The Story of the Mobile Internet Resource Center

Chris hit the road in 2006 and Cherie joined him soon after. We weren't retired early or taking a gap year - we took our tech careers on the road while we embraced our wanderlust.

We've primarily traveled by RV since then, mixing in other side adventures. We now split our time between RV and boat throughout the year.

We both continued to work remotely as software developers, app developers, authors and strategy consultants. We are honored to have been catalysts for projects like RVillage and Xscapers (a new division if the Escapees RV Club aimed at the 'working aged' RVer) - helping shape them behind the scenes before launch.

Our posts on our personal travel blog, Technomadia, about how we kept online to continue working remotely became some of our most popular.

In 2013, after yet another e-mailed question about the topic - we decided on a whim to compile all of our blog posts on mobile internet into one place for easier access.

And thus the first edition of The Mobile Internet Handbook was published in under 3 weeks and we went back to our 'day jobs'.

We launched the RV Mobile Internet Resource Center in 2014 after the book was a success and realized it would take a lot of attention to keep this topic updated.

We had to make a decision between continuing to treat covering this topic as a side hobby that was taking up more and more of our time - or jump fully in by giving up our other successful pursuits to focus on this topic. A IndieGoGo funding campaign in 2014 showed us there was massive support for a member supported resource like this.

Originally we focused on RV-specific solutions, but now  we are now simply the Mobile Internet Resource Center for all US based nomads.

We would have never imaged it possible - we get to do the things we truly love: play with technology, live mobile and help people pursue their dreams.

And we're honored that we are funded by the very folks we're serving - our fellow nomadic community. And we're thrilled that we've been able to build a team of awesome folks who help us keep on top of this growing resource.

We used to offer one-on-one private mobile internet advising as an additional service when we first started out - and conducted nearly 150 sessions.

We discontinued those in 2017 when the demand far exceeded our ability to keep up, and we found many advising clients didn't understand their setup, and were not well prepared to adapt their setups as the industry rapidly advances.

After years of running this resource center and now having assisted thousands find their right solution - we firmly believe in our approach.

Which is each of us has to take the time to assess our needs, understand the challenges and research our own setup.

We feel this best prepares you for managing your setup when you're out there because you better understand it and the trade-offs - and as new gear & plans become available, you're better able to evaluate if it's time to switch out components.

So we focus on creating tools & resources to aid in your education and research - including keeping them all constantly updated as the options change.

And our staff is available for helping interactively guide our members in our forums, private group and webinars - and for our video classroom students, during private video sessions.

And besides - with all the work we do here to keep this resource center updated, staying on top of this rapidly evolving industry, producing videos, hosting our free Internet for RVers & Cruises group and the growing premium membership we're serving today - there just aren't enough spare hours or brain cells left to also dedicate the time & energy to private sessions to advise (it typically takes 2-3 hours per household - minimum).

We'd rather use those resources to help the many.

We decided a while ago to not pursue offering affiliates kickbacks for our membership program - all the rage that they are.

The reasons are multi-fold.

• For one, we are a community funded resource center. We prefer to keep our membership fees as low as possible for all and not need to build in allowance for affiliate or marketing efforts.
• Our marketing plan is pretty simple - we focus on creating quality content worthy of sharing and referencing folks to. We give away a lot of free content & resources that hopefully is valuable to our nomadic communities.
• We strive for authentic recommendations and word of mouth referrals to our content & resources that are not incentivized by financial compensation. As we ourselves are not dependent on selling gear or plans to fund this site, we don't want our content/membership to be marketed in this way either. Share it because you WANT to, not because you NEED to.

We do try to take notice however based on where folks say their referrals are from and acknowledge that as best we can.

As far as our book and apps, they're offered on Amazon, iBooks and the app stores. You're of course welcome to use your affiliate links when sharing about them.

When we have a particular role to fill, we tend to first look from within our premium membership to hire from. We feel those who are called to join & support this site have the best understanding of our content and mission.

However, we are always on the look out for contributors to the resource center who can help fill in areas we don't have fully covered yet. If you have a particular experience that you'd like to contribute - be in touch at [email protected]