Ever since I started working from home in 2010, I have dreamed of the possibility of taking that work on the road. Jennifer started homeschooling the kids when Evie was four years old, and we haven’t looked back. This choice left the opportunity of taking schooling on the road as well.
Despite these apparent flexibilities, there were a few barriers to making this dream happen: although my work was primarily done from home, I would often travel to customer sites and would therefore need to be near a major airport. In addition I didn’t want to leave the family behind in some strange remote place while going off for a week at a time to work.
In 2014 some good friends of ours bequeathed an aged pop up camper to us. Although it required work and was nearly 25 years old, our family really enjoyed getting out in it and camping. Since we used it so often we felt justified in getting an upgrade and in 2018 we bought a nearly new larger pop-up camper. We used this camper 12 times the first year. It rained on us every time. (We laughingly warn friends who camp with us: You know it WILL rain on you if you camp with us!) Last year we took it for the longest trip yet: we spent two weeks in Colorado traveling around the southern and western portion of the state, staying in state parks and dispersed camping (Boondocking).
In late 2020, after months of pandemic lockdowns, my company announced that no travel would be required of us until July. This got both Jennifer and me thinking: Might this be a good time to fulfill our dream of road schooling? We brushed off the thought for several months, but early in the year started talking about it again. Our pop-up camper was great for us camping as a family, but if I was going to work while traveling I would need to have a dedicated office. So we started looking at used campers…