By Janet Menosky Smith

​The idea of meeting students online while experiencing the freedom of traveling is powerful, but traveling while tutoring presents its own set of challenges as well. Here are some tips for making it work and avoiding dreaded downtimes and work interruptions.

On July 1st, I packed my marshmallow roasting sticks and my computer (and a few other things!) and embarked on a month-long camping trip. My plan was to enjoy the outdoors and meet my students online, while enjoying a new environment.
I’ve been away for up to 2 months at a time and continued to work with my students. It’s definitely one of the best reasons to tutor online!
However, I’ve also discovered that most campgrounds have poor internet service, chiefly because the connection is not strong to begin with, and it is being shared by many other campers. There are options you can explore and that many camper/wanders use:

Option 1 – The Dream Option – Your campground has excellent Wi-Fi! Rejoice and make merry! This is truly wonderful when it happens. Usually though, it’s not the case, or at the very least, you still need a backup in case of outages.

Option 2 – The Hybrid Option – using the campground Wi-Fi plus your own phone carrier’s hotspot as needed. This option is good if you are not a long-term or full-time wanderer/camper but traveling for a week or up to a month. While the campground Wi-Fi is often weaker, sometimes it works well enough during slower times, such as weekday mornings through early afternoon, when few other people are online. If you can use the campground Wi-Fi at times, you can save on using your hotspot data allowance.

Option 3 – Using your phone carrier’s hotspot. This option works well if your phone carrier (Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile) has good reception where you are staying. You also need to be aware of how much data per month your carrier allots to you on your plan and consider adding more data if needed. When I tutor online, I use about one gigabyte (GB) of data per session, so a plan that offers twenty-five gigabytes will cover about 25 sessions a month. This may not be enough if you tutor more than 4-6 hours per week. Research what other plans are offered and consider upgrading if this will be a primary internet source.

Option 4 – Hybrid hotspot and public internet site. This can work if there is a coffee shop, library, or other public space with strong internet. There are cons to working in a public space, (See my recent post: The Traveling Tutor - part 1) but if you find a good spot, this can work for short-term trips.
The options mentioned so far work mostly for shorter trips, but if you want a longer-term-travel solutions, camper/wanders have found options like these:

Option 5 – Starlink – Starlink is a satellite-based internet service that has the advantage of working anywhere a satellite signal can reach you. This can include places where phone signals are weak or non-existent. It can be a good option for those with significant or long-term travel, especially because there’s an initial investment of $499 for the hardware needed to receive its signal. The monthly cost for the recommended RV is $150. The con with Starlink is that many camper/wanderers find they need to have a clear view of the sky, with no trees or other items obstructing the hardware plate. Weather can also play a factor in reception.

Option 6 – T-Mobile Internet Away Plan. Until recently, T-Mobile’s home internet also worked anywhere you traveled. Many campers took advantage of this and got good internet service wherever they went, if there was a good phone signal. Recently though T-Mobile has cracked down on this by restricting access away from home and offering a monthly Internet Away Plan specifically for those on the go.

Option 7 – Travelfi – Travelfi was created specifically for RV travelers and works by tapping into the available cellular towers of any provider, wherever you go. You purchase a Travel-fi device (starting at $109) and Wi-Fi plan to get started. One advantage of Travelfi is that you can stop the plan anytime you don’t need it and pay only when you are on the road.

Option 8 – FMCA Tech-Connect - For the price of membership ($50) plus an activation fee, you can get truly unlimited full hot spot access for $50 per month. This YouTube video explains how it works: The Best Unlimited Internet for RVs.
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In the end, it’s not one size fits all.
There are many options out there. The best one for you depends on how much you travel, where you go and how much internet access you need. Doing a search on YouTube using phrases like, “The best internet options for RV travel,” will yield many good options to consider. There really isn’t one best answer since there are many so many different ways to wander and travel while you tutor. May you wander and tutor well!
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Yours in reaching & teaching,
Janet

By Janet Menosky Smith

I’ve had a few travel scenarios that presented major challenges I needed to overcome, to successfully meet my students. 
​One particular situation helped me discover a go-to hack I can use when the internet reception is lousy...
A close family member had a serious medical issue while staying at their summer cottage on a lake about three hours from my home. I needed to help them find the right provider for treatment and help until they were on their feet again.
​With my tutoring tote packed, I arrived and discovered that there was no internet service at the cottage and poor cell phone reception. Plan A (use the household internet and Plan B (use my hotspot at the house) were dashed immediately.

​On to plan C – find a convenient local spot with good internet. I found a coffee shop with decent Wi-Fi (35 MB download and 20 MB upload.) It also had a nice upstairs room to work in.

​This spot worked well for my early morning student. However, when I would arrive for any tutoring after 11 a.m., the room was filled with other online coffee drinkers.
​Sometimes I couldn’t find a private table and had to beg-explain to someone that I would be tutoring, and would it be okay if I sat at their table.
​Also, with so many others using the connection, the available bandwidth often was seriously diminished. The cell reception was weak enough there also that my hotspot wasn’t any better.

​A few times the available signal was so weak, that I while I could connect with the student, there was terrible lagging and audio. First, we tried turning off just our video cameras, but the sound quality was still poor.
​Finally, we both had to turn off our sound AND video to stop the on-screen lagging. We used our cell phones for sound and just went without seeing each other.

​Not ideal, but it did work, and we were able to tutor. That’s an emergency tutoring hack you can tuck away in your tutoring tip box in case you need it someday!
​For the week that I was there, no other good options were available, and I just had to make do with my coffee shop office.

​It wasn’t ideal, but at least I enjoyed some delicious lattes!
​Yours in reaching & teaching,
Janet

By Janet Menosky Smith
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Being able to travel and still tutor is the ultimate benefit of working online. But, it's not always as easy to do both as it seems. Here are a few scenarios with some tips and things to watch out for.

It’s summer and for many online tutors, vacation or travel time is on the horizon. One of the advantages of tutoring online is that you can tutor from anywhere you can access the internet. With so much of the world seemingly connected, that seems simple enough to do. However, it isn’t always as easy as you might think. Here are some scenarios you might run into while you’re away from home…

1. Staying with family or friends. This is the most reliable option, if your host has a good home internet connection. Usually, private homes have reliable access and a quiet place where you can work. If you know you need to be online, ask your host ahead of time how strong their connection is, and if they know the download and upload speed. If they don’t know it and they’re willing to check, have them go to www.speedtest.net from their home computer and see what speeds it registers.

2. Hotel Internet connections. Most complimentary Internet connections in hotels are adequate, but make sure you check the connection speed from your hotel room ahead of your tutoring time. Sessions usually work with speeds of 10-15 megabytes download and 5-6 megabytes upload. This is not ideal, but you can usually manage. Tip: You may experience lagging during online sessions. If so, try teaching onscreen without your video, to free up limited resources.
Another tip: If the connection in your room is weak, see if the hotel has a business center or lobby with a stronger connection.

In fact, no matter where you are and what your first Internet connection option is, you always need a backup plan. I’ll talk about that a little later in this post.
3. Coffee shops, fast food restaurants, libraries, or other public spots with free internet. As nice as it sounds to teach in a quaint coffee shop while sipping on your latte, public places pose a few more challenges. The internet connection can range from stellar to barely there, and you almost always have a less private place to work, with conversations and piped music in the background. Libraries often have limited hours and want patrons to be quiet. If a number of other people are online and streaming video or conferencing virtually, it can use up the available bandwidth fast and affect the quality of your session. I only use these locations when I don’t have a more private and reliable option.

What is a good backup plan and why do you need one? I have traveled enough to know that I can never absolutely count on my first plan to use the internet in a private home, hotel, or public place. My chief backup plan is to have a hotspot on my phone. Then, if another internet connection isn’t available or is weak, as long as there is good cell phone reception, my phone's hotspot usually does the job.

The other key thing I do to make sure my online lessons will go as planned is to scout where I will be teaching ahead of time, if possible. Evaluate potential places by checking the internet speed on your phone. See if there is a quiet corner or semi-private place where you can work if you must be in a lobby or public place. Don’t assume you can plop down at a coffee shop table at the last minute, and everything will work just fine.
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Next time, I’m going to share some of my craziest traveling and tutoring challenges, and how I solved them. Because, no matter how prepared you try to be, sometimes things happen! Stay tuned! You won't want to miss it!
Yours in reaching & teaching,
Janet