The Two Magic Questions- Why and How
How did we come to the conclusion that we were going to pack up our lives and travel the country in a 22 foot caravan?
When we decided upon this idea many of our friends and family were so curious as to why and how we were going to sustain this lifestyle. And in all honesty so were we!
We had NEVER owned a caravan, we had never been camping as a family and we NEVER even slept in a caravan yet we were willing to sell all our belongings and live full time, indefinitely. But everything has always felt ‘right’ for us and everything has always worked out for us.
Let’s start from the very very beginning, where the seed was planted.
In early 2016 we were both working full time jobs, Dan was and still is a boiler maker and I had just opened my first gym. Everything was going great, my passion in the fitness industry was immense and I worked tirelessly everyday for my new business.
All of my pay check was going back into the start up of the business, so we were living on one wage. Although we weren’t ‘very financially off’ we both felt like we almost had everything that we wanted BUT one thing. We were missing one crucial element- time with each other. Dan had been offered work doing FIFO and my business was growing FAST that I was having trouble keeping up with the juggle of family time and keeping up with the demands of my fast growing gym.
What we were losing was family time……it was becoming less and less by the minute.
The Road Trip- that never happened!!!
One Friday night we had our neighbours over for some drinks and it was then that we began talking about (and making plans) to go on a six week road trip across the USA with our amazing neighbours.
The cost was about 50k and we both knew that could be put to better use in the new business that I had just set up, although we really knew that time six weeks together as a family was going to be great for us.
But something in our gut was saying no. We backed out of this and sadly told our neighbours no. We settled on a three week trip through South East Asia. Which ended up being the best holiday ever!
The Decision That Changed Our Lives
After both agreeing to say no to the amazing trip across Europe we went on a 21 day budget trip to Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore (we found great deals on flights). We spent of 2017 saving our butts off, a whole 50 weeks in budget mode to go on holiday for 14 days.
Back then I was working over time in getting my gym business out of the start up phase, there were some crazy hours involved and Dan was working full time, 12 hour days as a boiler maker. We never got to spend as much time as we liked with each other and the kids. We were looking forward to this holiday just to bond and spend everyday with each other- something we were all desperately missing.
Our holiday was an amazing adventure, we walked the back streets and tasted some amazing food, we talked, we explored, we tried new foods and the kids learnt some of the language.
One night Dan and I were sitting in our hotel room, I had just finished my work (yes I worked while I was on holidays) and started thinking how I could make this a reality, full time travel and work at the same time. I remember googling families who were currently doing it and there were not many out there.
WorldTravelFamily is one of the first families I started following- check out there blog. I began to share and send Dan these blogs as I thought I had a tough road of convincing ahead of me.
I was wrong!
Dan was open to the idea of travelling around Australia in a caravan, I personally am looking forward to travelling the globe but Dan is the sort of person who likes to take 1 maybe 2 steps at a time, which I am fine with because I am a risk taker so we level each other out, I always say we are the ying to each others yang. About 3 weeks of thinking it over Dan came back to me and said ‘yes let’s do it’!. Our original plans were to go for 12months but we thought why not just swap our location of living. Which then lead us to the idea of full-time nomads, living out of fully self contained caravan, travelling, wildschooling and living each day on an adventure.
We Have Never Looked Back
Every single decision moving forward has been around us being on the road, working while travelling, running my gym business while travelling and of course schooling while travelling- yep we are now incharge of our children’s life learning. Blog to come…..about schooling.
How do we feel about this all? Well we are at peace with everything. Everything has worked in flow for us and we have a mixture of emotions that are of sadness, excitement, nervousness, this is all new to us and so are the mixture of emotions. I think we are so ok with everything because if all goes belly up, then simply we come home and we have an amazing life here in Perth, amazing friends and family, a beautiful house and Perth is a great place to bring up a family. So either way is a win win situation for us. Which brings up another question as to why we are leaving our life here in Perth if it is so great. We truly believe that you cannot run away from your problems, we don’t have any problems nor do we have any issues we need to run away from. We simply believe that there is more than one way of living life, more than one way to educate your children and more than one way to earn a living. We don’t have all the answers but that is part of the fun and the challenge.
We put simply want live life through exploration and adventure, learn everyday through hands on experience and show our children that you can carve your own way living if you step outside the box.
Living Fearlessly Kylie xx
Although I don’t see you guys as much as I used to, you both are always on my mind and I hold our friendship close to my heart. I’ve seen you both literally go from strength to strength and your commitment, drive and passion to life and each other is something beautiful to see. I pray for safe travels and may God Bless you and the family wherever you are and go! Love Rob and Jac xxx
Thanks Rob- always great to have your bestie’s support xx
Caravan adventures with you guys is definetly on the cards. Love the fearless5