Working remotely from a van sounds almost offensively good.
Wake up somewhere new (and hopefully beautiful) every morning, brew up some coffee, open the doors and bash through a few hours of work overlooking the mountains (other landscapes are available). Then, close the laptop at lunchtime, pull on your hiking boots and disappear onto the trail.
Tomorrow, drive somewhere else and do it all again. In truth yes, van life can totally look like that.
But trying to hold down an actual full-time job from a vehicle changes things considerably. Your van isn’t just somewhere to sleep anymore. It’s now your home, office, power station, internet hub, kitchen and transport; and when one of those systems stops working, your working day can stop with it.
The secret to working successfully from a van isn’t buying loads of expensive gear. It’s building enough redundancy into your setup that a dead battery, terrible mobile signal or three days of rain doesn’t leave you emailing your boss from a McDonald’s (or Sainsburys) car park.
Here’s what you actually need to think about.
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Can You Actually Do Your Job From a Van?
Before buying solar panels or researching mobile routers, maybe stop to consider what your working day generally involves.
Some jobs lend themselves incredibly well to van life. Writers, developers, designers and other freelancers who largely work asynchronously and can usually absorb a few hours without internet without causing a crisis.
Things become harder if your calendar contains six video calls every day, or if you need to be available to answer client queries or to respond to stock markets in real time.
The more your job depends on being online at a specific time, the more robust your setup needs to be. The same goes for anybody regularly uploading huge video files, accessing remote servers or using multiple, bandwidth-heavy cloud applications.
Ask yourself a simple question;
What would happen if I unexpectedly lost internet access for four hours?
If the answer is “not much”, you’re in pretty good shape.
If the answer is “I’d lose a client”, then connectivity needs to dictate where you travel rather than being something you check once you’ve arrived.
Build Internet Redundancy, Not Just Internet Access
Reliable internet is probably the single biggest difference between travelling in a van and working from one.
Relying on campsite Wi-Fi is not a strategy.
For most remote workers, a decent 4G/5G router or mobile hotspot with a generous data allowance should form the backbone of the setup. Depending on where you’re travelling, an external antenna can also improve reception.
But the important bit is having a Plan B.
Ideally, carry a second SIM or travel eSIM using a different mobile network. Two SIM cards aren’t much use as backups if they’re ultimately connecting to the same network infrastructure and that network has no coverage.
Satellite internet such as Starlink is another option for people who routinely work well away from populated areas, although it adds cost, hardware and power consumption. For many travellers though, it’s total overkill.
Your internet hierarchy might therefore look something like:
4G/5G router – second mobile network – phone tethering – campsite/café/coworking Wi-Fi – satellite connection if required.
Also don’t simply look at the signal bars.
For email, Slack and basic browser work, almost any functioning broadband connection will do. Video meetings require a stable connection with decent upload speed and latency, while photographers and videographers may find upload speeds far more important than headline download figures.
If you’ve got an important workday tomorrow, test the connection before committing to a park-up. Run a speed test, upload something and, if necessary, make a quick video call.
Finding out the signal is unusable at 8:57am is considerably less fun.
What About Public Wi-Fi?
Sometimes you’ll probably be getting out of the van and spending a day or three grafting from campsites, cafés, libraries, hotels and coworking spaces. Public Wi-Fi can be an extremely useful fallback, but unfamiliar networks also require some basic security awareness.
A VPN (Virtual Private Network) encrypts traffic between your device and the VPN server, adding another privacy layer when you’re using networks you don’t control.
There is a trade-off. A common question is: does a VPN affect internet speed? It can. Routing and encrypting your connection may reduce speed or increase latency somewhat, although on a decent connection the difference may be relatively small.
More importantly, a VPN won’t magically turn terrible campsite Wi-Fi into good Wi-Fi.
Treat the public internet as another tool in your connectivity arsenal, rather than something your livelihood depends upon.
Work Out How Much Power You Actually Need
“Get solar panels and a battery!” is easy advice to give. The altogether more useful question however is this; how much electricity does your working day consume?
Fortunately, you don’t need to be an electrician to get a rough idea.
The basic calculation is:
Watts × hours used = watt-hours (Wh).
Imagine your laptop averages 50W while you’re working:
50W × 8 hours = 400Wh
Add a 10W mobile router running for eight hours and that’s another 80Wh. A 25W monitor used for eight hours adds 200Wh.
Suddenly your little mobile office is consuming somewhere around 680Wh per working day, before you’ve charged your phone or powered anything else.
Plus, unfortunately, you also live here.
Your fridge, lights, ventilation, water pump, heating controls and other systems are competing for the same stored energy.
That’s why your battery capacity should be calculated around your actual consumption rather than whichever power station happens to be on sale. Note that the portable power station/generator is pretty buoyant at the moment so you have plenty of options. We may explore this, and the question of fuel vs solar batteries in the future.
On this point…
Solar Panels Are Not Your Power Supply
It’s also worth understanding one distinction that confuses plenty of first-time van owners. Van solar panels don’t really store your electricity. Rather your battery bank does.
Solar is simply one method of replenishing it, alongside charging from the vehicle’s alternator while driving and plugging into shore power at a campsite.
A robust system might therefore combine:
- A suitable house battery or portable power station
- Solar panels
- DC/alternator charging while driving
- Shore-power charging
- USB-C/DC charging wherever possible
- A suitable inverter for AC appliances
The more ways you have of replenishing your batteries, the less dependent you become on any single one.
This becomes particularly important in winter. A solar setup that comfortably keeps your laptop running through summer in Spain may perform very differently during a cloudy November in Scotland.
Which brings us neatly to another slightly less photogenic aspect of van life.
Build Your Office for the Miserable Days
Don’t design your van workspace around the fantasy of sitting outside with your laptop, instead, design it around eight hours inside while it’s absolutely pissing down.
Can you sit upright comfortably? Can you position your screen without hunching over it? Is there somewhere for a mouse and keyboard? Can you take a private call? Is there enough ventilation? Can somebody cook without repeatedly elbowing you in the head?
If two people intend to work from the same van, this becomes even more important.
A laptop stand, compact keyboard and ergonomic cushion can certainly help, but the fundamental question is whether the space actually works as an office.
Heat creates its own problems. Vans can become ovens surprisingly quickly, while laptops and other electronics also generate heat. In colder weather, condensation becomes an ongoing battle, particularly when you’re breathing, cooking, drying clothes and working inside the same tiny space all day.
Weather doesn’t merely affect your sightseeing plans. It affects your office.
The Hidden Van-Life Admin Tax
This is one of the things that gets lost in the Instagram version of van life….
When you finish work at 5pm in an apartment, you’re home. When you finish work at 5pm in a van, you might still need to find somewhere to sleep.
Then you discover the park-up is full. The next option has no mobile reception. By now you’re running low on water and the toilet needs emptying. You’re nearly out of gas, you need groceries and your clothes REALLY need washing.
By now it’s 8pm and you’re driving around an unfamiliar town looking for somewhere to deal with your rubbish.
While this is of course the nightmare scenario, it can and will happen from time to time as long-term van travel involves a continuous resupply loop:
- Water food
- Fuel
- Gas
- Laundry
- Waste
- Toilet
- Shower
- Power
- Internet
None of these jobs are particularly difficult (unless you have Showeraphobia which it seems many van lifers/hippys seem to suffer from). Collectively, however, they consume a surprising amount of time.
And when you’re working full-time and moving around most days, your free time is already limited. Which leads us to the next point…
Don’t Try to Travel Every Day
One of the easiest ways to make working from a van exhausting is trying to combine a full working day with constant movement. Instead it can be much easier, and more pleasurable to separate work days from travel days.
On a workday, stay put. Get up, work properly and enjoy wherever you are once you’re finished.
Use travel days to cover distance, stock up on food, refill water, empty waste and deal with the boring stuff. If possible, occasionally build in an admin day for laundry, maintenance and other chores.
You don’t need too a rigid schedule, but accepting that you cannot simultaneously work eight hours, drive four hours, hike a mountain and experience every destination properly makes van life considerably more enjoyable.
Slowing down also saves fuel which is of course kinda expensive right now.
Have a Failure Plan
The biggest lesson here is redundancy. Don’t wait until something fails before deciding what you’re going to do.
If your internet disappears 20 minutes before an important meeting, can you switch networks? Tether to your phone? Drive somewhere with a signal? Find a coworking space? All inside of 20 minutes?
If your batteries are getting dangerously low after three cloudy days, can you charge while driving? Plug into shore power? Temporarily reduce non-essential consumption? Invade a middle eastern country and steal their oil?
Even something as simple as knowing where the nearest café or library is can rescue a working day. The objective here isn’t to create an indestructible van (we will write a post about Living and Working From a Tank next time 😉 Rather the sole aim is to prevent one relatively minor problem from destroying your entire workday.
Remember That Your Office Crosses Borders Too
Working internationally from a van like many van lifers in Europe does, adds another layer of complication.
Before crossing borders, check the rules affecting both you and the vehicle. Depending on where you’re travelling and your circumstances, that can include visas, permitted length of stay, vehicle insurance, breakdown cover, driving licence requirements and restrictions on overnight parking or wild camping.
Remote working itself can also raise questions around visas, taxation, employer policies and data security. Simply being permitted to enter a country does not automatically mean every form of remote work is permitted there.
Your mobile contract deserves attention too. “Unlimited data” at home doesn’t necessarily mean unlimited roaming abroad, and fair-use restrictions can catch heavy users out.
For UK travellers spending extended periods in Europe, the Schengen 90-days-in-180 rule also needs factoring into longer itineraries. As does the fact that you are not actually allowed to work in Europe anymore even if you are working remotely for yourself, serving UK based clients (yet another Brexit benefit).
Do the boring research before you leave.
So, Is Working Full-Time From a Van Actually Worth It?
For the right person, absolutely.
If your work is flexible and relatively asynchronous, van life can offer an extraordinary amount of freedom. You can travel slowly, spend weeks exploring places that would otherwise be expensive to visit and move your home according to the season.
But it isn’t a permanent holiday.
You’re running a home and an office from a vehicle, and both need electricity, connectivity, maintenance and attention.
If your job requires flawless connectivity, constant meetings, multiple giant monitors and absolute silence between 9 and 5, working from a van may be more stressful than liberating.
For everybody else, the trick is to stop treating internet, electricity and park-ups as things you’ll figure out along the way.
Build backups. Calculate your power needs. Slow your travelling down. Plan around work when work matters, and give yourself proper time away from the laptop when it doesn’t.
Get those things right and you can finally enjoy the bit that Instagram does get right: shutting the laptop, opening the van door and realising your commute home is approximately three feet.
