Is travelling Australia a magic fix for everything?
There’s a lot more people on the road travelling Australia today than ever before, and that’s amazing. However, I see this common misconception shared around too often in various forms, and it’s this; travelling Australia is a magic bullet for you, your kids, your relationship with your partner or your finances, and its complete baloney.
There are more amazing photos, stories and adventures shared by people of all walks of life who are travelling Australia, and it makes it sound like your life is going to improve a hundred times over when you pack up and travel, and it can be really misleading.
In actual fact, the reality couldn’t be further from the truth, and I know a lot of the social media posts by various travelling families, couples and individuals often contribute to this misconception.
We’ve written a comprehensive post on this; Travelling Australia is harder than it looks.
If you have a rubbish relationship with your partner, travelling Australia isn’t going to cure this. If you have a rubbish relationship with your kids, travelling Australia isn’t just going fix it all.
If you have money woes, travelling Australia isn’t going to fix this.
It brings up a heap of challenges that you have to adapt to overcome, and you’ll learn a heap of new skills and mindset management tools, but it’s not a magic fix for everything.
We left Perth to travel full time nearly 8 months ago now, but would comfortably say that we are one of the more prepared travellers in terms of our setup, expectations, research and goals.
We’ve been planning this for more than 10 years, and have done extensive travels in the past and know that whilst it can be absolutely amazing, there are plenty of average experiences, and it is 100% not a magic bullet to wipe your problems away.
It is incredible
If this post sounds negative, I apologise. We like to say it how it is (for us), and if that’s hard to swallow, sorry.
Travelling Australia is truly amazing, and incredible on a level that is really hard to express. That however, is balanced with some pretty challenging times, and as a result is a lifestyle change, rather than one big, unbelievable holiday that so many people are promised.
You will see amazing places, and meet amazing people, and make some of the best memories to look back on ever, but you’ll also have things break, terrible weather, unexpected costs, cranky kids and partners, and so much more, so don’t head off expecting an overnight miracle!
What’s it been like for us?
After nearly 8 months, I have to think hard about what life was like prior to leaving. I’d say we have a heap more fun on the road than we did at home, but there are a lot more highs and lows, rather than the mediocre level that so many sit at for months at a time at home.
We’ll have the most amazing moments, or days, and then have days where you just want to rip your hair out, or leave the caravan park you are in as the kids have been feral all day. If you are keen to know what’s gone wrong on our Lap of Australia, we have a detailed post covering this.
We’ve got no intention of stopping any time soon, but there have been times where we’ve discussed going home early with the kids!
