Travel and Teach from an RV - Exactly How to Make it Happen
Is travel a huge part of your life, but teaching is holding you back? Well, worry no longer! Online teaching can be the answer you've been looking for. This week, I had the pleasure of inviting Anna Fagan, one of our Teach Music Online members, on the podcast to talk about traveling and teaching online.
As someone who LOVES to travel, I understand how hard it can be to work it around a busy schedule. But that is the whole reason I created Teach Music Online! I've worked for years with students online, and it has made my schedule, my traveling, and my life so much better. Listen to hear how to make it happen!
Enjoy This Week’s Transcript!
Carly
Anna, thank you so much for taking some time to join me and letting me ask you lots of questions.
Anna
Oh, you're welcome. It's my pleasure.
Carly
I want to just jump right into your situation. It's so unique and so fun, and it's on the bucket list for so many teachers - to be able to travel and work remotely a little bit. So tell us, for those listening, especially, where are you right now and what is your setup like for teaching music?
Anna
Well, we're in central Florida. I have been the church organist and pianist at the same church for about 31 years now. So we have been staying in Central Florida since we moved into the RV full time in April of 2021, because we want to be within an hour's drive of the church. As far as my teaching set up, really, the equipment that I have in front of me is basically the same thing that I had in my house since I went online at the end of March 2020, as most of us did.
Carly
Nice. So, tell us briefly what that setup consists of for your travel setup. I know it's the same as it was, but what is it that you're using to teach with?
Anna
Sure. Well, I have a Yamaha CSP 150 keyboard, which is a digital keyboard, and I already had that. I have a 13 inch MacBook Pro that I never thought I would be teaching off of. It was just going to be an extra office computer. I've got a 24-inch external monitor because I really wanted the MacBook to be in front of me, as you see. So it sits right behind where I would put music. You can see that I've got my iPad sitting in front of me, kind of out of camera view. So the external monitor lets me see other things. Since getting into the RV, I've bought other equipment. Like, I have an Elgato deck that enables me to connect the things I already mentioned, as well as my iPad and two webcams. And I've got a Blue Yeti mic that I use sometimes when I don't use this audio technical headset. And then it's all connected through a Scarlet audio interface. That way, my students get a nice clear sound of my voice, and I can hear them. Because living in a motor home, when it rains, it's really loud.
The rain is really loud. And so sometimes I'll turn my microphone off so that the student is not distracted by it. [Plays a short riff on the piano] So that is the sound of my keyboard coming through my Scarlet audio interface. And the reason I got all of that is because it's a small space. We've got about 300 square feet of space, and I live here with my husband. He also works an online job, but his does not involve talking a whole lot. It's mostly online chat for a hospital system. But, knowing that some noise might leak through outside to people and knowing that I was going to be there be a lot of piano music going, the only thing he ever hears is the sound of my voice.
Carly
That's so cool. Thank you for sharing all of the tech and the gear, because I'm just thinking there's a lot of teachers that are going to want to know how it all works together. I think it can be really empowering for them to know that whatever set up you have in a house, you can pretty much take with you if you go remote. One of the bigger questions could be Internet connection. What kind of Internet have you found that works best for you as you are in different places?
Anna
That's every RVer's biggest question. There's a lot of online groups that I'm a part of on Facebook, and every single one of them, there's four or five people a day that will ask, 'what's the best Internet if you have to work online full time?' And the answer to that is, it depends. It depends on what you're doing. And certainly if you're doing Zoom, then you have to be really concerned with your up- and download speeds. And I have to tell you, Carly, that because my MacBook is not a super-powered one, I am in the habit of running a disc clean program every day, and then I reboot. If I'm going to be doing a bunch of teaching, I want to make sure I'm starting with a clean slate. And then what I typically do is I check all the Internet providers that we have. We have Verizon, we have T-Mobile, we have AT&T, and we have Starlink. We got Starlink back in May, which has been working really well. I think the last time I checked, we were paying about $250 a month just for Internet services.
But you never know. The location I'm in right now, we have been in a lot in the last 18 months, and some days one will work better than another. So today I came and I did my disk clean and I restarted my MacBook, and about five minutes before you and I were set to chat, I realized, 'oh my gosh, I haven't checked to see which Internet is best today' because for some reason, Starlink is not working that well. I find that odd, because this is the location we were in when we got Starlink, and it worked so well that we were letting them use our Internet. That's how well it was working. But AT&T works really well for me today. Online teachers may be shocked to hear that I have twelve down and twelve up, which when I was in a house, I would have thought 'only twelve down?!' Because we're used to like triple digits down. And I see that sometimes. But upload, if I get double digits for upload, I'm like doing a happy dance. And there have been a couple of times this week that I had lessons that students said, oh yeah, you sound fine, the audio and video synced, everything's great. And my upload has been like 3.5.
Carly
I'm laughing because that's how it was when I was traveling and we were like in other countries, and we'd get to a hotel and the first thing Mike and my husband and I would do is check the Internet speed. And sometimes we would get excited, like, 'oh, we have 20 up and five down', or whatever. But I've taught in terrible internet speeds in different places and sometimes had to reschedule, but not very often. Usually I could get away with at least five up and down, could send a good feed. The challenging thing is when you're trying to send videos back and forth to each other, that's when you need something a little bit faster, or when you're streaming with multi camera views and stuff like that, it can be a little more challenging. But twelve up and down sounds like it's working great.
Anna
Yeah, and I checked it right before we got on. Otherwise, we have a T-Mobile 5G home Internet that usually is stellar. So when people ask me 'what should I get?', I say, 'Start with T-Mobile 5G and Starlink. And I would just get those'.
Our plans right now for my last day at the church is September 25 of this year. And we were all excited. My husband's job had approved him working out of the state of Florida, and then we realized that we're heading into Winter, and we really don't want to be in a motorhome in snow. People do it, but this girl doesn't want to do that. So we're probably going to be in Florida through March until threat of most of the snow is gone, and until we can go to some other states. But we'll be trying out Internet in the Keys. I've booked us into the Florida Keys for two weeks over Thanksgiving. So really, really excited about that. And I have heard people say that Starlink is working pretty well. So we'll see.
I will tell you that this week, I got a smaller digital well, like a keyboard, I can carry around like a 61-key keyboard. And I'm now working on being able to set up so that if I have to drive somewhere and teach in my car, I can. So that's on my to do list for this week because I have that. I would like a way that I can set up at least one webcam. And then I need to get a portable power station, because I don't want to run everything off my car battery and then find that I can't get home. So, you have to think about power and water when you're in an RV. But I'll tell you, I've lived in Florida my entire life and when hurricanes are headed our way, when I was living in a house, I was always in central Florida. So fortunately we never got hit really hard with but a couple of hurricanes. But there was always that question, how am I going to teach? And so that was some of my earliest experiences with online teaching, is people still had power and they still had internet, they still had their WiFi because they still had power, but they didn't want to be out on the roads, so we would have online lessons.
Well, now we have an onboard generator, so if the power goes out, for whatever reason, I have my own power through a gas power generator. We also have a big it's called a Blue ETI power station that we can recharge with solar panels. And I did actually teach earlier this year. It's a very long story, but I ended up working from a church parking lot in South Florida for a whole day. And I could have run the generator, but it was nice out, so I opened the windows and I used this. Everything that needed power was plugged into it. And we have 100 gallon water tank in the RV and we have two full bathrooms. All the other comforts upon anything you can name, I have around me. So much fun.
Carly
I wanted to actually ask about rewinding back ten or 15 years. Did you ever see yourself teaching online remote? Like, was that ever even in your mind or has it been, or what did you think you'd end up doing and how did you get into it?
Anna
Well, RV is something my husband and I talked about before we got married, and we've been married almost 32 years. And whenever the topic would come up, I would always say, well, if we're going to be in there for any length of time, we're going to need a piano in there. And of course, digital pianos were a thing, but I hadn't really thought any further down the road about how to put one there. As far as online teaching, I know that I'd been online teaching for a while, I'm trying to think when the earliest it was. I know I had a student who was in my area, but her mom was a nurse and was offered a year long position in Spokane. So the other side of the country, she really wanted to continue her lessons with me, so we did, and we did it over Skype, and it was horrible cause they had a horrible internet connection and it was Skype, but we did it. And you know what, she prepared a guild audition and she got really high marks. So that was my first inkling that you could actually teach and do a good job of teaching online. And I think that was probably seven or eight years ago. Then, fast forward to today. That family lives in Louisiana now and I just started her younger sister on lessons this week. The mom called me and said, 'hey, I want to start my younger daughter on lessons'. So rather than find a teacher, they had never found another teacher in Louisiana, so she wanted to go back with me. And it's so much better now with the options that we have now.
Carly
And not only that, our students are so much more open to it because they've been through a pandemic and had to do it. And it's an easier solution than I think it's ever been. I wanted to ask you, you've been in Teach Music Online for a few years now. What are some of the highlights of your journey going through the program? Whether that's within the course itself, upgrades you've made to your business or within our community.
Anna
Well, initially, and I joined Teach Music Online back in 2020, and initially it was because it was just such a comfort to know that other people were doing this, and that they were doing it successfully. And just to see what kind of equipment other people were doing. And I loved your course at that time, which has come a long way, as you know, because it's your course and I'm actually going back through it now. I started back at the beginning, I'm going through the whole course again now because there's so much information about every aspect of teaching. It's nice to have an overview of the different lesson platforms, the different video platforms, what their pluses and minuses are, different options for storing music digitally. That's really great. And equipment, as I said before, it's nice seeing what other equipment people have. And just the camaraderie, just the sharing of ideas freely of people that are in that community has been uplifting as well as educational. And I just have to tell you, I appreciate so much what you did in 2020 for teachers. I'm going to try not to cry, but I felt I've always been a tech person. And at that time I was president of Florida State Music Teachers Association. I had been president since October of 2019. And so in March of 2020, they canceled the MTNA conference like ten days before it was supposed to happen. But I'd always been the go-to tech person for our state and so what a good thing that I was the president in 2020 and 2021 because I just knew how to do this stuff. But there weren't a whole lot of teachers that people knew of that had done it. And so I felt like you were this friendly voice in the wilderness saying, 'you can do this!' You were like the cheerleader for everyone. And I appreciate that so much. And so that's why I signed up, even though I felt like, well, I know most of this stuff, but you don't know what you don't know.
Carly
I love that. I love that just way of thinking like, that gets you so much further than thinking, I know enough.
You recently have kind of teamed up with another member to do some accountability calls as you go through the course. Can you share a little bit about that and how it's been helpful for you?
Anna
Yeah, this was actually something that I learned in another course. I took an online course that was once a week for about eight weeks, and the format of that course allowed us to have about 30 or 40 minutes every week to just work. I had never done anything like that before. I'd heard of it, but I thought you're just like working, but it's that you commit to doing it at this particular time. You put it on your calendar and you know that there's somebody else that you're going to meet. So maybe you've done that with like an exercise partner or something. That's what gets you out of the door to walk in the morning or something, but just knowing that you've promised this other person that you're going to be working online. And so we work about 45 minutes, and then our plan is to take like a five minute break. It usually lasts longer than that, but we unmute our mics, we turn our cameras back on so we can see each other. And if there's something that we had a question about in the course or something that we want to discuss, then we take a few minutes to do that. But it's been a lot of fun and I just like being able to help other teachers that are kind of not as far down the road in this journey as I am.
Carly
It's been fun to see people hopping on there. And as you said, everybody is at a different place, and it's also probably inspiring to them to see you and where you're at and that you're still learning and you're still going back through and refreshing your ideas and maybe reorganizing and getting new ideas for your business. I think that's a great example to all of us. There's no end to the road of learning how to be a successful entrepreneur or business owner as you are. And it's exciting. It's fun and to have community around that can be so helpful. So thanks for setting that example inside of our community. It's funny, my husband and I had been talking about that exact thing. Some people call it body doubling. Is that what it's called? Yeah. In other communities, I guess. And so we were laughing about that's kind of a funny term, but they use that as a way of describing a work session with other people, and it can be really helpful to have that.
Anna
Yeah, we have really enjoyed it. And you know what I have found? I don't know why I'm surprised by this, because I've been teaching for about 50 years, because I started teaching when I was in high school as an apprentice teacher. And I know that when I was teaching in person, I was always learning new things. So I don't know why it surprised me that there's still more things to learn about online teaching. I think a lot of people think, well, once you know what buttons to press, and once you know how to find students, what else is there? Well, there's a lot. And I'm still learning. I learn a little bit of something every day, which is exciting, learning about that, learning about RV life. And when you stop learning, then that's when life starts to get kind of frustrating and boring, isn't it?
Carly
Absolutely. And that's one of the most fun aspects for me inside Teach Music online is I find myself curating really great tools and resources and passing them along. And I have always had such a love for technology and marketing and business. And it's an ever-changing world with online marketing. There's so many new tools and ways to be more efficient, to use our time wisely, to be smarter about finances, to set goals. I mean, the list goes on. And so it's been such a joy to bring that and combine my worlds of teaching with this love for just the world of modern business and marketing and help music teachers see that you don't have to do the traditional methods, maybe, that you were raised with, but like you said, you can always learn and it can always be very fulfilling.
Anna
Yeah. And I think that there are options that we haven't even realized are options yet, which I find very exciting, that there's something out there. There's a way of teaching that I haven't even thought of maybe yet. I'm working right now on an Asynchronous program that has just gotten off the ground in the last few weeks. I have four students signed on with that program, so I'm excited about that.
Carly
Yes. I love it. That's so good. I'm thinking from the shoes of a teacher who might want to be doing what you're doing. And I'm wondering if you could share what have been some challenges as you've transitioned from a home to an RV motorhome. And specifically with teaching, have there been any kind of unexpected challenges that you would let teachers know about in advance?
Anna
Well, I would say that probably the main thing that you need to consider is, if you want to be full-time in a motor home or a towable, you have to be willing to get rid of stuff. And that is a very difficult thing for people to do. But it was one of the driving factors that caused my husband and I to choose this lifestyle. We don't have a house now. We sold our house a number of years ago. We had been renting a fabulous house that was perfect for my group teaching. We had been in that house for three years and we have two adult children and we gave stuff away, we sold stuff. So getting rid of all that stuff, but then you don't have to take care of all that stuff. But you have to realize that whatever your teaching studio is in, if it encounters some kind of trouble and needs repairs, then they're going to be taking your house for repairs. So you have to be ready and willing to kind of go sideways with where are you going to teach them. And you encountered that when you were traveling. So there were things that we thought about and it hasn't been that big of an issue while we've been in central Florida, because I could teach at my church or I could teach in the homes of friends who have pianos that have offered their space to me. They are not themselves teachers. And so I just have to be prepared to gather up all my stuff, unplug it all, replug it back in, know what it is I need to have with me, and go teach somewhere else and possibly live somewhere else. We just came back from Indiana - where we had to get some work done on the RV - and I had just planned not to teach that week, but we were there last year and we ended up being there longer than we thought. And so I taught from the parking lot of the Rev Group service center for several days in July of 2021. So you have to be flexible. You have to be willing to get rid of stuff, you have to be willing to learn a lot of stuff that you have never considered having to know stuff about. But if you are married or have a partner, I will tell you that it's a great way to find a new love of things that you can do together because you have to.
Carly
Such great insight into that. I think I would add, from my experience with traveling and teaching, a couple of things that could be helpful for teachers is perhaps having one or two days a week that you're not teaching at all for maybe repairs or travel. Maybe they're not in a home, but maybe they're traveling and working remote from hotels or airbnb a month at a time, which is a great solution. But, you need travel days. So I know for me, I think I worked Monday through Wednesday and then I didn't have any students on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and so I was able to actually do the things we wanted to do while we were in these other countries and had more flexibility for being able to travel. And then I love what you said about flexibility. I would tell teachers that our students are actually very flexible as well. And I think sometimes it can feel like, oh no, I have to postpone lessons for today or I have to reschedule. Sometimes there's things that can feel like as a teacher, you can feel guilt around. But what I found was parents and students were very accommodating. So for some it could be a slightly different business model when you're traveling and teaching, where maybe you're teaching fewer days or students, but you're able to reschedule and have a little more flexibility. But it's important just to think those things through, because it does look a little different than when you're stationary.
Anna
Oh yeah, absolutely. And I know of people that buy motorhomes or tow-ables and they park them in an RV park and they stay where they are. It's not at all what we wanted to do. And I will also throw out that is not necessarily less expensive than living in a home, necessarily. And that's a whole other story. But we move about every three weeks and so it's like preparing for an earthquake every three weeks because you have to secure all your stuff. And so it's planning around those travel days. So I don't teach until 3 on Mondays and Fridays, and I don't teach at all on Saturdays and Sundays. Now, as I said, a church musician, but we're also having to work around my husband's schedule. And although I set my schedule, he does not set his schedule. And then you throw on top of that, that most campgrounds, you have to be out by 11 am and then you can't get in until noon. And you can't pull in at noon and be ready to go in like half an hour. So there's a lot of extra things that have to go into planning. When could I be ready to teach?
That is what kind of initiated that whole teaching from the church parking lot one day. We've actually done that a couple of times where we knew that my husband had to work at 8 and so there's no way we could have like a 2 hour break to pack up, move and re-set back up. But it's fun, it's an adventure and that's how we choose to see it and that's what we signed on for, that's what we wanted. And so I'm looking forward in next March to traveling. We're planning to go up the East Coast and then probably next winter, winter 2023, I want to maybe travel to Arizona. So many parts of this country that I've never seen. And we're just so excited to do that and still be able to teach.
Carly
Yes. Oh, it's so good. You mentioned something about downsizing and kind of having a more minimal lifestyle. What were some of your favorite parts of that or hardest parts of minimizing and getting rid of things? Because I went through that same process. I'm just curious how it was for you and your husband.
Anna
Well, we were somewhat fortunate. We had two adult children, and one of them was engaged. The other one had just bought a house, so they both needed stuff. So we just went through the clipboard and said, what do you want? And we just wrote it down and said, this is when you have to get rid of it. So when I visit either one of their homes, we still see some of our stuff because they have it. Clothes were really hard for me to get rid of our RV, my husband and I share a closet that is honestly like maybe 14 inches wide. And I have three drawers, and he has two drawers, and that's all for clothes. My shoes also have to fit in this closet that's like 14 inches wide. My daughter wears the same size shoes, so I still get to see some of my shoes on her feet. But my husband had a really good idea early on. He said, you know, it's seeing the things that bring back the memories. So I just took tons of pictures of things. And now the Time Hop app that drags out from pictures from a year ago. I'll go, oh, I remember that picture. Or I remember whatever, something that someone gave me. I think I had every greeting card my husband had ever sent me in our 31 years of marriage, I still had them, so I got to look at them all again and I took pictures of them. And it was wonderful to be able to bless people. Like we gave our washer and dryer away to a couple that help people who are coming out of homeless situations. And we were able to do a lot of things like that that were just blessings to us. So all around it was just a wonderful experience, and I'm happy not to have all of it, really.
Carly
Yeah. I went through the same process with taking photos of things. As you know, we went through boxes of childhood heirlooms or memories or certificates and things. And it's interesting you hold on to stuff for so long, for so long, because you don't have a need to get rid of it. You just put it in your basement or put it in a closet. And it's such a great exercise, even if you're not going remote to just purge, donate, and get rid of things. I found. That it was just so helpful mentally to get rid of stuff. And really, for us at our marriage, we had only been married for three, maybe four years at that point, and doing that as a couple so early on was a great exercise and really set us up for hopefully not holding on to things always in the future.
Anna
Yeah, I had gone through downsizing with my 80 year old mother three times in the last several years. And if you've ever had to do that, they don't want to get rid of anything. And I guess the older you are, the more memories you have, and so the more difficult it is to part with things. And it was, I think, compounded by the fact that we didn't want or need so many of her things. And so it was not only painful for her, but it was painful for my sisters and I to see her have to get rid of these things, to not know if someone was going to be appreciating them. And we didn't want to put our kids through that. So it really didn't matter to me if there were things that neither one of my children wanted. We took them to Goodwill or I found someone else that wanted them, and that was fine. But I think it doesn't bother me as much because I have 30 years less attachment to them, I suppose.
Carly
Before we end, I'd just love to hear what have been some of the biggest wins or joys to you in this transition as you've been able to still teach? Like those moments where you're like, I need to write that in my journal, or where you just feel so grateful for what you've created for you and your studio and for your life.
Anna
Oh, gosh. Well, being able to continue relationships with students that I've had for so many years. I had three seniors graduate last year that I had still been able to continue online lessons, still being able to have recitals from a teaching standpoint. From a personal standpoint, getting rid of stuff and freeing up my schedule, because taking care of that huge house isn't there anymore. It gives me time to enjoy time for things that I enjoy doing so much more. For the most part, it's a much more relaxed lifestyle for me because that's what my husband and I have chosen to make of it.
Carly
Well, thanks for sharing your experience and your wisdom. I can't wait to share this with teachers. I know there are so many that have these aspirations and dreams, and maybe it's way down the road for them, but hearing that you have made it happen and you've taken those steps that are not easy and not comfortable and can be nerve wracking, to make a big change like that in your studio is so inspiring. So thank you so much for sharing.
Anna
Oh, you're welcome. It has been my pleasure, and I hope I can be encouraging to somebody that wants to do this.
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