Living Your Best Life with Remote Jobs and An RV
Are you dreaming of living a life on the road, working from your RV during the day, and exploring the world during your downtime? You’re not alone. Many people share that desire for adventure, and there are so many RVer influencers that prove it’s possible. But one of the biggest questions can be, “How do I find a job that lets me work 100% remotely from the road?”
Before we went full-time, we wondered the same thing. We wanted jobs we could do from anywhere, with the flexibility to plan travel on our own terms. And we found that there are tons of opportunities for remote work if you know where to look. So today, we’re looking at where to find remote jobs, how to work from your RV, and some pros and cons of working from the road.
How We Got Started Working From Our RV
Our family has been traveling full-time for more than five years. Over the years, we’ve tried a few different things to fund our lifestyle. When we started out, we ran a network marketing business that provided the bulk of our income, and then we transitioned into content creation and partnering with brands to promote the RVing lifestyle. That means we make money by sharing our travel adventures, thanks to a strong social media presence and corporate relationships we’ve worked hard to build.
“That’s great,” you may be thinking, “But what about the rest of us?” If you’re not the kind of person who wants to create content for a living, no worries. There are remote work opportunities for just about any kind of job.
Travel-Friendly Jobs for RVers
In our travels, we’ve had the good fortune to meet people who held a wide variety of jobs that supported their travels. There are jobs across all kinds of industries, skill sets, and levels of experience. You can find work in an area where you’ve already built a career – and you can also find work you can do with little to no previous experience.
Jobs That Require Little Experience
Let’s start with the most accessible jobs. If you’re looking for something with a relatively low barrier of entry, you’ve got options. There are jobs you can do from a computer, gig jobs where you can pick up some money on your own schedule, and jobs you’ll find locally as you travel. Some of the most common jobs in this category are:
- Online Teacher or Tutor: Help students learn subjects you have experience in, from traditional topics like math, science, and writing to more specific skills like coding, foreign languages, or college test prep.
- Customer Service Rep: Work with a larger company to take their customer service calls to help troubleshoot customers’ issues and answer their questions.
- Gig Worker: Sign up for a ride-share service like Uber or Lyft, a grocery or restaurant delivery service like Instacart or GrubHub, or a helper service like Task Rabbit to find jobs wherever you happen to be staying.
- Seasonal Worker: Provide labor for local businesses with busy seasons, like fruit farms, ski resorts, ranches, or national and state parks. These jobs might include harvesting fruits and vegetables, groundskeeping, providing another set of hands during tourist season, or working at a visitor center.
- Campground Staff: Campgrounds and RV resorts often hire RVers on a temporary basis to help keep the camp in good working order. You might help check in campers, coordinate reservations, and keep facilities clean and tidy – and the commute time is effectively zero.
- Waiting Tables or Line Cooking: Locations with a busy tourism season often need additional restaurant staff during certain months of the year. If you have any experience as waitstaff or in a restaurant kitchen, you can almost always find work.
- Virtual Assistant: Provide assistant services online for people who may not need a permanent full-time assistant. For example, you might help one or multiple business owners organize files, keep records, coordinate appointments, manage emails, or make travel arrangements for a certain number of hours a week.
Jobs for Credentialed Fields
In addition, there are specialty jobs you could do if you have (or want to get) the proper training or credentials. Here are a few examples:
- Travel Nurse: Provide nursing skills on a short- or long-term basis at hospitals that need help. If you’re a nurse, these jobs pay well and allow you to move locations with each new temporary job you take on.
- Accountant or Bookkeeper: You could prepare tax returns, keep books for small businesses or work for a corporation in their accounting department.
- Lawyer or Paralegal/Legal Assistant: Law firms deal with a lot of administrative work – reviewing and organizing documents, preparing briefs, writing summaries, researching legal precedents and past cases, and coordinating with clients. Lawyers may need to be licensed in specific states; legal assistants may just need in-house training.
- Travel Lineworker: If you’re a lineworker working for a contractor, you may be required to travel a great deal anyway – which is the perfect excuse to hit the road in an RV.
Traditional Office Jobs with Remote Work Policies
And finally, if the job you do know is on a computer, you can pretty much do that from anywhere as long as your company agrees. Whether you’re in project management, recruiting, creative, sales, accounts, strategy, HR, marketing, finance, or IT – there are companies you can work for that will let you work remotely.
How to Find Remote Jobs to Do on the Road
Camping and Seasonal Jobs
If you’re interested in finding jobs you can do locally while you travel, there are tons of resources to turn to. To find camping-related jobs, work at state or national parks, or seasonal jobs that are friendly to campers, look at sites like:
- Kamper Jobs
- Escapees RV Club
- Cool Works
- Work at KOA
- Vista Recreation
- Amazon Jobs (Note: Although Amazon discontinued their Camper Force program, they still hire seasonal workers through their main jobs portal.)
"Office" Jobs
If you’ve got traditional office-based skills and you’re looking for a remote job that aligns with your experience, check out job boards like:
Travel Nurse Jobs
If you’re a registered nurse and you’re ready to hit the road and take on short-term nursing contracts all over the country, check out:
Legal Jobs
If you’re a lawyer, attorney, paralegal, or legal assistant and you want to continue working in the legal profession from the road, look at sites like:
Virtual Assistant Jobs
And finally, if you’re looking for work on your own schedule as a virtual assistant, make sure to browse sites like:
How to Set Up a Mobile Workstation
Internet Service
One of the biggest considerations when you’re working from the road is finding good internet service. You’ll want to find one that works well for you and your budget. But keep in mind that it may be difficult to find plans that offer truly unlimited internet service, and there may be times when you’re camping in a place that makes service unreliable. If you need to, you can always go to a coffee shop, a local library, or another local business with WiFi.
Some of the most well-known internet plans among RVers are:
One way to boost the signal of whatever WiFi plan you choose is to get equipment like the Winegard Gateway, which enhances cell signals, improves connectivity, and boosts your WiFi signal to a half-mile range.
Building an RV Office
Another big consideration for working from the road is creating a quiet space to use for an office. I recommend choosing a larger RV, which gives you more options to spread out. You can use your dinette table as a desk, of course. But many fifth-wheel models include built-in desks, bunk rooms with second dinettes, and second bedrooms where you can take a call behind closed doors. And the open space in a toy hauler can easily be customized to make your ideal home office on the road. If you’re working with a smaller RV model or you want a secondary space, look into buying something like a Quick-Set Shelter by Clam to set up outside instead.
Pros and Cons of Remote Working in an RV
Once you have a job you can do remotely, an office setup in your RV, and you’ve driven to some beautiful place away from home, you’re golden. Now the biggest thing you have to do is build the self-discipline to work even when you’re surrounded by natural wonders you want to explore. Living on the road full-time can feel like a constant vacation, and it’s easy to let your boundaries slip a little. One of the hardest things to do is keep a strict work schedule when you want to go outside and explore. I recommend planning your adventures and travel for evenings and weekends, and building in a few breaks during the day to get some fresh air and stretch your legs.
As I mentioned above, another con of working from an RV is connectivity issues. If you have spotty WiFi or a bad cell signal, you might miss important meetings or urgent emails, which can make you look unreliable or unprofessional. Always be sure to check your cellular provider’s coverage maps to ensure your next destination gets coverage. And even then, I would have a Plan B in mind, like knowing where you can find the closest coffee shop with WiFi, just in case.
More Reasons to Have a Remote Job
Honestly, there are more pros than cons when it comes to working remotely from your RV.
You get to enjoy all our world has to offer while you make a good living. You can build a life that fits you and your family’s needs, rather than adhering to the status quo. And if you don’t like your surroundings, you can pack up and go at a moment’s notice. Sick of dreary weather? Head to the beach. Summer weather too hot? The mountains are calling. You can’t put a price on that kind of flexibility.
As a family, we’ve been to more than 35 states, all while Brentt and I have worked full-time. And we still have time to homeschool our kids. We love to set aside time early in the day to focus on school and work, and then explore the surrounding area in the late afternoons and evenings.
It’s been a life-changing experience for our whole family. And we want that for you too – the option to travel, experience the world, and have all your bills and needs covered through a good job. Luckily, if you’re willing to look, we have no doubt you’ll find the perfect remote work option for you.
The Prohas are a family of seven (plus their dog, Helen) who began RVing full-time in 2018. They quit their corporate jobs, sold their newly-built home and 10 acres of land, and hit the road to explore the country together. Now they travel in their Heartland Cyclone 4006. You can find them on Instagram at @ourlifewebuild.
