Summertime’s a great time to hit the open road – without leaving life behind. Technology widely available to the consumer market helps the “anywhere” office – and online personality – come alive without an electrical outlet or Ethernet cable in sight. This is Americana in a way Norman Rockwell never could have imagined.

This summer, the Home Office Highway ‘11 road show will showcase the tech, tools and tips that empower people to work and play from the interstate highway – or the information superhighway. The three-week excursion and social media event will highlight how “location independence” can be found wherever life’s journey ventures.

This year, we’ll travel from Fort Lauderdale to San Francisco. Part sightseeing trip, part college tour, all fun-n-games. The van will have laptops, digital cameras and other technology common to the modern family home.

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The road traveled, so far...

Four days into Home Office Highway ’09 and we’ve seen a great deal of Florida and Georgia.

We’ve traveled about 10% of the trip on country backroads, so we’ve seen more of Real America than we have in the past.

A sampling of snapshots from the trip thus far: Upper left (and me in hat), tubing down the Itchetucknee River in North Central Florida; top center and right, Stella enjoying my harmonica playing, then asleep on her perch: My Foray Mobile Workmate; lower right, Robbie sending a Bunk Note to Zoe on the MSI netbook; lower left, the campsite home office: the netbook, Verizon Gz’One Boulder, and a cup of coffee.

These are the images memories are made from…

Long-time home office architect Neal Zimmerman has created a killer new concept for the home office genre: The Getaway Space.

And with a little extrapolation, think about how a shed, cottage — or recreational vehicle — could suit your home office needs.

Not so much a home office or site for a home-based business as a retreat for anyone, the spaces seem part entrepreneur-minded, and part Henry David Thoreau-esque escapism. It’s even ideal for the teleworker who needs a space away from home to get work done.

Neal explores backyard pavilions and personal getaway spaces. He shows why, how and where people are building them, and showcases custom designs, and myriad examples of prefabricated modular units that can be shipped anywhere in the world and quickly assembled. Read More »

Since I began working from home in 1989, I’ve worked from quite a few strange places — ferries crossing the Delaware Bay, minivans scurrying down the interstate, the outback of Papua, New Guinea.

Yet at right is a picture of me in one of my first “remote” offices.

I was covering Spring Break for Advertising Age magazine. I packed my Apple IIc and dot matrix printer in a plastic laundry basket, grabbed my Nikon F, and hit Daytona Beach with my relatively newly-wed wife, Robbie. What a blast!

Once my writing was finished, I went to the hotel lobby, faxed the copy to Chicago, and FedEx’d the slides of kids having fun on their parents’ tab. How times have changed. Today, I’d probably still write from the hotel room table (at little too distracting to write poolside at spring break). But with my wireless broadband aircard in place, I’d do my research and filing with ease.

As this grainy shot reveals, you can work from any office. It also shows how I’ve aged — and grown — in 20 years.