Escape the rat race: Hit the road
By Jay MacDonald • Bankrate.com

Are you in a rut? Tired of your boring job, your humdrum commute, your bland, unadventurous life?

Hit the road!

Thanks to the Internet, cell phones, mail-forwarding services and the growing acceptance of telecommuting, you no longer need to grind away your life as your parents probably did in one job or in one locale.

Instead, you can lead the gypsy life and support yourself by either working virtually or making money picking up interesting jobs you always wanted to try along the endless highway or waterway. Plus, there are tons of like-minded wanderers out there who have already solved most of the logistical questions for you.

Why wait until retirement to expand your horizons? The open road is calling you now, while you're still young enough to enjoy its abundant pleasures.

But can you afford it?
You can if you go mobile in a recreational vehicle, or RV. Much of what can be said of life in an RV is true of life afloat, except the costs of maintaining a boat can be expected to be significantly higher, and with a boat you can't just pull off the road for the night.

"If you can afford to live in a fixed residence, you can afford to live in an RV," says Coleen Sykora, who's been living the gypsy life for more than a decade along with her husband, Bob. Escapees from button-down jobs in the upper Midwest, the Sykoras now publish how-to-RV travel books and the "Workers on Wheels" e-zine entirely from the road.

According to the Recreation Vehicle Industry Association, or RVIA, the American road is now home to a record 8.2 million RVs owned by an estimated 8 million households. The number of RV-owning households is expected to increase by 8 percent by the end of the decade, and small wonder: According to a survey by PKF Consulting commissioned by the RVIA, a family of four vacationing in an RV can save 26 percent to 74 percent over other forms of travel and lodging.

But can you save as much if you liquidate and hit the road full time?

Home on the road
In 1992, the Sykoras did just that: They quit their jobs, sold their home and set out for adventure in an 18-foot trailer. "We were 32 years old," Coleen Sykora says. "People either thought we were crazy or they wished they had the gumption to do the same thing."

Bob, a former assistant superintendent for a municipal water system, and Coleen, whose background is in social work, love dabbling in the plentiful jobs available on the road. Sometimes their how-to books and Web site sales pay the bills; other times they'll concentrate on selling their wares at flea markets, and occasionally they'll take an actual job, such as their recent stint managing a museum.

"We come across so many work opportunities that we wouldn't find if we were stationary," Coleen Sykora says. "Many of them are doing things that we wouldn't want to do for years on end, but they have benefits -- financial, educational, cultural -- that make them worthwhile."

Some of the gypsy-friendly jobs the Sykoras advertise on their site include bus driver, tour guide, computer programmer, clown, grain harvester, tree planter, property caretaker, mini-storage manager, fence installer, fair vendor, apple picker, dog trainer, sales clerk, and of course the perennial choice of traveler's worldwide, restaurant work.