how difficult would it be to find local work?

It's not hard. And though doing the whole 1 yr thing is by far the best idea, I can tell you it not always needed. I speak from experience. I was OTR for about 2 months after getting off my trainers trk, and I am going to fill out my paperwork to start my local job today. Have a plan, tailor your resume for your plan and just keep your feet moving. Nothing says you can't find a job while being OTR, just takes some good planning and communication. There are companies that really don't care about your experience per say. Examples being Pepsi, CocaCola, even a lot of beer diatributors will hire ppl with just a cdl permit, though experience helps. Best advice I can give is set your goal, fix your resume for that company, and stay put till you make that goal a reality. Good luck.

 

If it's being away from home that gets to you, that's one thing.

But if you want to go local because you perceive it'd be easier, just about any side of trucking is going to be much more labor intensive when you go local. Think that 15-strap and chain load sucked doing it once a week if that? Do three of those in a day several days straight. I've hung as many as 50 chains and straps in a day.

reefer? Might be handprinting your load.

Tanker... drag hoses back and forth with multiple stops every day.

Dump? Get your shovel out so you can clear the frozen stuff out in winter and tamp down the low density stuff to get as full as possible other times.

garbage? Best have a good back.

That's not to say don't consider local.

I run heavy haul and oversize locally with occassional over-nighters. I love what I do and wouldn't go back to OTR. But, I do three times the physical work I ever did when OTR.

it'll keep your strength up going local.

regarding how hard it is to find work... depends on how close you're willing to look and what you're willing to do.