Making a Life on the Road Work Financially

Pictured: A local coffee shop/work location in Rock Island, IL 

We are often asked how we are able to make enough money to support our life on the road. This question, or worry, is a big one for anyone looking to make full-time travel a reality, and rightly so.

Like so many things in life, what works one day isn’t what works the next, and we are often throwing darts in a dark room hoping one will eventually hit the bullseye, in other words, we have our hands in a lot of different pies and often feel overworked and frustrated.

But we are following our dream, and that dream keeps us motivated.

So, what do we do? Well, first, it’s worth noting that both Jason and I have degrees in theater. Jason’s is on the design end, and mine is in acting. We have been doing our own form of freelancing our entire adult lives, so when we decided to start our own producing/management company, it seemed a pretty natural evolution in our professional journey. So, Lotus Theatricals was born about two years ago, and we bring commercial theatrical productions to Chicago as we come across producers and scripts we are interested in working with. In addition to commercial theater work, we also run three websites under the Lotus umbrella. One is a performing arts trade publication entitled PerformInk. This online news source is located in both Chicago and Kansas City, and we work with a talented group of writers to discuss, review and share the performing arts in those two cities. We continue to work towards taking this brand nationally, and we do use our travels to try and assess what cities might be best to launch PerformInk in next. And with this background in theater, we were able to revive a very popular trade publication in Chicago about 18 months

But, that’s not all. We also have Our Wandering Family, and we are thrilled to be building our families site and story as we continue to explore and offer support and advice for living life on the road as a full-time, or part-time traveling family. Keeping with the travel theme, we also run an RV news publication called RV Miles. RV Miles, our newest website, launched only a couple of months ago, so we are still working to figure out the voice of the site. However, we enjoy bringing our love of RV travel into a digital form. RV Miles is definitely Jason’s baby.

And speaking of Jason, Jason is also a graphic designer and will freelance work as it comes along.

It’s a lot, right? All of this happens around raising three amazing boys, roadschooling and making sure we have time to enjoy all the beautiful places we travel to, but we also know there are many other avenues you can explore in order to make a living on the road possible.

The biggest question to ask yourself is what are you passionate about? What are you doing now and does that lend itself to working on the road? The 9-5 office days are starting to fade in many professions, and perhaps your employer would be open to having you work remotely? Also, there are many companies now looking for digital assistants. If you have a solid set of computer skills look into copywriting or Google “digital assistant jobs.” you’d be surprised by how much pops up and how much information on the topic there is. Again, think inside and outside the box. Are you a teacher/instructor? Do you have a skill that can be offered in various locations, such as a Yoga instructor, or an ESL teacher? Perhaps there is an online school looking for teachers?

Finally, it’s important to remember that your cost of living can be drastically lowered by going on the road full-time. If it’s not realistic today, it can be in a year, or two, or more. Set goals and work towards them. Perhaps you’d like to lower your debt, or tuck a few dollars away first? And remember, you don’t have to go the traditional RV route and there is a huge school bus converting community out there finding alternative ways to live the full-time life. We saved tens of thousands of dollars by converting our own school bus into Wander Bus. Whatever you decide, and whatever your timeline may be, know this life is not just a pipe dream, and you can work from this moment to make it happen. We don’t always have extra funds and some months are a little harder than others, but the rewards of life on the road, waking up in some of the Country’s most beautiful locations, seeing our kids explore and thrive makes those late nights and creative ways to stretch a budget worth it all. Don’t feel discouraged and don’t give up. Just because you desire to wander doesn’t mean you’ll be lost.