Working From Home In A Recreational Vehicle

Working from home can even take the form of working from an RV.

Joyce Gioia and Roger Herman are married and also business partners. They found that they really didn’t need to rent an office or even BE in any particular location as long as they could have access to email. Here’s part of their story as told in Start Up Journal…

The living room in the coach doubles as our office. It came equipped with one computer desk and we chose to get a second computer table which we rarely use because it turned out you’d have to sit on two phone books in the RV’s recliner to use it. We have a printer-scanner-fax machine in the cabinet above the computer desk and two filing cabinets. One is built into the computer desk and another we recently added to the coach. And we have a lot of storage underneath the cabin to store the extra books we take with us on the road.

If Roger’s on the phone and being loud and I’m on the phone needing to hear myself think I can go into the bedroom. Our high-speed Internet access works as well there as in the living room.

We have a few challenges that we deal with regularly, like finding wireless high-speed Internet access on the road, but we have some tactics that we have learned work. I remember one snowy night in particular when we pulled up behind a Kinko’s about one o’clock in the morning. The Kinkos was closed and there was a snowstorm coming, but we were able to sit in the parking lot and send emails and get our work done using Kinko’s Wi-Fi connection. We have also done that with Starbucks when they were closed. We also have a broadband card from Verizon that allows us to be online while we’re driving down the road, as long as we’re on major highways.

The biggest challenge that we face is cellphone coverage — given the amount that we use telephones to communicate it’s absolutely vital that we have really good coverage. That’s why our next acquisition will be an antenna which, together with an amplifier, will allows us to have better cellphone coverage in the coach.

One of our favorite things is to invite clients in for breakfast. I buy some cinnamon rolls and bake them in the conventional oven on board. So when they come in, they’re greeted by the scent of baking cinnamon rolls. It’s just very pleasant to sit with a client and have breakfast together. Then we’ll go to their offices and work with them. Or we’ll move the table aside and have the entire living room area where we sit and work. It’s a rolling conference room.

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