Cherie Ve Ard & Chris Dunphy and their 1961 GM 4106 Vintage Bus

Greetings.. and welcome to our virtual home!

We’re Cherie & Chris - two gen-X geeks who are utilizing technology to engage in a full-time hyper mobile lifestyle.  Some call us digital nomads, vagabonds, location independent professionals, lifestyle designers, geeky gypsies or hippies on http.

We call ourselves – technomads.

Technomad: Technology enabled nomad.

Our journey is not one of sabbatical or early retirement – nor have we set an end date. We aim to create a long term sustainable lifestyle that combines our hi-tech careers with a rich and fulfilling life of travel, community, adventure, wanderlust, and amazing experiences.

Our technomadic story begins in 2006 – and we feel that the sky is the limit to where our adventures might take us!

Our story

The 16' T@B trailer we traveled in for our first year on the road together.

How we met & our ‘T@bbed Browsing’ days

We were on opposite coasts of the country when we met in 2006.

Chris had just left behind his Silicon Valley career to start pursuing his dreams of full time nomadism in a tiny 16′ T@b Clamshell travel trailer.  He was in part inspired by his good friend Steve Roberts‘ (who coined the word) pioneering technomadic adventures years before.

Meanwhile, Cherie was running a custom software development business from her beachside home in Florida, and was already working remotely as she engaged in personal travel.

We first encountered each other in a Prius (yes, the hybrid car) forum and discovered we had friends in common and finally met for the first time in October 2006.  After our first date, we knew we were meant for each other, and hit the road together on May 10, 2007.

We only had 45 sq ft of living space, no bath facilities, refridgerator or air conditioning  - but we had solar power, cellular internet and an exciting new relationship.  We learned, that’s all we *really* needed to be happy.

Road Test Complete – ‘Going Oliver The Place’

During our 7 month cross country adventure in the T@b, we decided:

• We make excellent life partners, and had a life commitment ceremony while at Burning Man.
• We wanted to continue traveling, so we sold Cherie’s home & Prius.
• We needed a touch more space than the T@b offered, namely we wanted a dedicated bed & desk.

Our Oliver Travel Trailer at Burning Man 2010

We commissioned Oliver Travel Trailers to custom build us a sweet 17′ fiberglass travel trailer. We now had 80 sq ft of living space, a bathroom, refrigerator and air conditioning!

We happily traveled full-time in our Oliver from July 2008 – May 2011, aside from a 5 month break in which we took the opportunity to sublet a friend’s treehouse cottage on the tropical paradise island of St. John in the USVI.

The current journey – Vintage Bus Days!

Our time in the US Virgin Islands taught us that we really like being able to mix up the pace and style of travel. We also came to the conclusion that our days of living in micro-tiny spaces were likely over.

We anticipated taking several months to search out our options, but almost immediately we got an unsolicited offer to sell our Oliver at a price we couldn’t refuse.

Lightpainting of our bus, by Karen Nace & Ben Willmore

We delivered our Oliver with about a week’s notice, borrowed a small motorhome from a friend and then jumped on Amtrak to travel the country in search of a vintage bus.

In late June 2011, in the 115+ degree desert heat of Arizona – we found our current home.  A 1961 GM PD-4106, 35′ bus.

We’ll be working on making her our ideal high tech home & office on wheels.  We anticipate we’ll travel most of the year around North America, and parking the bus for a couple months at a time and enjoying some international explorations.

We follow nomadic serendipity at every turn – so who knows how it’ll actually play out.

Our worklife

We’re not on vacation. We’re not taking a gap year(s).  We’re not retired early. We just took our careers on the road with us.

Our primary source of income is via tech and software company – Two Steps Beyond.

Our projects range from managing custom software development projects (primarily in the healthcare industry), intense market research and orchestrating launch strategies.

One of our travel apps - Coverage? Compares cellular coverage provider maps.

We also dabble in mobile phone application development, and are launching a line of incredibly useful travel apps for the iPhone & iPad. It’s more for fun and to solve problems we encounter on the road – we barely make beer money by selling apps.

We’ve also been known to take on short term intense gigs that are totally outside of our norm, just for the fun experience of it.  Such as packing boxes at Amazon.com during the holiday rush, volunteering full time to run an Obama campaign field office in rural Nevada, or orchestrating a guerilla marking launch of an iPhone app at Macword (involving organizing a week long party on a double decker bus).

Our work schedule is quite variable, and we definitely enjoy working in short intense bursts on projects as opposed to a regular work day.  We can work anywhere from a couple hours to a hundred hours a week.

A word about this blog

This blog actually started as a continuation of our personal LiveJournal blogs.

We consider Technomadia to be the name of our personal concept of our home, love, relationship, location and our consciously constructed life.

(it’s pronounced ‘Tech-no-MAD-e-uh’, not ‘Tech-no-MAID-e-uh’)

Friends started asking questions about how we made the logistics work, so we wrote about it… and somewhere along the line we noticed we had a lot of new friends.  It’s intimidating sometimes to share this much so publicly, but the benefits have far exceeded the challenges.

Our blog is a mash-up of travelogues so we don’t forget and thoughts on how we make our mobile life of intent work.   We have no aims to make an income stream out of blogging.

We blog because.. well..  we enjoy it!  And we’d absolutely love to hear from you and meet-up during our adventures!

Contact Us:
us@technomadia.com

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Meet Technomadia

Chris Dunphy

Chris is a long-time technology geek, working in several venues of the Silicon Valley tech industry with a specialization in mobile technology. He’s been a tech journalist, mobile tech industry spy and forged creating a mobile application ecosystem.  He grew up traveling and living all over the world, including spending 3 years in Indonesia as a kid.

After traveling the world as an industry spy for Palm & PalmSource (a job just too good to give up), in April 2006 he evicted himself from his San Francisco penthouse apartment and launched into a technomadic lifestyle, making his life a living laboratory for mobile technology. He bought a T@B trailer, traded in his beloved hybrid vehicle and off he set.

He’s also a pilot (usually carrying his ultralight paramotor with him), photographer and all around adventurer.

His online screenname is is ‘Radven’ – short for Radical Adventurer

www.radven.net / chris@technomadia.com

AIM/YIM: RenDevang     Skype/Twitter: radven