The Reality of Working Remotely While Traveling Full-Time

Jacob’s worked remotely for years (pre-COVID), and for a long time our lives looked very different. I’d get up and go to teach at school every day while he stayed home, walked the dogs on his lunch break, and worked in sweatpants. I couldn’t wait to have that kind of flexibility.

Eventually I left teaching and got my first taste of remote work through a hybrid role. I was hooked immediately. As a homebody, there was nothing better than working from home. A few years in, I told my boss that someday, if it was ever possible, I wanted to be fully remote, buy an EarthRoamer, and travel the country.

Not long after, that’s exactly what happened.

Now we both work full-time from the road, and after about a year of figuring it out, here’s what’s we’ve learned.

Noise-canceling headphones are non-negotiable

Working in a small space together means there’s always noise—calls, typing, cooking, opening cabinets. Being able to put in noise-canceling headphones and instantly focus is probably the single most important thing for making this work. Whether we’re in meetings or just trying to get into a flow, it gives each of us our own “space” without actually having space.

If your meeting software allows it, setting up voice isolation or voice detection is also huge. I have mine tuned to pick up only my voice, so even if Jacob’s talking nearby, it doesn’t come through on my calls.

You will know everything about each other’s jobs

There’s no real way around this. Unless you want to wear headphones all day, you’re going to overhear calls, see screens, and pick up on what the other person is working on.

Honestly, it’s been helpful. There have been plenty of times one of us has been able to jump in with an idea or suggestion just because we happened to overhear something.

Reliable internet changes everything

We use Starlink, and it’s the reason this lifestyle works at all for us. Hotspots are fine as a backup, but they’re not something we’d want to rely on for daily video calls or heavier work.

The biggest thing we’ve learned is to think about internet before we park. If we’re tucked deep in trees or down in a canyon, Starlink is not going to work as reliably. If we know we have a big workday ahead, we’re a lot more intentional about choosing open sky over the “perfect” campsite. For us, this is a non-negotiable because we know that if we’re always having internet problems, the working remote element of our jobs might not stick around. 

Where you camp affects your workday more than you think

A lot of campgrounds have mid-day checkout times. That doesn’t really work when you’re in meetings or tied to your laptop. You can’t just shut everything down at 11am and move.

So now, if we’re staying somewhere with a strict checkout, we’ll either leave early before the workday starts and plan ahead and find a place we can work from during the day—something like a park or a good sized pullout.

It adds a layer of logistics, but much easier than a mid-day scramble. 

Time zones will mess with you if you let them

Switching time zones sounds simple until you’re moving often and your work is tied to a specific one.

We’ve gotten pretty strict about how we manage it. I keep multiple clocks on my phone and computer so I can always see both local time and “work time” at a glance. My calendar shows both time zones, and I block off my evenings and early mornings as “non-working hours” so I can clearly see where my actual workday falls no matter where we are.

So far, it’s worked. I haven’t missed a meeting yet—but it’s only because we don’t leave it up to memory.

Space (or lack of it)

Space is one of those things you don’t think about until you’re both on calls at the same time. Jacob always works from the table, it’s just his setup and it works for him. I bounce around more. Sometimes I’m at the table too, but I’ll also take calls from the bed or work outside if the weather’s nice. It helps that I’m flexible, because when one of us has a more important meeting, I’ll just shift into a different spot than the table. It’s not like you suddenly get a ton of space, but even a little separation goes a long way when you’re both trying to focus.

If there’s one thing we’ve learned, it’s that working remotely on the road isn’t just about having a laptop and internet. Once sustainable systems are in place, it starts to feel surprisingly normal.