Two years ago when we did a 5 week trip to California I had a lightbulb moment. We had packed all our clothes loosely into duffle bags, and about 6 days in I seriously couldn’t find anything as the clothes were jumbled, rumpled, and scattered pretty much everywhere. It was a disaster. In desperation I…
During our first 6 month round of travel, I managed to keep connected with just a loose Verizon Hotspot, with service through Millinicom. When I say ‘loose’ I literally mean the hotspot was usually sitting on the table. I also had a Wilson SleekV 4G cradle booster, and a tiny magnetic antenna that I could…
I’m using this one: http://3gstore.com/product/3047_3g4g-full-band-outdoor-omni-antenna.html
Well, two of them, as I use one for pulling in external wifi, and the other for the mifi hotspot, either directly or through the booster.ReplyCancel
We have only been at Airstreaming for 18 months, but have been loving it! We just returned from 6 weeks in Florida, and last Srping we spent 7 weeks in the West. Our blog shares pictures and some writing about our travels.
I loved your article on WIFI, and had a question. Does the set up you installed simply strengthen the signal offered by an RV park, or does it connect to the internet without RV park wifi?
Both, and….. neither. The PepWave device creates it’s own Wifi Hotspot, and it can connect to the internet via 3 methods. Most common is via a USB connection to a Verizon Mifi device. Second is a connection to another Wifi Access Point, such as campground wifi. Third is via a Cat5 cable plugged into the device. (We’ve never used this, but it is possible).
so the device doesn’t connect to the internet itself, but can use any of the methods described. Does that make sense?ReplyCancel
OK, I’d love to pick your brain about your internet setup.
We just bought an RV and my wife directed me to your blog. We’re taking off in a month and I plan on working on the road — and next to being able to concentrate in such tight quarters with the kids, my biggest fear is making sure internet and electricity keep humming.
I bought a Wifi Ranger antenna and Go2 router and signed up for the biggest Verizon data plan I could afford (20gb) with a Jetpack myfi hotspot and a Wilson / weboost signal booster.
I don’t know if I’m just throwing money at a problem I don’t understand.
I’ll have a challenge figuring out how to mount and wire it up but now I’m worried about how to power it all. We only have two 6 volt batteries in series and a 10 watt trickle charge solar panel. We also have an Onan 7000 watt generator but can’t run that 8 hours a day.
It is now easy to see how stressful it was to always make sure we stayed at campgrounds with electric hook-ups. “Big Sur? Ummm… maybe we could make it one night?” “That boondocking spot looks awesome, but I don’t think we’d last very long.” Some of the best campgrounds we’ve seen or heard about are…
We just had our solar setup serviced, our charge controller was playing up, and I am surprised by just how much power we’re now getting from our old 100 Watt panel. With regular use, the batteries are almost always at 100% on a sunny day.
Of course we are not full timing, so our power requirements are probably somewhat lower than yours and on a rainy day or in the shade all bets are off.
I’ve been thinking about getting a Honda generator myself to give us even more freedom on where we camp. Like you, I think the combination of solar and a backup generator is probably the sweet spot. ReplyCancel
**Updated May 2017** When we bought the Airstream, we inherited a set of standard yellow triangle wheel chocks and some spare 2×6 boards to use when leveling on uneven terrain. It worked, and we didn’t give it a lot of thought for several months. Once our set up starting getting on our nerves, we upgraded…
I’m interested in those wheel chocks. My dad had a set of those from the mid 70’s. He sold them with his last trailer. I’ve looked for them and have not been able to find them.
Is there a name brand or something one could use to search?
I was in AZ some months ago and I saw some on a trailer. I wish I would have stopped in and asked the owner about them now. Anyhow, any help you could offer would be great!
One of our road schooling resources has been regular visits to children’s museums, zoos, and science centers. We get into most of these places for free or at a steep discount as a result of nation wide reciprocal programs. These reciprocal programs were an awesome find in our first few months of traveling. About a…
Hey! We were able to use our pass at the Science Museum in Vancouver, B.C. If you check the list (at the bottom of the post) you can see which countries/museums it will work for. I imagine if you have a membership to one of the participating Canadian museums that you’d be able to use it all over the U.S. Definitely call ahead and ask though!ReplyCancel
Thank you so much for sharing this!!! We normally travel pretty slowly (2 months in one state, 3 in another, 6 in another, etc.) but next month we’ll be moving through 10+ states in about 29 days, and we’re scouring all available resources to find plenty of field trip options and ways to get the most out of each state we’ll be visiting. This post has been extremely helpful (as are most of your posts). We plan to drive over to the nearest science center this week and join!ReplyCancel
What a great tip! I will be researching to see which museums we will be visiting to know what might be covered. EXCELLENT tip about where to buy, too. Thanks!
I enjoy preparing the kids for art museums, which I love, telling them the stories behind the art – usually religion or mythology. Different art types leads to some really fun and interesting conversations with the kiddos! Love their perspective.ReplyCancel
These look great! I think if we traveled more I would need something like this.
These look great, but I have a few questions. Approximately how many pairs of kid pants/shirts fit in one small bag? If I understand what you wrote correctly, you don’t use them for everyday clothes in the airstream? Do you think they would be too cumbersome? We are currently preparing to full-time/part-time and trying to figure out kids clothes storage. There is a huge tv cabinet in the bunk room that we don’t plan to put a tv in, and I’m wondering if these bags could help make that cabinet useful…
Your blog is a huge inspiration to us, thank you!
You are welcome! If we roll up the shirts pretty tight I think we can fit 4 or 5 next to each other with a pair of pants or shorts laid across the top. Cara’s we can fit more just because her clothes are small. You can jam them pretty full as well. I think it would work great! We have a large bucket from the container store under the kid’s beds that we throw them in with all the off season clothes. In the closet we bought a drawer system (also from the container store) that has their everyday wear. They each get two drawers. It’s not much, but then we don’t need much!
[…] in the dry bags. We did pack everyone’s clothes, pajamas, kindles, headlamp, earphones, in individual packing cubes to keep things organized. I feel like it worked really […]