Pandemic opens the door to live ‘wherever the wind blows’
Millennials take opportunity to see the world while working remotely
It has been four months of mountains, beaches and wide open spaces for Jason Minter.
He has driven his Mazda Miata between the peaks of the Grand Tetons and watched the waves crest in Los Angeles. He fell in love with the subtle funkiness of Missoula, Mont., before driving to Glacier National Park to spend his nights stargazing.
Minter is technically a Houston resident, but only because his last official address was a studio apartment near the Texas Medical Center and all his belongings are tucked in a storage unit off Loop 610 North. When the pandemic hit, he took the opportunity towork fromhometo the next level, trading in his desk at a coworking space downtown for the open road.
Now, the 34-year-old is one of a growing number of Americans logging into his daily job — at an affordable housing nonprofit — from an ever-growing list of farflung locations.
This shift to remotework isn’t all born from the pandemic, of course. Remote work has grown 44 percent since 2010, according to Built In, a tech website for job recruiters. But “geographic flexibility” — the ability to work from any location — has skyrocketed in 2020, due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Minter and others have traded working from home in cramped apartments for the open road, allowing
them to work their 40 hours a week and enjoy adventures and changing scenery on their own time. While not every job can be accomplished in a Wi-Fi-enabled van, there is increasing acceptance from many companies that it doesn’t matter where a worker logs on. And that might just be here to stay: A new survey out of Harvard found that 16 percent of American workers will pivot to working at home at least two days per week after the virus subsides.
After deciding to hit the road, Minter had to figure how to operate in several different locations. Quickly, he learned that he fared better renting an Airbnb from Sunday night to Friday afternoon. By Friday evening, he had already made camp in that weekend’s chosen wilderness.
“You have to figure out the rhythm and what gear you need for this alternative lifestyle,” said Minter, who was already working remotely when COVID-19 struck. He moved to Houston two years ago to expand Houston operations for a nonprofit organization that builds affordable housing. As the nonprofit’s sole Houston employee, he initially worked from his two-bedroom apartment in the Heights, and he said he struggled to make friends or meet new people even before social distancing.
In January, before the pandemic made the decision for him, he moved to a smaller apartment and opted to commute to a coworking space.
“It’s an isolating lifestyle. You can go a week indoors and not really see a person, and that was not working for me,” Minter said. “My planwas to shift to amore urban-like lifestyle in which I would see people on the train and the coworking space. Itwas supposed to address some of these longbuilding issues of self-isolation.”
Minterwas accustomed to public transportation and the inherent human contact that goes with it. He grewup in cities — St. Louis, Cleveland, Mexico City and Austin — and wanted to feel part of the hustle and bustle.
The plan lasted two weeks before hewas forced to return to his 500-square- foot apartment for full-time work. He stopped taking public transportation altogether and only saw people on grocery store runs, he said.
The first twomonthswere fine, since he already had the tools to effectively work from his apartment. But that creeping feeling of desolation hit him again, and this time, it was worse.
After a conversation with his boss over the summer, Minter had what he called a light-bulb moment.
“I thought, ‘Oh, I don’t have to be in Houston, and I don’t have to be in D.C. either,’ ” he said. “I can do this from everywhere.”
In August, he broke his lease, put everything in storage and packed his Miata with the essentials: his laptop, a cellphone and camping gear.
A 2020 trend
An Airbnb analysis found that U.S. guests’ reviews mentioned “remote working” or “work remotely” three times as frequently in 2020 as they did in 2019. And long-term stays, such as the ones Minter books these days, are growing too: In the weeks following initial coronavirus lockdowns, the company saw a 20 percent increase in long-term bookings.
Remotework is a great equalizer, said Becca Siegel who runs HalfHalfTravel.com, a website dedicated to helping peoplework fromthe road without losing their sense of productivity.
In 2018, Siegel and her partner, with whom she runs the site, were able to start working from home; they traveled for 10 months while working from Europe, Asia and Latin America. Their last international work trip took them to the Dominican Republic for the month of February.
Working from the road requires different considerations than the basic office setting, Siegel said. She recommends wandering workers set up a dedicated workstation, have the strongest Wi-Fi capability and understand time zone differences before setting appointments or meetings.
It’s important to remember that working in front of a beautiful viewis stillworking, andworkfrom-home burnout is a real thing, said Siegel, who has become a go-to expert on the topic. Her site has published 30 articles this year oneating healthy and exercising while remote working, conducting productive meetings on the road and how to install a secure VPN from the road.
“One of the challenges pre-COVID was when we were remote and other people at our company weren’t,” Siegel said. “It’s hard to explain to people that you’re not on vacation even when you’re in Vietnam, Mexico or the Netherlands. It’s hard to explain to people you’re working eight to 10 hours even though they didn’t see that on Instagram.”
Still, it’s hard to turn down those windowviews. And interest in Siegel’s lifestyle choice is growing. Eighty-three percent of Airbnb survey respondents said theywere in favor of relocating as part of remote working, and a quarter said they will be able to “live where they want to and work remotely” in the coming years. One in 5 people surveyed relocated during the pandemic either temporarily or permanently.
And widespread workplace changes have sped up during the pandemic, meaning several white-collar jobs will likely remain fully or partly remote until enough people are vaccinated. While Siegel hopes for a return to normalcy, she believes companies have learned how capable their employees are away from the office.
“There has been such a dispersion of people during COVID, whether it be formoney, safety or family,” Siegel said. “People have kept their jobs, but live across the country. There is no way, I think, employers can respectively go back to saying, ‘We can’t hire you because you live in Texas, and we’re in New York.’ ”
Living on the go
Chelsea Lew, a 33-year-old human resources employee, said she feels driven and inspired when working remotely. She considers herself successful and highly productive while working fromhome— even before the pandemic.
The company she works for, Communication Service for the Deaf, is the largest deaf-owned nonprofit in the country and has had no central office for its workforce in five years. She feels lucky to have a job in a collaborative and supportive culture that she can do from anywhere in the world as long as she can connect to Wi-Fi and deliver on her projects.
For Lew, home is “wherever the wind blows.” She had planned to leave Texas for good this year, but the spread of the coronavirus put everything in overdrive. By June, she sold her house in Katy.
“I rolled up my sleeves and made everything work nonetheless,” she said. “I built out my vehicle with a platform bed, storage and pullout kitchen and hit the road full time by Aug. 30. I adapted, stayed safe andmade the decision to isolate and social distance on my own terms.”
Lew camps in her converted SUV, which she considers compact and easy to navigate. So far, she has camped in federal lands, rest stops, travel centers, national and state park campgrounds and friends’ driveways. She decided to not staywith family as she travels because her brother, mother and grandmother are considered high risk.
Lewhas visited Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Idaho, Montana, Washington and California, often staying in parking spaces she finds through online apps such as iOverlander. She falls in love with every new city she visits, and she has no plans to settle down anywhere again soon.
When people ask her where’s she going or where she’ll be six months in the future, Lew says she has no idea.
“This lifestyle is something I’ve always wanted to do,” she said. “Working virtually and traveling full time makes me happiest.”