Campgrounds With Wifi: What Actually Matters When You Work From The Road
Every campground says it has wifi. Most of them mean there is a router in the office building and if you park close enough you can check your email.
That is fine if you are on vacation. It is a problem if you have a standup at 9am and a client call at 2pm, and it is the reason a lot of us have spent a morning sitting in a parking lot outside a coffee shop in a town we did not want to be in, apologizing on mute.
Over half the people who camp with us work full time on a real schedule, and a lot of them are here for a month rather than a weekend. So this is a thing we've had to get right rather than a thing we advertise. Here's what actually decides your workday, in the order it matters.
1. Two ways to get online, not one
The single most useful question is not how fast the wifi is. It's what happens when the wifi goes down.
Somewhere with strong cell service and no wifi is usually more workable than somewhere with wifi and no bars, because your hotspot is yours and nobody else is on it. Somewhere with both is the actual answer. Ask which carriers work on the property, not just whether there is a signal, because that varies enormously site to site.
Joshua Tree runs Starlink plus 5G cell service. Molalla has wifi included plus 4G. Neither of those is a promise that nothing will ever hiccup. It means when one goes, you have the other.
2. Somewhere to sit that isn't your rig
You can do a lot from the driver's seat. You cannot do all of it for six months.
Working from inside your rig every single day is one of the fastest ways to start resenting your rig. Being able to move, to sit somewhere with a table and shade and other people quietly doing their own thing, changes how the day feels far more than an extra 20 megabits would.
Joshua Tree has a cowork trailer. Molalla has shaded cowork by the river. This is genuinely the amenity I'd tell you to weigh hardest, and it's the one almost nobody lists.
3. A camp that respects a workday
This is the part you cannot check on a website, and it matters more than the first two.
Plenty of places are perfectly nice and completely unworkable, because the social rhythm runs straight through business hours. Somebody starts a project at 9am with an angle grinder. The group leaves for a hike at eleven and you're the person who said no.
At our locations mornings are quiet by default and anything social lands late afternoon or evening. That isn't a rule anyone enforces, it's just what happens when over half the camp is on a schedule. We also don't allow generators or big van build projects, which sounds like a restriction until you're the one on the call.
It's also why the national park campgrounds near Joshua Tree don't work for most remote workers, however good the view is.
Nobody is counting your hours or checking in on you. You can shut your door for three days and nobody will take it personally.
The honest limitation
One thing we'd rather tell you now than have you discover on a Tuesday.
This is a campground, not an office. The farther you set up from the common areas and the amenities, the slower your connection gets. If your work genuinely cannot tolerate that, park closer in and take the slightly less private spot. That trade is real and we would rather you make it on purpose.
What to ask before you book anywhere
Useful whether or not you ever come see us:
Which carriers actually work on the property?
Is there a backup if the wifi drops?
Is there a covered or shaded place to sit and work that is not my vehicle?
What time does the place get loud, and what makes it loud?
Are generators allowed?
Can I extend if it works out, and at what rate?
If a place can answer those six quickly and specifically, they've thought about people like us. If the answer to all six is "we have wifi," you already know what you're getting.
Both of our locations are built around this. One of them is open right now.
Joshua Tree, CA, October through April
Molalla, OR, May through September
Aidan VLC founder & dude just trying his best
