As a somewhat surprising reminder of the challenges and complexity of keeping remote workers connected and resources fully secured on the far reaches of the network edge, a recent study from campsite reservation app The Dyrt found that 23.8 percent of campers say they worked remotely while camping in 2022. That statistic is part of the 2023 Camping Report, but it was identical to the work-from-campsite stat from the prior year’s report.
“With return-to-the-office efforts across the country, one might have expected the work-from-campsite rate to decrease, but it stayed level,” says Kevin Long, CEO of The Dyrt. “Work from campsite is here to stay. You can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube, and you can’t put a productive working camper back in the cubicle.”
Of the thousands of respondents who took part in the survey, 13.4 percent are categorized as avid campers, meaning they took more than 10 camping trips in 2022. That group was found to be nearly two times more likely to have worked from a campsite last year than other campers. Vanlifers are certainly one of the main groups of people who take their work on the road, said the study. In fact, Long and founder Sarah Smith ran The Dyrt from their camper van for six months in the latter half of 2021 while crisscrossing the country.
“Remote work doesn’t have to be work from home,” Smith says. “As the leading resource and community for campers, we love it when a member of our fully remote team works from a campsite. It adds energy to our meetings when someone logs on from the side of a lake or the base of a mountain.”
Recent technological advances, said the study, have made the work-from-campsite lifestyle even easier to attain. SpaceX’s satellite-based Starlink, for example, recently announced it can provide high-speed internet while a vehicle is in motion.
“I find increased productivity when working from a campsite,” said camper Jason Dunne of Livingston, Texas. “The novelty of designing modern websites with Starlink in the middle of nowhere with solar power may never wear off!”
