Posted by Howard Richman on March 22 2008 at 20:59:41:
The above photo showing Richard and Angela Hoy accompanies an article about them on the wi-fi planet website by Daniel Casciato. Here is a selection:
Knowing that this business model would continue to prosper on the road, the only hurdle remaining for the Hoys was how to educate their children (four at the time, now five). Three of the children were school-aged at the time."We obviously couldn´t take them out of public school for extended periods," said Hoy. "We started researching options on how to homeschool when we came across Oak Meadow, an accredited institution based in Vermont with an online-based curriculum. It was perfect for us and has worked out well."
With everything finally in place, the Hoys made their first RV trip, from Maine-to-Wisconsin-to-Texas, for six weeks in June and July of 2004. They have also made trips to the Florida panhandle, Pennsylvania, upstate New York, New Hampshire, and Vermont.
Connectivity on the road
Connecting to the Internet to access their e-mail, business Web site, or the online classes for their children was never a problem. At the time, Wi-Fi penetration into campgrounds reached a level where it was practical for them to plot a cross-country trip.
"In addition, T-Mobile began offering flat-rate cellular data service," Hoy added. "It wasn´t very fast, maybe the speed of a 9600 baud modem to a 19.2 modem, but it was fast enough to do e-mail. And you could connect while flying down the freeway."
Today, most campgrounds offer Wi-Fi, so the Hoys choose sites exclusively on its availability.
"Finding campgrounds with Wi-Fi was a big deal at first," he said. "It is a much more common amenity at campgrounds now. You can pretty much find at least one, usually more, campgrounds with it at your destination."
To help other RVers locate hotspots at campgrounds, Hoy added a database to their Web site, which chronicles their RV adventures....