Travel Blogs

Working on the Road: The Equipment I Use

Six months ago my family and I sold our house in the UK, gave up our primary income, moved into a camper and in early May, hit the roads of Europe in search of freedom, adventure and hopefully somewhere to start a new life. The question most people ask is: How did you have the guts to do it?

We had the guts because we have the money, and we get the money because we are part of the fortunate ‘the whole world is an office’ generation. If you have the travel bug like me, then boy is this a good generation to be in. Because if you don’t have an unlimited heap of savings earmarked for travel, then it’s always good to have a way to earn a few pennies for food and water while you’re on the road.

I like to see myself as a modern-day female Laurie Lee (As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning), except with an Apple Mac permanently slung over my shoulder instead of a violin. When I need to earn a few pennies, I lay it down on the nearest car bonnet, slab of concrete or table (if I can find such luxury), do my work, send it off and feel relief that next month’s food and shelter bill is paid for.

I work as a freelance writer and graphic designer. Although times are a bit tough at the moment for us freelancers, if you’re happy to live on a frugal budget in order to see the world, it seems you can make enough money to get by.

Get the right equipment

To work on the road you first need the right equipment. In this day-and-age that means internet access. Now, it’s all well and good to say you’ll use public Internet cafes, but let me tell you; when you’re heading down the west side of Spain with a deadline looming, it’s an awful long drive to find life. And when you do find life, you’ll be lucky to find more than a small pueblo without an Internet café. In order to retain my regular customers I knew I had to continue to be reliable, so that they wouldn’t realise I was actually sitting on the beach while we were talking business.

After lots of research into options I eventually opted for a Thrane and Thrane Explorer 500 BGAN (Broadband Global Area Network) terminal after reading that this is what Ewan McGregor & Charley Boorman used on their Long Way Round travels. I figured that if it was good enough for them, it was good enough for me – shame I couldn’t have been sponsored though, as the kit cost me nigh on £2,000. Yes it’s a lot of money, but if you know you have regular customers and the investment is going to pay for itself in the long run, then it’s a must.

If you’re a freelancer, you’ll know that hanging on to your regular clients is imperative, because to have to start from scratch again takes a hell of a lot of work. Once you’ve bought the kit you choose a tariff: pay as you go, inclusive allowance, etc. It is pretty expensive at around $6 per MB, but if you simply use it to send/receive emails and text files via an email client, it’s relatively cheap because most emails are only a few KBs. With my design work I have a system: I send low-res PDFs for proofing via my Explorer and when I know I have a huge final document to send for printing, I make sure I’m near an internet café. If you make it work for you, it can.

Working on the road ultimately gives you real freedom, but it’s not without it’s hiccups. I can’t deny that there haven’t been times when I’ve been screaming blue murder as I try to design a brochure working on the bonnet of my car or trying to write an article cramped in the camper along with my husband, baby and dog because it’s raining outside. But every time I feel despondent I remind myself that instead of sitting in an office looking out of the window daydreaming, I am actually living it.

Where I found my equipment

I spent literally hours trawling the Internet trying to find the best solution for accessing the web on the road and I got lots of ‘sales’ emails from people who didn’t seem to know what they were on about. Eventually I found Matt Walker at Applied Satellite Technology Systems Ltd who answered literally hundreds of probably very annoying questions in an extremely helpful manner. Sorry for the plug, but seriously you will save yourself a lot of pain by heading straight to them.

Subscribe to TravelBlogs Posted by Alice Griffin from Living the Rural Dream on September 4th, 2008 in Articles.
Tags: working on the road