Work From Anywhere Blog: Week 8; New job prep in the Grand Canyon

Last week we spent my second “in between jobs” week in the Grand Canyon. Since I was starting my job on Monday, I also had to navigate the logistics of getting my device and preparing to begin working.

Reunited in time for a Grand Canyon sunset!

This was the best week so far for our RV road trip adventure. Not only did we spend it in the Grand Canyon, but I was off from work AND my Mom and Aunt came to visit. Neither of them had really traveled since the beginning of the pandemic, so after they got their vaccinations, they decided to fly out to Phoenix and visit us at one of the 7 natural wonders of the world. I hadn’t seen my Aunt in over 14 months and my mom since the beginning of the trip. It was awesome to share this experience with them (neither had ever seen the canyon), but also have someone to keep an eye on the girls, so that Kailah and I could spend some dedicated time together.

Mid-hike back up the Bright Angel trail

The week was highlighted by a 6 mile round trip hike into the canyon and back on the Bright Angel trail. As I’m sure you can imagine, this trek definitely requires some physical fitness. It switchbacks down into the steep bank of the canyon, through rock overhangs, getting warmer as you descend (I read that for every thousand feet of descent, you gain 5 degrees Fahrenheit). The views are spectacular and in the spring, the temps are very reasonable. So despite the climb, it’s easily one of the best hiking experiences I’ve had.

In addition to the Bright Angel hike, we also walked the rim trail (which I would recommend for all fitness levels), drove the south rim and took a day trip down to beautiful Sedona, Arizona. I could write about all of these experiences in detail, but since this is a WFA blog, I’ll try and stay focused.

Enjoying the views!

As for work, it was hard for me to believe I’d be starting that following Monday. In order to be ready, I had my new company send my device (computer and docking station) to my sister in law in Washington. We were meeting them on Sunday, after ~15 hours of driving up to Idaho, at an Air BnB in Boise. These are logistics I never thought I would need to stress about. Fortunately, they received the package and remembered to bring it to me.

I also had never started a new job remotely before, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. Normally you show up, someone greets you, you get your badge, get settled into your desk, go to orientation etc.. All I could do was turn on my computer and wait for my first meeting. Fortunately, my new boss sent meetings to my Gmail, so I could at least be prepared for my first few days.

Time alone together for a second GC sunset!

One thing I did want to note for anyone looking to work from the Grand Canyon, is that it’s absolutely possible. During the drive in, we didn’t have any service. But when we arrived at the RV park and campground, I had ~50-100 mbps download speed with Verizon. I could have easily held video calls and managed anything else that I needed to.

Well that’s all for this week. My next post will be all about starting a new remote job on the road and the challenges it brings. Fortunately, we’re renting a house with family (and wifi), so as long as I can hide from the kids, I should have a smooth first week.

Cheers!

Kyle

Office and technical gear links:

HP Monitor

Lepow Monitor

WeBoost Signal Booster

Bose Q35 Headphones

Moonbeam Noise Dampening Curtains

Connection Gear:

30 GB usage Verizon Jetpack MIFI 8800L

30 GB usage 5G MIFI M2100

30 GB usage utilizing my iPhone as a hotspot on the “Get More Unlimited” plan

Current usage trend: 0 GB / work day (No work this week!!!).

Click here for our WFA Gear Page

Work From Anywhere Blog: Week 7; Vacation while traveling and Verizon coverage map failure

Last week was an interesting one because it was my first of two vacation weeks while we’ve been on the road. We also got very lucky with the timing of this first week because we were staying on Lake Powell, in the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, and we barely had any cell service - which would have completely prevented me from working. This week I’m chatting through how we handled both.

Family pic on Lake Powell in the Glen Canyon National Recreation Area

Gloria enjoying a sunset bottle

First and foremost, it was SO NICE to be off of work for the entire week. Since I’ve been working on an east coast schedule, while on the west coast, this usually meant getting up around 5 AM and working in the dark for a couple of hours. I never thought it would actually be nice to be woken up by a toddler again. It was also so much less stressful because Kailah and I didn’t have to work around my meeting schedule (not to mention that I could help Kailah with the girls). Normally, we would discuss my schedule and which meetings I couldn’t afford to have background noise during. She would then take the girls outside, or put on a movie in the back of the RV. Last week we didn’t have to worry about any of that!

Stroller ride before sunset over Lake Powell

The other half of “vacation” on the road is purely psychological. I put the word vacation in quotes because I don’t really like using the word. Mostly because of the traditional connotation it carries with it being “something we do to go somewhere and spend time away from home” - usually to disconnect from the day-to-day and let loose. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this and science shows it is beneficial for all of us, but for Kailah and I, I don’t think it accurately describes what we are trying to accomplish long term. With technology being what it is, we want to free our time and not be limited by the handful of weeks each year that we are allowed to be somewhere other than home. So, when we take time away from work (notice I didn’t use the V word) we try and plan action packed adventures, in our bucket list locations, so that we can experience as much as possible.

That’s where the psychology of this whole cross country RV adventure comes in. Aren’t we already doing that AND working? Whether its my “day job” during the day, or NOE work at night, Kailah and I are VERY busy on the road. We have so much to do on a daily basis, it was very tempting last week to just back fill my additional time with more “stuff”. It took until Monday afternoon, or Tuesday for us to say “STOP”. It was time to literally not work, not plan, not do anything, but enjoy spending time with each other and the girls in the beautiful Glen Canyon NRA.

Lake Powell Resorts and Marinas - Driftwood Lounge (Click on the photo for a direct link to the “Travel Like its 2019” shirts!)

To tie all of this back to WFA…last week we dodged a huge bullet in the form of cell reception. I had originally planned to work from Lake Powell for the entire week, with my previous employer. As fate would have it, I switched jobs and took these two weeks off in between. Not only was the Wi-Fi extremely slow, the cell reception was almost nonexistent. Both of them were around 1.5 mbps download speed, which would not have worked for any video calls and probably wouldn’t have provided enough bandwidth to hold reliable audio calls. Say nothing about managing data and reporting processes virtually (this is the first time that the Verizon coverage map and Outly cross reference has failed us). It would have either been a train wreck of a week, or we would have had to leave our best RV site yet (pictured below). The WFA gods were with us…

Our RV site at Lake Powell Resorts and Marinas

Cheers from the Grand Canyon. I’ve got some special guest visitors with us this week. Can’t wait to share in next week’s post.

Kyle

Office and technical gear links:

HP Monitor

Lepow Monitor

WeBoost Signal Booster

Bose Q35 Headphones

Moonbeam Noise Dampening Curtains

Connection Gear:

30 GB usage Verizon Jetpack MIFI 8800L

30 GB usage 5G MIFI M2100

30 GB usage utilizing my iPhone as a hotspot on the “Get More Unlimited” plan

Current usage trend: 0 GB / work day (We didn’t have reliable enough service).

Click here for our WFA Gear Page

Work From Anywhere Blog: Week 4, coast-to-coast and WFA month in reflection!

We made it across the United States! What a journey it has been – it took us 24 total days, with three remote work weeks, to get here and put down our stakes in Oceanside, San Diego (where I’m currently writing this). I think most people, like us, have dreamed of making this voyage and now we can proudly say we’ve accomplished it. We fully realize that we are fortunate to have this opportunity, especially during times like these, and we are extremely grateful for that.

Reflecting back on this first month of living and working from an RV, I must say that it was more stressful than difficult. I think there is a direct relationship between these two however, as the stress produced a plan that made working easy. I was so worried about the trip having an impact on my job, that I left almost no chance for issues, or problems that couldn’t be solved. I’ve hinted at this plan over my previous posts, talking about how I’ve adjusted to this lifestyle, but this week I want to list them out specifically, so that others can benefit from what has made me successful. I recognize that there are other ways to approach this (and probably cheaper), but my goal was to ensure zero interruptions in my ability to work. I’ll link to all of the products I use at the end of this article.

So here goes…

Consult others: There isn’t much to say here besides the fact that I asked people who have done this before, how they did it and what they used to be successful.

Service and connection: This research was the most important thing that I did when Kailah and I were planning the trip. We would find an RV site we wanted to book, then use the address to enter into Verizon’s coverage map tool. If it was covered by at least 4G LTE (5G is a plus), we would then make the same check over on the Outly website for another resource. By doing this, we were able to make the determination of whether or not we could book that site, so that I would have adequate connectivity.

Cell booster: While I haven’t used it yet, I also took the liberty of purchasing and installing a cell booster from WeBoost. So far, this has been mostly used for peace of mind, as the aforementioned research hasn’t failed us (Remember my goal was to leave no opportunity for failure - this was just an added level of insurance).

My “office”: This was actually my first order of business because I needed to make sure I had a relatively low traffic, low volume area to take calls, focus, etc.. Since we own a class A motorhome, I purchased an 8’ curtain rod and floor-to-ceiling, triple ply curtains (manufactured by Moonbeam) to “seal” off the cockpit of the RV. While this isn’t a tremendous sound barrier, it provides less distractions and a barrier for a very curious three year old. Beyond that, we have a fold out desk that is built into the passenger side of the RV (with 110/120 volt outlets) that I use to support my 27” monitor, laptop, keyboard and mouse. The chair itself is meant to be very comfortable for long rides, so it works really well as an office chair. Is this whole setup “ergonomically” correct? Probably not, but at least I’m comfortable. In addition, I also purchased and brought a portable desk and portable chair (stored under our bed) for a secondary setup location in the back bedroom of the RV. This was probably unnecessary, but I wanted to give myself the flexibility, in case the cockpit office didn’t work out.

My technical gear: Beyond the laptop, keyboard and mouse provided by the company I work for, I also added some additional gear to make working easier. The 27” monitor I use is actually a standard desk monitor from HP , but I also have a Lepow portable monitor, so that I can work in other areas of the RV, if I want (links below). For calls, I use the Bose Q35 noise cancelling headphones. While a bit pricey, these things are incredible and I recommend everyone gets a pair (RV, airplane, home office - you name it). They reduce the extra noise around me for both me AND the listeners on the other end. The only downfall is that they easily pick up voices, which can be a negative when Selima yells from the back of the RV.

Usage calculations: While a quality connection is required, Verizon doesn’t just let you use unlimited data. Even though it says it does. After a certain threshold it throttles (or significantly slows down) your connection. This could be a major issue. So before leaving home I spent days and even weeks tracking how many GB I was using. I tested everything - heavy meeting days, meetings with a large number of participants, pulling large amounts of data - you name it. By doing this, I could order the number of hot spots and appropriate “unlimited” data usage plans from Verizon to fit my needs. (You can check your usage on a PC by typing “data usage” into the windows search bar.).

Backup funds: This one might get overlooked, but it shouldn’t be. We ensured that we had the money set aside to cover a house rental for any week where I didn’t have a quality connection. It essentially takes away any remaining risk I might have because I would have wifi at the rental. (We haven’t had to do this yet).

I hope this gives a glimpse into the planning and preparation that went into making this trip a success. I know from the outside it can sometimes look easy, or that I '“just lucked out”, but that is so far from the truth. We put in countless hours of effort and anxiety and it turned into a pretty damn good result.

Cheers,

Kyle

Office and technical gear links:

HP Monitor

Lepow Monitor

WeBoost Signal Booster

Bose Q35 Headphones

Moonbeam Noise Dampening Curtains

Connection Gear:

30 GB usage Verizon Jetpack MIFI 8800L

30 GB usage 5G MIFI M2100

30 GB usage utilizing my iPhone as a hotspot on the “Get More Unlimited” plan

Current usage trend: 4-5 GB / work day

Click here for our WFA Gear Page