What's your life like as an OTR trucker?

In my experience otr van or reefer is alot of fun for the fist 6 months to a year. Then after you have crissed crossed the country a few times the newness goes away and then it gets lonely.........unless you bring your wife or girl friend. But the wife/girl friend gets off the truck before the year is up! you're gonna make $35,000-$40,000 pulling van, reefer, or flat bed the first couple years working 70 hours a week! Like china says, a hand full of drivers are gonna make more, but the vast majority will be in the pay range I mentioned.

 

Make sure you google betel nut mouth also. Stay away from the stuff.

 

Not to pry, but do you live near a major city? For a while I worked messenger in the NYC area, 70-80k miles a year in and out of Manhattan and the other 4. Not great money, but no special license needed, it would be a good way to find out if you're a driver or not.

One insight that came to my small brain while doing that work: I would go into a business for a pickup and the tension in there would be terrible. It would be like suffocation. Soon as I got that package and was back outside breathing that fresh air, I felt so relieved not to have their more high-paying job, afraid to lose it because I had a plan about climbing upward I had to stick to. Even if it was pouring down raining it was better out there, but often it was sunny and the office people weren't going to get a chance to enjoy that. That feeling of being free of a stuffy office convinced me time and again that I didn't want to work at a desk.

And I wasn't stuck in one place all the time. I did go to the same places, we had big accounts, but it was only for a few minutes and then I was free to roam.

Far as college goes, some companies will pay for school, military will in some cases. If you pay for it yourself you'll have debt, and because you haven't been in a classroom situation you'll have extra catching up to do. Go do something/anything first and you'll find out who you are by doing it.

The work teaches the work.