Backseat Blogger: Staying Connected from Reno to Heavenly, Lake Tahoe in a Car

I hope that the collective marketers responsible for the Reno/Lake Tahoe destination become more aggressive in trumpeting its connectivity and ability to serve the 'Always On' crowd. While we're a far cry from Philly or the SF Goofleplex and our RNO airport wifi isn't free...from a cell service perspective we're blanketed. It's pretty hard to play in the Tahoe basin and not have great cell service.

The conventional thought is that "staying connected" is not appealing to people who are trying to play in Reno-Tahoe. This is misguided. The Travel Industry Association recently released results that concluded:

• "While the point of a vacation may be to “get away from it all,” travelers bring a surprising amount of technology with them in order to stay connected during their leisure trips, according to the latest Voice of the Traveler survey by the Travel Industry Association (TIA) and Synovate."
• "Thanks to technology, travelers no longer have to wait until they return from vacation to share their stories – 18 percent use the Internet to stay connected with family and friends while traveling. Nearly as many use the Internet while traveling to find places to visit or things to do (16%), or choose accommodations based on availability of a high-speed Internet connection or Wi-Fi access (15%)."

Clearly we wired business folk like to have our connectivity. Nothing STRESSES out an 'Always On' executive more than being 'OFF'. (If you happen to be the proprietor of an establishment in Reno-Tahoe, I politely remind you that it is 2006 and it's about time to get that wifi thing licked.)

So, I recently had a meeting up at Heavenly in South Lake Tahoe. So.Lake is about 50-60 a minute drive from my office in south Reno. (From 1996 thru 2000 Martin, Matt, Johnny and I raced the R.A.T.S. town league ski races and routinely made it from Reno to the base of Heavenly in under 50 minutes twice a week leaving at 4pm for a 5pm race-start.)

Carson City is much larger now and that's no longer possible to do it under 50 minutes without serious risk to yourself and others.

Now, it's no secret that I suck at driving. I really do. I just don't care. Hey - I grew up in Crested Butte. The only need for a car was to drive after the bus closed, to get 4wd somewhere to ride your bike, or to drive to Gunnison to go to school. Parallel parking is still one of my greatest fears. Before I graduated high school I'd totaled two of my Dad's cars...yeah. Best to let me ride in the back seat...

Which is why I was STOKED to note that I was able to sustain a permanent VPN connection over Sprint's 3g EVDO cellular network from Reno to So. Lake without so much as a hiccup in service. I was able to instant message over Yahoo and Skype the whole time and iTunes was downloading the Brian Krolicki podcast Robert and Josh had just laid down. Pretty cool.

 

tags: Reno, Nevada, Heavenly, Lake Tahoe, tahoe, Sprint, cell, 3g, wireless, wifi, alwayson, connected, vacation, travel, skiing, snowboarding

Comments

[John Wagnon]

Northern Nevada may not be the Santa Clara valley ... but we're as connected as anyone on the planet. And if anyone knows about how connected a person can be here at Lake Tahoe, it's Dave LaPlante ... the most 'Always-On' person I know. Being connected on holiday is a personal thing. Unlike Dave, I try to be completely un-connected while I'm riding my bike over the mountain passes of Austria, France or Italy. But for those who need to remain connected, even if it's just to satisfy an 'Always-On' addiction, it's a good thing that Tahoe keeps you dialed-in. If you need it ... it's here.

So, for those of you who need to ... or just want to stay connected while you're on holiday ... have no fear, you're covered in Tahoe.

JW

[Josh]

This connectivity must be important to so many of the people who are moving from the Valley and Sacramento to Lake Tahoe. I know many of these people eventually end up moving from Tahoe down to Reno. If we want to attract technology companies and younger savvy employees to Reno, its a must. I just wish we could get some WIFI initiatives started instead of relying on the mobile carriers for bandwidth.

[Robert Payne]

Connectivity has certainly gotten better over the years; but I want 3G! I don't like carrying my laptop everywhere, especially when I am already loading up skis, mountain bikes or kayaks already.

[Scott Patterson]

I think as improvements in mobile technology improve such as UMTS, it will make it much easier for buiness professionals and other savy persons like myself to communicate electronically with the world via their mobile devices. Personally I'd like to blog while on vacation and have some ammount of interaction between my readers so they can view pictures and read stories and such. Having that access from a cell phone is critical in this case, unless WIFI becomes brodcasted regionally. I say bring back the blimps and have floating transmitters!

[Mazarin]

Nevada local governments likely are not prohibited from building municipal wifi networks after the FCC reclassified broadband service as an "information service" instead of a "telecommunications" service. The City of Reno and Washoe County should know that the area needs and its residents demand affordable and ubiquitous broadband service that is accessible to anyone with an appropriate device. Tell the county commissioners. Tell Mayor Cashell.

[davidlaplante]

Thanks for the comments everyone. I'll definitely continue to push for greater wifi coverage in Reno/Tahoe -- especially downtown Reno.

Take note of my Plazer plazes. I've documented about 30 Reno wifi locations.

http://beta.plazes.com/user/davidlaplante/