We jumped on the Starlink bandwagon early. Was it the right decision?

At this point, you've probably heard the news that tech mogul Elon Musk is sending satellites into the netherworld, with a mission to connect even the most remote geographic areas with internet capabilities. In a nutshell, these low earth-orbiting satellites will create a vast network that transmit signals between themselves and small dishes that can be purchased by individual consumers, who pay a flat-fee for the dish itself, plus a monthly fee for the connectivity. Musk's company Space-X began the satellite launches in 2019. Now there are over 3,000 satellites and counting, and Space-X has big plans to launch at least 10x that many.

Starlink satellite internet has been the "it" topic in the RV community for a while. Though initially designed for permanent homes, we nomads were excited by the prospect, because we often find ourselves in locations where cell service isn't good, and we don't have many other options for internet. Some RVers jumped on the opportunity to grab a dish immediately, and even found ways to hack the system, changing their "service address" so they could use their dish anywhere in the country. Thankfully, this hack wasn't necessary for long, as Starlink began releasing mobile-friendly options.

It certainly wasn't all sunshine and rainbows, though. Word of this new internet solution spread and demand grew. There was also a months-long waiting list to get a dish in some areas, as only residents in select locations were eligible. Suddenly RV life influencers were chomping at the bit, sharing tales of their long wait period before finally getting their hands on this new technology. We watched their videos and read their articles with open eyes and ears, wondering if we should get in line. We had just started full-time RVing and were still testing out our internet set-up, which up to that point, had been pretty underwhelming, not to mention confusing, as it seemed there were so many equipment options, but none were very efficient. Anything that would help us work better on the road was something we really wanted to consider, but we weren't sure if Starlink was the answer.

As more and more RVers started getting their dishes, we became flooded with opinions on Starlink for RVers, and the spectrum was wide. We heard everything from "We got ours too soon and you should hold off," to "It's a decent backup but not main internet solution," to "Where has this been all our life?!" We really had to narrow our research to figure out if Starlink would work for us and the way we travel. One of the biggest issues RVers faced was trying to use their dishes in popular, remote areas, where Starlink users were saturated. Think Quartzite, AZ in winter, for instance. If every RVer has their dish and is bouncing signal off the satellite, that satellite would be overwhelmed. Other RVers worried that there simply wouldn't be enough satellites to make their purchase worthwhile. Lastly, as the mobile Starlink solutions surfaced, there was a lot of talk of de-prioritization. Basically, if you were a mobile user in a Starlink-heavy area, permanent residents would get first dibs, and your signal would be weaker and/or slower.

We travel slightly differently than the bulk of RVers. We call it "backwards traveling," where we like to hit popular places in the off-season and don't care about following the temperate weather. This time of year, many RVers are flocking to Florida and the Southwest. We're in New England. In the warmer months, we stay flexible, often venturing to higher elevations to try and find cooler temperatures. We're from beach towns, so we feel no need to head towards the ocean during the summertime, where many road travelers visit. Case in point, being in Starlink-saturated areas wasn't a huge concern of ours. We did, however, learn that relying 100% on Starlink was just never going to happen. The influencers who deemed it a "solid backup solution" seemed to be onto something. We understood how this internet worked. With a clear view of the northern sky, the connection could be strong. But, with even the slightest obstruction, there could be interruptions. When the internet was working, speeds would be delightfully fast, but as many RVers said, "Don't expect to be able to take a video call." This is because the connection would be interrupted quite often, especially in shaded campgrounds.

With all these details considered, we decided we were ready to take the leap. Even if Starlink ended up being a fallback internet solution, we learned during our first few months of travel how important a multi-pronged approach to connectivity is. We also were able to offset the cost of Starlink by making a change in our cellular internet equipment, swapping out our Pepwave for a Solis hotspot. The two do effectively the same thing, seeking out the strongest internet from the main cell providers in the area, but the Solis saved us about $150/month.

We did some finagling to get our dish without needing to be on a long waitlist. Our home-base address wasn't yet eligible for Starlink, but we were able to use Anthony's sister's address in NY as the service address. We still shipped it to MA, but we'd need to get the dish to NY in order to activate it. We figured we would grab the dish and drive it down to NY sometime in the summer, but at that point, the priority was actually getting the dish in-hand. From order to delivery, the timing was very quick. We ordered the dish on May 6 and it was delivered May 18. Nicole's parents kept the dish safe until we arrived back home in July. As luck would have it, by then our home-base address had become eligible, so we just switched our service address and activated it from there.

We've now had Starlink for almost 4 months, and overall we're really happy we didn't listen to the RVers who advised us to wait. Around the time we got our dish, Starlink introduced portability, a feature where consumers could take their dish away from their service address and still use it, without needing to use the "change service address hack" that the early nomadic users needed. Portability is an extra $25/month, but well worth it to just plug it in and have it work wherever we go. Given the hefty cost of Starlink, an extra $25 is a drop in the bucket.

The base price for the dish is $599; with fees the total price was $686. Monthly we pay $135, which includes portability. We've yet to configure a setup that allows us to mount the dish on our roof, but many RVers fashion a flag pole or other system to raise their dish up once they're parked at a campsite. The dish needs to be packed away during travel, something that doesn't bother us but is a downside for other nomads. Starlink has recently released a new dish that can be permanently installed and used in travel, but it's very expensive. We are more than happy just setting up our residential dish whenever we need it at a campsite.

That's another important note. We only set it up when we need it. So, if we arrive to a campground and struggle with our cell service, we then take out the Starlink. Because we don't mount it anywhere, we simply plug in a router that connects to the dish, and then we position the dish in a place that has the clearest view of the sky. The router needs to be plugged into an AC outlet, which we have on the outside of our trailer, or we sometimes opt to use the 120-volt outlet in our campsite pedestal. The physical setup is a piece of cake, but it does take a while for the system to boot up before we can find the optimal position for the dish. Once booted up, there is an app that will help show if the view is obstructed.

The special circumstance of having the Starlink dish on the road is mainly keeping it safe during travel. We, like many RVers, found a sturdy box that will fit all the components. That plus the frequent setting up and stowing away, which home residents don't need to worry about, are probably the most tedious parts of having this internet. Those slight drawbacks are really nothing compared to how well this solution has worked for us.

We first used our dish at a campground outside Saratoga, NY. We stopped for a couple nights at a campground on our way to Niagara, and because it was a quick stop and last-minute booking, we didn't check connectivity. Turns out, there was zero cell service. We were, however, backed up to a massive field. We tested our Starlink and it worked great. The speeds are comparable to our old residential internet when we had our sticks and bricks. We got download speeds close to 100mbps. Once in Niagara, we had more luck. After all, Lake Ontario was to the north, and you can't get more unobstructed than that! At Four Mile Creek State Park, cell service was minimal at best. With Starlink, we barely had to worry about our connectivity. Four Mile is such an amazing campground, but without our satellite capability, we would have really struggled to make this campground work for us. We imagine this will be the case in a lot of future campgrounds that are in more remote areas. We want to be able to go off the beaten bath, and now we feel like we can while still being able to do our jobs and keep in touch with our friends and family.

We've heard some concerns by people wondering if their dishes will get stolen just sitting out in a campground. The equipment is connected to our account, so if anyone steals it, we can alert Starlink and deactivate our account, much like if a credit card got stolen. Getting a replacement might be costly, but Starlink would have a way of knowing where it was, which could help with police recovery. Do we ever really worry about this? No, but the RVers that do can find ways to plug their router in inside the rig and feed their cable through a hole to the outside. But in reality, many RVers leave expensive equipment on the outside of their sites. We just keep an eye on things, have our wits about us, and if we really feel like we need extra security, we've got our cameras.

The real concern isn't robbery, but what other RVers evidently call "getting squished." We didn't know just how common it was for people to have their dishes get run over by cars until we had it happen to us. It's the downside of keeping the dish on the ground. Though we always keep ours very much in our site, we sometimes forget that people driving through campgrounds might not be used to towing, and it might get very dark at night. That's exactly what went down one night at Buckaloons Campground in Allegheny National Forest. One minute the internet was working, and the next it cut out. Not too alarming since there was some tree cover, only the internet never came back. Anthony went out to see what the problem was, and that's when we discovered that our poor dish had suffered from smoosh. It got stuck in its mount and the motors stopped working. Let that be a lesson to us to keep the dish further back than we ever think is necessary, and maybe one day, fashion a flag pole to get that baby secured higher up.

We expected to have to shell out a substantial amount of money to get the dish replaced. Initially we thought maybe the full $600, but then we read that it'd likely be $250 for a refurbished replacement. Turns out, it was neither. Because our motors stopped working, Starlink sent us a replacement for free. We're not exactly sure what the stipulations are for getting a replacement when a dish gets damaged, but we didn't question it! We also requested a refund for the month we would be out of a dish, while the other one was being shipped to us. Customer service granted us this request.

Our experience with Starlink has definitely been one of the most positive we've encountered, from the ease of acquiring a dish, to its effectiveness, to our customer service experience in getting the replacement. We know that many RVers have different stories, so all we can say is that, for us and the way we travel, this has been a really solid internet solution. We never expect it to be our main system 100% of the time, but it has come in handy in numerous campgrounds over the past few months. Because a large part of Nicole's job is uploading large files (videos and music for online therapeutic music offerings), having fast upload speeds has been a real gamechanger. Even with interruptions, the uploads will just pause and then resume when the internet comes back. And as for the video calls, if the dish really has an unobstructed view, it works like gold, but of course this is very location-dependent, and even varies among sites at the same campground. So, knowing what we know about this new technology, would we recommend it to RVers? Truthfully, it depends on how you travel and what your needs are. We hope that our story has given you some insight, but only you can make the decision that's right for you.