Social and cost benefits for remote life in Discovery Bay, CA
Case Studies
How the Roam™ app applies
With a proximity focused matching algorithm, the Roam™ app is ideal for connecting people who live in a shared community area, and who also make similar trips. With the added benefit of meeting new friends, Becky can also save money and help save our climate with shared rides to the places that she and others from her remote community would both like to go.
What’s the situation?
Becky lives in a small community of a few thousand people called Discovery Bay. It’s about 75-90 minutes east of the San Francisco Bay Area during non-commute hours. She knows a few people in her waterfront housing community, but working from home, she doesn’t get many opportunities to get to know more of her neighbors. Many of them tend to travel to similar places to buy groceries, or to get to a wider variety of shopping or services that aren’t available nearby.
When she’s not in Discovery Bay, Becky spends time in Lake Tahoe, where the population is split between locals and tourists. Vacationers with money to burn drive up prices on the things that working residents aren’t anxious to pay.
In both places, many local residents prefer not to shop in town and instead make long drives to find and purchase staples like groceries, or to get better prices for other frequent purchases. It saves a lot of money but it can be tedious to be in the car for over an hour alone.
What’s the Problem?
The two challenges are how to get reasonable prices and variety for purchases – and how to meet new people when you spend most days working from home.
Some products and services Becky wants to get frequently are available with better variety or lower costs in places like Stockton (30 min), Walnut Creek (45 min), or San Francisco (1 hour 15 min), so a shared ride would make these trips both more affordable, less boring, and an opportunity to meet new friends from her own local community in Discovery Bay.
Working from home adds great benefits to one’s life balance, saves on gas and wasted time commuting – but it can be a barrier to expanding social circles. Becky would love to get to know more people in her community, since it’s not that large and likely has many others in her same situation and with similar interests.