During our first two expeditions through Europe, we had the luxury of being free from work. We saved up and traveled solely with the aim of exploration and enjoyment. Now, however, things have changed.  Whilst Africa was supposed to be our third expedition free from work, things changed quickly. We evolved from part-time to full-time travelers and had to take on a different mindset. We started to work from the road – digitally.

Why are we working on the road?

We started to work on the road for two reasons; our passion and our finances. When we left The Netherlands two years ago the only ‘work’ we wanted to do was the managing of Ubuntu Magazine, and freely create content for Rafiki on Tour. Whilst Rafiki on Tour was purely a passion project to inspire others, Ubuntu Magazine was a more serious undertaking started by Manon. This project had a bigger team involved and came with stricter deadlines. We wanted to keep working on it as we are both nature conservations and like to contribute to more wild spaces.

We kept on doing our thing for these two projects but soon started talking about a future on the road as well. As we both love taking on big projects, all we could do was brainstorm about our passions: what did we want to do, how would we do it, and how would it impact our lives? We talked about the growth of the magazine, the expansion of Rafiki on Tour into an inspirational platform in the broadest sense, and ways of creating income.

Although our passion for taking on projects like these definitely played a huge role, it was finances that eventually pushed us to take things even more seriously, and quickly. We had saved up enough money for 18+ months of travel. This money and timeframe were our buffer to start building something bigger. Now, money has become a factor again, and we have to prioritize certain aspects of the trip, and work our asses off to make it all happen. We are now combining adventurous travel with work, which is challenging but great.

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What we do

Let’s start off with Ubuntu Magazine. This is our magazine focusing on personal stories from nature conservations around the world. As biologists by study and nature lovers at heart this is our way of contributing to a better planet. We run this magazine with a global team of volunteers and launch every three months!

With Rafiki on Tour, we create content and share our daily lives via our socials. We hope to inspire others to travel adventurously and empower soon-to-be overlanders by providing usable information in our posts. We love sharing our experiences and will keep doing so.

Besides that, we also revamped our website and started blogging more intensely. We believe this is a great way to share more information on a deeper level. All of our topics are overland-related, but they range from camp cooking to mechanical fixes, and everything in between. We also added additional products and a 60-minute call to our website, providing others with first-hand useful information to save time and money.

In December 2022, we released our first e-book: It Rocks. In this book, Manon takes you along on our travels through Europe, during the first five weeks of our trip. This was Manon’s first ever overlanding experience, which reflects itself in the book with useful insights and laughable moments of a first-time overlander.

Recently we launched our first merchandise collection with three captivating designs! With this collection we aim to inspire more people and share our mottos; Capture Adventure, Dare to Explore, and Let’s Go Wild.

Finally, we are avid writers for adventure and overland magazines. During our descent through West Africa we had countless experiences and learned enough lessons for a lifetime. Writing for magazines is our way to inform and inspire a broader audience, whilst making money from the road.

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Challenges

Working from the road is great in ways that it provides freedom, but don’t expect it to be a bumpy-free ride. For us, it has impacted the travel dynamic and sense of freedom tremendously.

Internet connectivity

Our biggest challenge has been internet connectivity for sure. As we don’t have Starlink yet, we rely on local SIM cards and cell towers for internet connectivity. In short, that means we have to carefully plan our off-grid and remote days and are often frustrated by a lack of suitable wild camping spots in the range of cell towers. We have been looking for, and stressing about, the internet countless times. It can be so hard to find reliable internet, and planning a call is almost impossible due to the uncertainty of where we will be.

Supplies and resources

As we love to work in remote places where we feel comfortable and inspired, another factor impacting work is resources. Staying in a remote place to work will stray your food and water supply. The latter for us is the biggest limiting factor, deciding how long we can stay in one place.

Besides food and especially water, electricity is another resource that’s critical if you work on your laptop a lot. Make sure to have sufficient battery capacity and enough solar panels to keep everything charged during the day.

External factors

External factors are also a major factor impacting productivity. Don’t expect to have a calm workspace every time. Weather (wind, heat, rain, etc.) can dramatically impact comforts around camp. Another big external factor is people. Especially in West Africa, we were never alone. Never. People always seem to find you and will stick with you till the sun sets. Working with locals around you isn’t very productive, and you might not even be comfortable enough to take your devices like cameras or laptops out.

Distractions (like a dog)

Lastly, get a dog sitter if you are traveling with a dog. Nimba is our best friend, but she impacts productivity tremendously. With no garden to play in, it depends on our scenery if she can run freely, or not. If she has free space to explore, everything is fine. But as soon as she’s on the leash most of the day, she gets bored. On days like these, it can almost be a full-time job for one of us to keep her entertained. Don’t underestimate this. It’s like having a dog, whilst working from home, in a small apartment.

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Rewards

Luckily it’s not all about tough challenges, else we wouldn’t be doing it!

Freedom

The biggest reward that comes with working from the road is the ability to keep traveling. If you can make money independent from your location, you will never have to return to the office. Having the freedom to work on projects to your liking, and from anywhere in the world, is super satisfying. If you can find ways to fund your trip from the road you can actually make this lifestyle work in the long run.

New inspiring locations

It is actually super positive to work on your projects from locations to your liking. You get to pick your office, possibly a new one every day. As you are traveling you will most likely visit amazing sceneries, which are likely to lead to inspiration for current and future projects.

Keep it interesting with purpose

Besides providing a nice workspace and making your adventurous lifestyle work in the long run, working on the road can positively impact the way you experience your trip altogether. Although it’s not something you might expect, long-term travel can actually burn you out or become less interesting after a while. It might not be as likely as back home, but full-time travel can become a routine too. We have heard many stories from overlanders wanting to take a break due to a lack of purpose or excitement. Working from the road can be beneficial here, as it provides an extra layer to your travels. Having a project – with or without an income – can benefit your mindset and the overall experience of the trip.

Slow your pace

Additionally, having something to do besides traveling from highlight to highlight, will provide you with a nice break too. It will most likely slow your pace down and provide perspective on what you are doing. Having something in between stops you from just checking highlights off your list. In our experience, it enriches the way you capture and enjoy the highlights during your trip.

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Our tips for sustainable full-time travel combined with work:

To conclude this blog we want to provide you with a short list of tips that will get you started well-prepared:

• Find out what ignites your interest. Not sure yet? Just start traveling and find out what you like when the rush of life back home has worn off.
• Include an interior workspace inside your vehicle. This will shelter you from external factors like bad weather or curious locals.
• Invest in high-quality gear (laptops, etc.) before setting off. Things like that are often more easily available back home, and you don’t want your gear frustrating you.
• Install a good battery setup and solar panels to keep your gear charged.
• Get high-quality and high-speed internet via Starlink if you spend a lot of time off-grid (in Africa, that’s very often for us). With this checked off, you’ll save a lot of time sourcing SIM cards and internet connectivity.
• Find a rhythm that works well for you. Keep in mind that your overland life is unpredictable, don’t force yourself. This new lifestyle is incomparable to the one you had back home.
• Take the chance to work when the situation presents itself. Did you find a comfortable location at the end of the afternoon? Work in the morning if you feel like it. Take every chance that’s comfortable and positive, in order to prevent forceful work and frustration.
• We have learned to plan special work days. As soon as we come across a great location, we might work for a few days, in order to have time off the next days. Practically, this provides us with workdays closer to civilization, and true adventure days without work-worry when exploring remote regions.