Living on the road full-time doesn’t mean you have to trade in bandwidth for the great outdoors. Just ask James and Mack, connoisseurs of all things science and technology. These self-proclaimed “Geekstreamers” are loving a life of exploration with their “mechanical travel companions” – an Airstream called Stark, and a trusty towing sidekick, Wayne.
For those unfamiliar with the world of Marvel and DC Comics, “Stark” is short for Tony Stark, a.k.a. Iron Man. The couple explains why their Airstream carries the superhero’s name: “It's sleek. It's modern. Everything is well made. Metal everywhere. It’s just so iconic.” And “Wayne”? You guessed it: Bruce Wayne, better known as Batman.
James and Mack love science, and they love science fiction and comic books just as much. Take a spin around the pair’s online catalog of adventure photographs, and you’ll see shots that look ripped straight from the pages of a comic. That’s how these two roll.
To facilitate their version of life on the road, the couple has upped Stark’s techno-capacity: James and Mack have installed six 100-watt solar panels on top of their Airstream. Inside, 600 amp hours of lithium batteries connect to Bluetooth monitoring, a WeBoost 4G cell signal booster, and internal routers to support the MiFi devices that provide Internet access.
All these renovations were aimed at making a life of full-time travel “workable” – both James and Mack still work full-time on the road, and have been since May 2016.
Working while on the road has paid off for the couple more than expected. When they consider their productivity and focus now, Mack explains, “One of the things that was most surprising about working full‑time on the road is how much more productive I am. When I don't have to go into the office, it’s a lot easier to toggle between tasks, to focus, and get things done quickly. All the office noise that distracts you isn’t there.” James adds that it’s hard for some folks to understand that they are still full-time employees: “We're not on vacation. We're still doing the 9 to 5, except now our office travels with us. And our scenery changes.”
The two have a newfound freedom to schedule their days. They’re not on someone else’s clock. Instead, they say, “We can get up in the morning and take a nice walk, and then sit down to work for a few hours, and then go to lunch and come back to work for a few more hours. Then later we can go out and have a nice dinner, or go to a brewery, or go for a hike somewhere. The things that you reserve for the weekends can be everyday things. That was what made it feel so freeing for us,” says Mack.
He continues: “We have more control over how we use our time, because we're not sitting in traffic for hours every day, commuting into an office.” Before turning to life as full-time nomads, James and Mack each had an hour-and-a-half commute every day. The couple realized that, during the day, they spent more time with coworkers than with family, friends, and each other. James and Mack wanted the inverse, so they flipped the equation.
“When we were living in a house, that was one of the biggest things – we missed out on all of the day-to-day celebrations with our family. We pretty much saw our family on Thanksgiving and on Christmas, so two months back-to-back out of the year,” remembers James. Regarding their time as a couple, Mack says, “When we were living the old life, all the time that we were not at work we always felt like we had to be doing something together because time was so limited.”
These days, for James and Mack, each day is like a new comic book frame. “I feel like we get to see everything,” says James. “We're not restricted to seeing the same thing every day. We can be in Colorado seeing the Rockies and drinking really good craft beer one week, and then in Kentucky or Michigan seeing family the next.”
And for this couple, experiences like this reign supreme. Both value time over things. Once super shoppers, the pair has traded their physical possessions for intangible goods, like trekking majestic mountains, soaking up the culture of new locales, and sipping tasty craft beer.
James and Mack now live and embrace a life marked by minimalism. They explain: “Minimalism is mainly about relationships and experiences over things. It’s about consciously recognizing things that have a purpose and add value, and removing the things that don’t. Living this way actually makes us happier and less burdened.”
If you ask this working couple, life now works better than ever before. So when will their nomadic journey end? According to James and Mack, not anytime soon. “After this year of learning, we don’t see ourselves ever going back to a stationary lifestyle. We love the flexibility and freedom. We have an amazing balance of work and leisure. We get more physical activity. We have less stress. We get to see amazing places. We spend more time with our families.”
If it’s not broke, why fix it?
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