Traveling and living nomadically has been happening for centuries. From the earliest days of humanity, to our 1970's hippy van-loving predecessors traveling has always peaked the human interest. But, with the dawn of the internet and advancements in communication, our ability to work remotely has been redefined. In today's workplace, strong and speedy internet is required for just about everything we do.
Finding good internet is easier in some cities than others, but there are many ways we go about finding and ensuring good work internet through our travels.
Our lifestyle is generally laissez faire, with little to no planning... with one exception... Sabrina and I do a fair amount of planning during the work week to ensure we stop in places with strong connectivity! Working supports our lifestyle and thus, is our first priority! If we can't guarantee connectivity in a location, we won't go there until the weekend.
Internet Options
There are several ways to stay connected, some are better and faster than others.
- Coffee Shops: Our most common method for finding fast and free WiFi is to find a good coffeeshop that offers wifi to its guest. Sabrina and I generally go in, purchase a drink and some food and hang out for a few hours, working. Whenever lunch time comes, we either order more food at the same shop, or pack up and take a work break. If we go back to the coffee shop, we once again order another item and carry on. Depending on where we're at, and the shop itself, WiFi speeds can vary tremendously. We like to get to a shop about 30-45 min before any meeting to setup and test the WiFi speed and reliability.
- Data plans: We LOVE our T-Mobile Unlimited plan, we use it almost every day. We've upgraded it to the One Plus Unlimited International Plan (which allows for unlimited 4G LTE hotspot- plan has been discontinued as of August 2018). The unlimited tethering is crucial to how we work. Currently, no other carrier offers unlimited tethering. In reality, we use several carriers with various different tethering plans for redundancy.
- Public: If there's not a good coffee shop available and we have little to no signal on our phones (rare) we see if we can't get public WiFi at either; a library, community center, or park. It's generally slower than most coffee shops, but we don't have to purchase anything either. We've only had to resort to this one time...
Redundancy
Our work shouldn't be able to tell a difference if we're 10,000 miles away from "home", or sitting in our home office back in Raleigh. It's our responsibility to ensure we keep the same level of productivity standards as we would if we weren't traveling. Having redundant systems helps prevent any issues that might occur.
- Multiple carriers: At any given time, we have 2-3 cell phone data providers with us. At the minimum we have one on GSM towers and another on CDMA, both plans with unlimited data. In the US, we're both towers are used, this maximizes our chance of getting internet, wherever we are! If our T-Mobile phone doesn't get signal, chances are our Verizon phone does (and vice versa). As you can see in the image above, with all three services, you get almost 100% area coverage.
- Multiple WiFi Networks: We like to be in a city, next to several coffee shops, with backup plans in mind if the internet isn't working out.
- On Call: For my work, I do web and mobile application development and also help manage and maintain my client's production servers. This means, I'm on call 24/7 in the event of an outage, crash, or fatal bug! I don't let this stop me from getting out on nights and weekends though. We carry a 2-way satellite transmitter/receiver which allows us to receive text messages anywhere in the world! If my clients text me on the weekend, and I don't have signal, they can rest easy that I'll still receive their message, can respond with acknowledgment and I can reach out to my team to get a fix stated as I get back into town.
You'll see that wherever we are in the world, there's always a way to contact us and we're never too far from high speed connectivity!
Devices
We use a variety of devices to help us maintain connectivity and increase our speeds/reliability while traveling. Most of these devices are used every day!
- weBoost Drive 4G-X OTR: This antenna takes 1 slow bar of signal and turns it into faster 4+ bars! Although we've heard mixed reviews from other Overlanders, we love ours and use it all the time. It doesn't work magic, it's more of a multiplier for signal- if you get 0 signal... you can't multiply anything by 0 and get something better... no signal is no signal, but, if you get one bar on the edge of a park/ town that works but is slow, turn on the booster and you get a few bars that are faster and more reliable!
- Cisco IR829 Router: This nifty router allows us to pop in two SIM cards and it creates a hotspot with the best signal! Paired with the ability to plug in Ethernet devices with POE, this router has become a very helpful piece of technology. Alternatively, you can use the hotspot on your phone, or purchase an older used phone to get mobile WiFi.
- myCharge AdventureUltra: Sometimes, signal isn't the issue, sometimes its battery life... we love working from our hammocks, overlooks, and other places that might be away from the Jeeps inverters. This 13,400 mAh power brick has a built in inverter, so you can plug a 120v device directly into the battery! It recharges my MacBook Pro, giving me ~2x the battery life.
- iPhones & Android Phones: we have about 4 old phones in the Jeep. We use them with various and different SIM cards, allowing us to connect to different towers, carriers and data plans.
Wish List
- Cisco Meraki Z3C: For our purposes, this is essentially an improved, and much simplified IR829! It includes a LTE modem, outputs 802.11 WiFi, Power over Ethernet, and gives Sabrina CVO. I believe this can only take AC power, and only includes one sim card slot, but it's a fraction of a size, uses less power, and is easily managed.
- Redport Halo Long Rage WiFi Extender: Sometimes we're just outside the the reach of good WiFi. Either we're camping and the front office has it, a few hundred feet away, or we're in a parking lot and need to work from the Jeep. The Redport WiFi Extender can extend your reach to those WiFi points and get you connected at a distance. We don't have this device yet, but it's on our wish list!
The Dream
There's one technology that is the holy grail for our lifestyle... affordable Satellite Internet! If the world was covered with mid-speed semi-affordable satellite internet, we would be able to go and work from anywhere! Although satellite internet does exist, it's really expensive and it's really big... it requires a large dish to be mounted to the roof (too big for a Jeep, doable for an RV). From a cost standpoint, the initial investment for the hardware is ~$6.5k for an RVDataSat 840, and an ongoing yearly contract for data starting at $80/month and going up to as high as $409/month. To be honest, $80/month for 1mb/s down and 200 kb/s up isn't too bad, especially if you're making this a lifestyle, but the $6.5k startup hardware cost and the size of the dish are too large for our setup! Alternatively, there are smaller systems, but the data plans go for ~$5/Mb.
Conclusion
Internet and being able to work remotely is what sets us apart from nomads of the past, and overall, we're pretty happy with our internet solutions! They cost a few hundred dollars a month, but that's part of the cost associated with this life style. We rarely have major internet issues, and work continues un-phased as we travel from city to city and park to park!
Got a Better Idea?!
Do you have an idea for better or more reliable internet when traveling? How do you stay connected while on the road?
