Off-Grid, Not Offline

How we built reliable internet into our travelling setup

Going off-grid used to mean going offline. For us, those two things no longer need to come as a package deal. We love travelling remotely with the caravan, finding beaches, camps and stretches of Australia where phone reception becomes a distant memory. But there are also four of us travelling: two adults, an 8-year-old, a 10-year-old and, perhaps most critically, Bluey. The ramifications of Bluey running out of data somewhere in the middle of nowhere outweighed almost every other consideration.

At the centre of our setup is a Starlink Mini running on the Unlimited Roam package. Rather than unpacking and setting it up every time we stopped, we mounted the Mini to the roof rack of our Nissan Patrol using a Starlink Mini base-rack bracket. This turned out to be one of the best decisions we made. Starlink travelled with us rather than being something we set up at camp, so even while driving through remote areas the Patrol could stream Apple Music and the kids could use their devices without us constantly watching a mobile-data counter creep towards catastrophe.

Our Patrol doesn't have a second battery, so we used a KickAss KickCharge 1200 LiFePO4 Power Station MK2, with 1120Wh capacity, in the back of the vehicle. The power station was connected to the Patrol through a 12V socket charger, while the Starlink power cable ran from the roof-mounted Mini through the rear door and into the KickCharge. While we drove, the Patrol charged the power station. When we stopped and switched the car off, the power station simply kept Starlink alive, potentially for a couple of days depending on what else we were powering. Drive again and the charging cycle started again. Simple, automatic and remarkably effective.

For longer stays we also carried a 3.5kVA generator. It wasn't something we needed humming away all day. If we'd been stationary for a while and the laptops, power station or other equipment needed a decent recharge, we'd run the generator for a couple of hours, top everything up, switch it off and return to the important business of doing very little.

Where it gets interesting...

My travelling office consisted of an ASUS Zenbook powered by a Ryzen AI 9 HX processor, a portable second monitor and Starlink. That was essentially it. Two screens, reliable internet and enough computing power to run the same trading setup I use at home.

And this is where travelling and trading become a pretty interesting combination.

Trading doesn't require an office. It requires a strategy, discipline, reliable internet and the equipment needed to execute it. If your strategy operates inside defined trading hours, your physical location suddenly becomes surprisingly irrelevant. There is something fairly ridiculous about sitting outside the caravan, looking across a beach, drinking a coffee and trading exactly the same market you would normally trade from your office at home.

The market doesn't know you're barefoot.

It doesn't know there's a caravan behind you.

And it definitely doesn't care that Bluey is playing inside.

On a good morning, it's entirely possible for a disciplined trading session to produce more than somebody might earn from an entire day's work, before lunch. That isn't a promise that every trade wins or that trading somehow becomes easy when there's an ocean in front of you. Losses still happen. Risk still matters. The rules still matter. That's actually the beauty of it. You're not turning your holiday into an eight-hour trading session. You're taking the same process you use at home and making it portable.

Trade done. Laptop closed. Go for a swim.

The real meaning of off-grid

We normally think about off-grid travel in terms of water, batteries, solar, refrigeration and fuel. After travelling this way, I'd add reliable internet to that list. Not because we want to spend our holidays staring at screens, but because reliable connectivity means we don't have to plan our travels around connectivity.

Starlink handles the internet. The power station keeps it alive. The Patrol recharges the system while we're moving. The generator gives us another layer of backup when we're parked up for longer. And the Zenbook and portable monitor can turn a table beside the caravan into an office whenever it's needed.

That's much closer to what OXFX is about.

Trading isn't freedom because somebody puts a Lamborghini beside a candlestick chart. Freedom comes from building a method that fits around the life you actually want to live. Technology has reached a point where an enormous amount of infrastructure can travel in the back of a four-wheel drive. For us, that meant music on remote roads, connected kids, the ability to camp where we wanted and a genuine two-screen trading setup beside the caravan.

And, most importantly...

Bluey never ran out of data.

Some risks simply aren't worth taking.