Laundry list of questions (feel free to ignore any you don't want to answer):
What was your process in deciding to do this?
How do you get internet?
What are you thinking about doing in terms of your daughters' education?
How did your family react?
Are you working full-time?
Can you describe your solar setup?
1.) When my first daughter was born, I kind of just had this realization that I was working towards the goal of modern suburbia. Get rich, retire, and then you'll live your life. I didn't want to go into an office everyday. I'm a little old fashion in that I believe work is essential to a man, but the 8 hrs a day away from my family felt unnatural. On a short vacation trip my wife and I had the realization that we felt more at home together in our car on the road, than we ever did in our house back in Florida. It made us realize our home could be anywhere, and we where growing tired of our "stuff" and accumulating "stuff". I discovered thru instagram a large community of people who live and travel full-time with kids, and that kind of became a visual motivator that we could do this too.
2.) Verizon Mifi - so I scored a grandfathered unlimited plan. I spent some dough on a Wilson Electronics (no WeBoost) booster and antenna, and some other networking gear. We use an app called "Coverage" to verify that we will have cell signal in a given area. So far so good. It's worked flawlessly. I need about 3mbps or more to work. Sometimes we've got it crazy fast, sometimes if it's a great spot, it's kinda slow for youtube, but always enough for handling work.
3.) So we have two under two right now. Got some time, but we plan on homeschooling. I was a public school failure, wife was homeschooled with two years of public high school. She ended up getting a masters degree. And me, I dropped out at 9th and got a GED. Somehow I managed. I just don't trust the public school system anymore. We are not religiously motivated. Our science books will teach evolution thank you.
4.) Skeptical, how will you afford it, that's impossible, etc. Problems I don't have has become a personal motto. People always seem to want to project their problems as the reasons you won't be able to do XYZ.
5.) Yup - well define that. I don't have a set schedule. But the team I work with is online EST and we chat during a normal days hours pretty regularly.
6.) I have 405 watts on the roof via 3x 135 watt panels that go into a BlueSky MPPT charge controller and charge my batteries. I make enough power during the day to run all our gear. What I need is more batteries. I bought my system from AM Solar, really great guys. Was planning to piece things together, but the more I researched, the more I didn't want to solve everything myself. When I got the kit, I understood what I was paying a few more dollars for. Quality and just amazing service, down to giving me zip ties and labels and individually wrapped everything with notes so I could install everything myself.
For work, I built a standing desk and use a 25 inch LG ultra wide monitor during the day, consumes 18W if the max brightness is set. All the lights are LED, and the fans are low power anyways, at 3 Amps on the max setting. One of the reasons I liked the Airstream over other campers, WINDOWS WINDOWS WINDOWS. We almost never need to use a light during the day. Plus we can move around with the temperature. Most of the time we just have all the windows open, the fans going, and it's comfortable. (For us)
I didn't want to self promote, but if you wanted to see how this all looks:
https://www.facebook.com/boldadventure/photos_stream?tab=photos_albumsThings that run on propane, stove, furnace, water heater & refrigerator. The refrigerator will run for nearly two months on 1 30 gallon tank. The furnace eats the most propane the fasts. The stove and refrigerator use the least and the water heater a close 2nd. I have two 30lb tanks. Just spent $21.66 to fill one tank. I use one as a service tank and the other as the spare. Lasted me about a month and a half.
As for food, we practice a personal philosophy of trying to support local businesses as we travel. We avoid anything that is a franchise.
Do what works for you, but franchises ARE often local businesses.
Yes, that I recognize. I guess that would have to be really expounded on this. Mainly two types that I eschew, restaurants; particularly fast food. We rarely eat out, but now that we are on the road, as a personal preference if we want to eat out, I want eschew the national franchises. Apple Bee's is the same everywhere, and I feel their blandness ruins our cultural landscape. My logic approach to non-restaurants is a bit different. An ACE Hardware or Do-It place is usually a franchise, the money is staying local unlike say a Home Depot. I mean you can argue a lot of sides of this, the people being paid, they're local. The real estate taxes are local, etc. I haven't quite defined it 100% and to say eschewing all franchises, might be a bit misleading.