We live on the edge of the grid in a very remote New Mexico near the Gila National Forest. With 3 kids, 6yrs and younger that we home school. I've worked remote since 2010 and absolutely love it. Working remote plus home schooling the kids means we can travel and pretty much go anywhere we want any time. We do a lot of RV travel plus spend lots of time outdoors in the Gila, hiking, hunting and exploring...
As for the deciding where to live, it was pretty easy for us. We were already coming to New Mexico for the outdoors multiple times per year, and land in our favorite area is cheap. We were able to locate 43 acres with a log home and relocated here 5 years ago... was the best decision for our family.
Our first couple of years here the internet was a bit spotty as I had to use a Verizon hotspot and typically had 2 bars of LTE on the best days. Surprisingly, there is fiber run all over the place here even tho its super rural. Eventually the local phone company installed a DSL box on one of the fiber runs near our property and that allowed us to get DSL. It's only 5/1 but fits our needs and my VPN connection works fine with it along with my VOIP desk phone.
I have a 1Mbps uplink and was a remote developer. We did not use "heavy collaboration tools" to my knowledge, but we did do plenty of videoconferencing and google chats. It was fine.
It is annoying to upload large files, which was a task I virtually never had to perform.
I've been in situations like this in the past and would SSH to a build box that had a fatter pipe. Depending on the situation, it may be a cheap alternative.
This is encouraging to hear. I’m about 4 months out for a move to the hill country just west of Austin. Same situation, working remotely, homeschooling. Any advice on what to look out for? I’d still be grid connected, so I wouldn’t be relying on a femto or anything like that.
Some advice would be to start your day earlier so you can end it earlier. I'm usually done with work by 3pm and them I'm spending time with the kids, doing stuff outdoors and being disconnected. Our team is spread across the country so I typically work an east coast schedule.
Another big thing for me is having a separate place for an office, so I can leave the house and go somewhere that is dedicated to work. For that, I have a 400sq ft office about 20 yards from the main house.
We also have a separate space for homeschooling, that's a big help for my Wife and the kids.
If you want advice on remote living and property type stuff, shoot me an email (in my profile).
Would you mind sharing what kind of job you're doing that's enabling you to do this? What would it take someone let's say with 0 background in what you do to get to the point of doing this?
As for the deciding where to live, it was pretty easy for us. We were already coming to New Mexico for the outdoors multiple times per year, and land in our favorite area is cheap. We were able to locate 43 acres with a log home and relocated here 5 years ago... was the best decision for our family.
Our first couple of years here the internet was a bit spotty as I had to use a Verizon hotspot and typically had 2 bars of LTE on the best days. Surprisingly, there is fiber run all over the place here even tho its super rural. Eventually the local phone company installed a DSL box on one of the fiber runs near our property and that allowed us to get DSL. It's only 5/1 but fits our needs and my VPN connection works fine with it along with my VOIP desk phone.