requirement, we would never be without our trusty iBoost. Most places we have stayed we have been able to boost reliable wifi, free of charge to our chalet on wheels. When that’s not possible, having a super speedy onboard wifi system has made life on the road a lot less stressful (and restrictive) than it might be.
- Get a travel buddy who gets it. I’m lucky, James has borne witness to my work life long before we moved into a van so it came as no surprise to him that whether he liked it or not, he was my colleague, water cooler gossip buddy and sub-editor. I still feel frustrated on days when my commitments result in a delay hitting the slopes or I chuck a 1st world strop when I have to deal with some sort of technical gremlin. Occasionally, the internet has a greater hold over us than I’d like to admit
“FFS my friend Sam had 5G in the Kalahari – how have we not got f-ing signal in France???”
- Remember nobody cares about your motorhome challenges. In fact, the less you discuss it, the better. You don’t walk into work and launch into detail about how you flush your toilet or the troubles you have with various domestic issues – now you’re on the road, your colleagues care even less. Partially because they’re secretly envious that you’ve trotted off and they’re still holding the fort – but woe betide you if you don’t deliver as promised. Get your act together and don’t bore them with your stuff.
- Charge everything, at every opportunity you get. I’m already in that mind set as someone who works in the live events industry, but even I’ve been caught out and it’s infuriating. If you’re not on EHU (electric hook up), you may not be able to charge devices, cameras, batteries and gadgets through your wall sockets and that will bite you in the backside when someone phones you and expects your computer to be live at the touch of a button. House-lifers (those who don’t live in a motorhome) have zero concept (or if they do they don’t give a hoot) of real power management – the chances are the worst situation they find themselves in is their phone running out of juice for the 10 minutes they are between 240V holes in the wall. Do not give them an excuse to think you’re incompetent and can’t manage remote working.
- And lastly – be excellent at time management. Otherwise, you’re an idiot in a van, working all the bonkers hours you used to, but with power issues to add to your list of job complaints.
I hope you find this encouraging – with digital skills there is so much you can do to support yourself on the road – and now remote working has become so much the norm, you might not have the battle you once had to convince your boss or client that winter #vanlife won’t interfere with your day to day.
If you’re interested in the cheapest way to do a ski season and what we spent in a season on the road check out these articles:
