 Welcome to my office. I live and work full-time from a tiny 16-foot airstream trailer and to do that I learned that I had to figure out four things so I didn't drive myself absolutely nuts. So today I'm going to tell you what I did so that if you want to work full-time or part-time from the road You can do it without beating your head against a wall. Happy Sunday birdwatchers. I hope you're all doing well out there It's Robin with creativity RV as you can see I'm about to start my work day except for me That's out here in the national forest and check out the view outside my window That's one of the benefits of getting to be a full-time working RV digital nomad now I can work from anywhere because I'm a content creator and a writer But you can too there are hundreds Of other jobs that I could be doing if I wasn't doing this And I know because I wrote the book work from home while you roam the ultimate guide to jobs that can be done from anywhere It takes you through all your financial considerations all the way down to a mega list of jobs with hundreds of resources and in the last 10 years the opportunities for people to have an adventure and live and work On the road before retirement has just Exploded because of the work that I do I need to have a really good computer Which means I also need to have power and I need to have internet and I need to have a dedicated Workspace when I first started on the road. I had a b-plus van with a Murphy bed That was a dumb move for me as a writer because I had to put the bed up and down and work on a lat pillow By the time I got to my third rig, which was a fifth wheel I was ready to have a big dedicated workspace during covid some friends And I literally circled our wagons out in the desert for a few months So I took that time to renovate the inside of the fifth wheel I got rid of all of that dark brown wood that they put in our v's and I lightened it up with paint And repainted the cabinets and the most important thing for me Was that I got rid of the big couch that was at the end of the fifth wheel And instead my friend and I installed a massive Dedicated desk where I could put my big computer and have space to spread out If I wanted to write on one side and paint on the other I could do that Well when I downsized to this airstream what was really important to me Was trying to find a good way to do that again just on a smaller scale And I finally figured it out the thing about having a dedicated workspace is that You get to leave work and go to a different area of the house to chill out I don't know if some of you experienced this during covid, but if you're working At your kitchen table, it's like the work never ends the emails never end And so for me I get to come over here and do my work in this nice big area with this big window And then go chill out and that was possible because I renovated my dinette The first thing I did was I got a trunk organizer To go on the other side of the dinette because I'm solo on the road So there wasn't anybody sitting over there and it was just wasted space Now I have this great organizer that closes up and hides all of my supplies And not only that I found the exact right size so that I don't have to secure it when I'm going down the road It just sits in there then on this side of the dinette you can see that I actually removed the bench It was so easy and it made the biggest difference inside of my rig Now on that side of the dinette I couldn't do that if I wanted to because underneath the dinette is the water tank and a lot of my electronics But on this side of the dinette there was nothing here But the bench with a storage drawer underneath it on a rail So all I had to do was take off the cushions Take out the bench which was drilled down into the floor and get an office chair Removing the right side of that dinette and putting in an office chair has been great I have a dedicated workspace and more storage But after that I had to figure out what to do with the back half of my RV and the bed Because the bed that came with my RV was super thin and uncomfortable There was a topper on it, but that barely helped at all mattresses that come in RVs are not great They're thin and they're uncomfortable You might think that they're great when you first go into the dealership and sit on one and you think oh, this is really nice But after a couple of weeks on one You find that they just kind of lose their shape and if you're going to full time Or even part time In an RV you have to make sure that your bed is comfortable I have switched out my mattress in every single RV I've had in the beginning I just tried to do toppers but that does not get the job done For me in an airstream. I needed to get an odd shaped mattress because there's that curve in the back Luckily, I found a great mattress by Brooklyn bedding's RV mattress line If you're not familiar Brooklyn bedding has a killer RV mattress line that is full of all of the weird funky non-standard sizes that you need to find when you're in an RV the people at RV mattress suggested I try the signature hybrid in a Twin full size because it would poof out into the curve in the airstream and it did They shipped these big boxes with the mattress for free from their factory in Arizona So they sent me mine and I opened up the box with my friend and took off the plastic And watched the new bed poof up. It just put the other mattress to shame Really, it was very princess in the pee and so comfortable and somehow Brooklyn bedding RV mattress makes the mattress firm, but also cushy. I don't know how they do it. It's magic But I love it putting in a new mattress was a game changer in here Now when I'm not working, I have this great chill space back there I put a bunch of pillows on the bed and made it into kind of a day bed area for the day and then at night It's like my little nest and you would think that it would feel small in a 16 foot trailer. It doesn't It feels huge back there and soft and comfortable And I get the best night sleep when you live in a tiny space like this every inch has to work The work area has to work the storage has to work And really the bed has to work because if you have a bad bed in your RV You're going to be a cranky camper Brooklyn bedding RV mattress has been nice enough to give our viewers a 25 off cuban I'll pin it at the top of comments below And check them out because they have all the different sizes you might be looking for different firmness different weights if you're worried about your gvwr and They have 120 day money back guarantee And a 10 year warranty now I have a dedicated workspace and I have a dedicated chill space But none of that matters when you're a full-time working RV digital nomad Unless you have access to the internet having internet is key and when I was first on the road It would take me 12 hours to upload a video and then it would time out in the middle And you know you park behind a rock and you don't have a signal and it just drives you nuts I don't have time for that. I don't know who has time for that. So what I do is I have starlink I also have an unlimited AT&T travel router, which is right here attached to my ceiling And I have Verizon on my phone with a hotspot in case I need that It took me a while to noodle this one out you guys Before I did this I was carrying the starlink dish in the back of my Jeep On top of its little mount which is huge and it took up a ton of room And then I had to run the cables through the window So bugs got in because an airstream doesn't have any slides to run the cables in now Starlink has a really funky proprietary cable So they don't make it easy to figure out a way to mount it and run it inside to the router If you're not a subscriber to this channel already and you want to know how I did that Please subscribe and hit the little bell Because next week I'm going to tell you how I run the starlink cables in here And how I got the unlimited AT&T service that I have on this router But for today, I'm going to tell you how I mount the antenna because that was a really key renovation for me Before I had this I had to pull the starlink on its little mount out of the back of the car Find a signal on the ground somewhere if I was lucky. I don't have to do that anymore So now when I set up camp I get the starlink router out of the back of the car still But I was able to ditch that stupid tripod mount that it came with and put it on a pole I pulled both of those things out and I mounted directly to the a-frame on my trailer Using an upside down flagpole mount that's meant to go on a picnic table I cannot tell you how long it took me to figure that one out So I put on this clamp that's really meant to go on a picnic table. I put it upside down Got it on there really tight and now I just need to unhook it right here To loosen up this pole and get it off This is the first time I've actually had to use a wrench Because uh, it's been windy And I think it got it a little tighter than usual I pull out that pole. I put it on the mount. I screw it in Plug in the cable, which I'll show you next week And I'm done and then I have connectivity and can get back here and get back to work Both my computer and my starlink have to be plugged into a regular household outlet Well, those outlets don't automatically have power in an RV unless you have an inverter. So One of the most important renovations I made in here was getting a power system installed From battleborn and dragonfly energy when I'm here working at my desk With my computer and the starlink going it takes a lot of power Luckily, I have two battleborn lithium batteries that I put in the back in a storage compartment Along with that 2000 watt inverter and lithium Is so much nicer than having a gm. I've had both but a gm. You cannot run down past 50 percent They don't have as much capacity as the lithium does and because the victron 2000 watt inverter is a sine wave inverter I can run my sensitive electronics off of it and I don't have to worry about that So all day long I'm charging my solar system with some external panels that I hook right into the side of the RV And when I'm going down the road I charge those lithium batteries twice as fast as I normally would because I had a dc to dc charger installed Which goes directly from the alternator in the car back to the lithium batteries I really don't worry about power that much anymore Especially when it's sunny because I can go for days without even having to look at my phone To see what my charge controller says in the newer airstreams The refrigerators have to work off of electric. There's no propane option I don't have a generator in here and before I put this system in I could barely keep the refrigerator going Now I don't think about power that often I go out a couple times a day and I move the solar panels So I'm getting the best charge but unless it's rainy and cloudy for three days. I'm good to go I really don't think about it when I first went on the road It never even occurred to me. I could renovate an RV I thought that there was some kind of magic sauce in the walls, you know Where the wiring and the plumbing was and I was scared to do anything but a command hook Not anymore. It is amazing what you can do in these spaces RVs can be modified and People out there are doing the coolest things inside of their rigs I always think it's funny when people look at this trailer and they go. Oh my god. How can you do that? I could not live in something that tiny Well, to me now that I've made these modifications It doesn't even feel Like a tiny trailer to me. It feels like a house Maybe a tiny house But for me, it's perfect. I've got my dedicated workspace. I've got a great chill area I have power. I have internet and so I can get up every day and do my job just like everybody else Except for I can do it anywhere I want. I don't have to be tethered to a location dependent job with these modifications In my airstream, there's a whole world out here You don't have to go from your job to your house to your job to your house and wait to retire someday to see the world If you want to do it now, you can You just have to put a little thought into making your space a workable digital nomad space for you I hope this has helped you do that Please comment like the video share it with your friends and I'll see you guys next week with that starling video until then Everybody out there have happy travels and be free