| 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.
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