Our week starts the same way wherever we park: Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm Eastern, working from inside the van.
We’ve traveled full-time in our self-built camper van since April 2026, and we both work remotely. If you’re planning to do the same, this is the part the photos tend to leave out: how a working week actually runs, where the travel fits around it, how we choose the next place to park, and what happens when that search doesn’t work out.
We keep Eastern hours no matter where we are. Most of the time we’re in the Pacific time zone, which puts our workday at 6am to 2pm local time. Keeping one schedule everywhere keeps it easy.
We usually work in the van itself, and we spend the workweek at one campsite, chosen with those workdays in mind. For an earlier look at working from the van, see our post on remote working at Lincoln Parish Park in Louisiana.
There’s something special about waking up in a place that feels quiet, still, and just connected enough. Lincoln Parish Park in Ruston, Louisiana, isn’t just
The travel happens at the end of the week. Once we log off on Thursday or Friday, we move. We have a general plan for the weekend, but mostly we freestyle. We often end up at places that weren’t on the plan at all, still in the same general area. That freedom has a deadline. By Sunday we want to be at the campsite where we’ll spend the next workweek, and before we get there we do a grocery run for the week.
KOA’s guide to working remotely from an RV suggests a similar rhythm: try to move to a new campsite only once a week.
The campsite we pick for the week is where we’ll be working, so before the start of the week, we look for two things.
The first is a road with several sites. More sites on one road means more options: if one spot is taken or doesn’t work, there’s another to try. The second is the open sky. We rely on Starlink, so we need a clear opening above the van. Bearfoot Theory’s guide to van life internet notes that the dish needs a clear view of the sky, and that Starlink doesn’t work well when you’re surrounded by a lot of trees. Beyond that, for one of us, finding a site is mostly instinct.
Not every area has good spots. Sometimes we spend hours looking, then give up and head to a rest stop or a pullover for the night. It isn’t the night anyone posts about, but it’s part of the week, and if you’re planning your own, it’s worth expecting.
If you’re planning full-time van life with a remote job, here’s the honest version from our side of it:
That’s our real week: a fixed workweek, a loose weekend, and a campsite search that doesn’t always end where we hoped. For more from the road, visit our Vanlife page.
Drive Time 7 hours Miles Driven 460 miles TA Center Location N 34.942168, W 104.641241 TA Center Address 2634 Historic Route 66 Santa Rosa, NM
