Get Online Without Blowing Your Budget

While today's guest blog post isn't about workamping, the information in this post is useful if you're working from your RV. Our guest blogger, Erin Lehn Floresca, is the RV editor for Bella Online and does a lot of writing from the road. Her website includes great RV travelogues and reviews of RV-related books and movies.

Get Online Without Blowing Your Budget

In 2004, my husband and I were new entrepreneurs living and working in our Regal Prowler fifth wheel. That summer, we spent two months as volunteer hosts in Champoeg State Park in Oregon. Soon after making the commitment, we realized that running our business while volunteering was going to be an interesting challenge. We needed to stay connected to our customers and vendors but  our mobile office was archaic by today’s standards. In order to make clear phone calls, we had to drive about eight miles to the nearest town. We couldn’t access the internet either, so we regularly drove to a nearby hotel, sat in our car, and tapped into their free Wi-Fi.

Technology has evolved so much since that summer. I’m thrilled that these advancements have allowed so many of us to continue doing the work that we love while still enjoying our road trip adventures. If we had the same volunteer gig right now, our work life would be a breeze. Although we no longer live full-time in our RV, we still have our business and that means we need a fully functioning mobile office while we are on the road.

If budget were not an issue, we would jump at the chance to have satellite internet. However, budget is a huge concern as it probably is for many other RVers. Here is what we have discovered. The technology you really need depends on how much you are on the road and what your RV lifestyle is like. If you’re a full-timer, but you just travel from RV resort to RV resort, you can probably get away with just having a smartphone and then tap into the resort’s Wi-Fi once you arrive. However, if you plan to visit state parks or other more remote campgrounds you’ll need a smartphone and some other means of getting online access. A mobile broadband card is a great tool to have in your office arsenal. Mobile broadband cards plug into a USB port on your computer and allow internet access through your cell phone carrier. This will typically run about $50 per month which is a reasonable fee if you actually use the service on a regular basis. However, if you fall into the weekend warrior category, then you might want to consider tethering your smartphone. Tethering is the act of using one mobile device, like a smartphone, to supply internet access to another device. There are several companies that provide this service for a nominal fee. The one we have had success with, a BlackBerry^® App called Tether (http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/5022), works with our BlackBerry and costs $50 total. How is that for cost effective? That, in combination with our smartphones and the occasional tapping into Wi-Fi is all we need to keep our mobile office running smoothly at this time.

When in doubt, visit many of the popular RV forums and blogs (like the ones at RV.net) and check what other RVers are doing in regards to technology. These folks have already done a lot of the research for you and are happy to share their advice.

May we all enjoy safe and super fantastic journeys!

Guest Blogger Erin Lehn Floresca is the RV editor at BellaOnline.com. Visit rv.bellaonline.com for more information.