In this blog, we sit down with a local Queensland family in the office and listen while they share their experience with what it’s been like to pull their kids out of school and get prepared to take on the lap of Australia. Krystal and Myles from ‘Family Escape Australia’ answer a few questions about what they have planned already. They also outline budgets, schooling, and working remotely. They also explain what made them take that leap from the everyday grind to full-time road-tripping. This blog will be in question-answer form to make it easier to take in, so please enjoy reading along:
How many kids are you travelling with and what are you driving?
We have a four-year-old, her name is Evelyn and we have Hazel who's almost three. We are in the process of building a 79 series land cruiser and have recently just sold our Jayco Pop-top, we currently have a Lotus Trooper on order and are due to arrive in October.
Which direction are you heading in/what season and why?
After Christmas, we are heading south to SA and adventuring down there for 6 months. In June/July we will be heading north up through the WA coast as this is a cooler time to visit. As we are Queenslanders, we feel WA is a priority for us during winter to avoid the heat and wet season. We have pretty much covered all of QLD, except for Cape York. We are not 100% sure if we will make it to the Cape before the wet season but worst case we will just wait until the following dry season. Our biggest tip is to follow the seasons, not only will this make it more comfortable for you, but it will generally allow you to avoid bad weather. Many parts of Australia experience flash flooding and we will do everything we can to avoid putting our family or others in danger.
Have you researched any places you really want to see or are you making it up as you go along?
We have no set time or deadlines other than the seasons; we feel that putting a strict timeline on our travels may result in missing out or rushing something that we would have otherwise enjoyed. We have purchased the WikiCamps App and this is how we plan all of our trips. It shows both paid and free sites, dump points, water locations and local attractions. Within the site, you see current photos, prices, and reviews from other travellers. We also follow multiple Facebook groups and add recommended campsites and attractions to our trip planner within WikiCamps. There is no doubt that we want to tick off the well-known attractions/sites, but it’s the hidden gems that we prefer to find. We have found in our travels that the best information is from other travellers around a communal campfire.
Was the plan always to travel in a caravan? You know, have you tested a few ways of travelling?
When we first started dating, well, that's where we started camping, just in a tent. (Krystal) - I grew up camping. School holidays etc. We had boats as well, and we always went tent camping and yeah, I grew up in Ipswich and my parents just liked to head out every weekend and I think that’s why I had no issue dragging him along to go camping, actually one of our early dates was heading up to Somerset Dam.
Then we moved on to the rooftop tent, which was awesome, I loved it and then with that, our first daughter was born and of course, the rooftop tent wasn't really practical with a baby, you know trying to breastfeed in a rooftop tent was really hard. It just doesn't work. Yeah, so then we went from a rooftop tent to a Patriot X1 camper trailer.
What do you think of the camper trailer? It’s a little bit more set up, right?
(Krystal) Yeah. So, I still prefer the rooftop tent probably over the camper trailer. I mean, when we finally got it, it was great, but it had its pros and cons. It was very spacious whilst remaining compact. It was easy to pack and unpack but I think for me the turning point for the camper trailer, was one incident where I just lost it. I was trying to eat my breakfast one morning and there were just flies everywhere and I was like, I need some way where I can eat my food and not have flies all over my face. We went home, we sold the camper that day. I was like, it's got to go. We need a caravan. With the camper trailer, there was no way to go inside and eat dinner. Even when it was raining, like there was nowhere to go and with two toddlers you need to be able to let them play but not be cooped up and so we knew a caravan would allow us to take that experience to the next level.
Krystal, because you did so much camping as a kid did that influence you in a way to push your comfort levels when camping so they could experience the same thing?
Yeah, definitely. It has shaped who I am as a person. 100%. (Myles) We initially put a deposit down on the Jayco Swan and then we started looking at how to have extra options and by the time we added a shower or toilet and all that we were just like, we may as well just spend a little bit extra money on the pop top, we started travelling in that as just a weekender. That's how it all started off as we had no intentions of full-time travel before this. The caravan just made everything so much easier, and we were actually in the process of building our dream home, and with COVID it all went downhill, the contracts kept getting put off and they wanted more money because of building supply shortages. We were really down and we needed to make a decision, we decided to cancel all of our contracts and decided to travel.
So where are you living? And do you plan on working?
(Myles) We are renting right now and I’m in the military, we both do shift work, and Krystal is a nurse so we make it work like if we want to have a long weekend camping, we can. So, it’s worked out great so far. I think a lot of people are less fortunate and they only have the weekends and by the time you are packed and have the kids in the car, and you get to the place, it’s really not enough time to decompress and enjoy it so we are both very fortunate to be able to have that flexibility. Even when we do only have the weekend to go, it’s worth it because our kids really do love camping, though. They get so excited when they see the caravan getting hitched up. They just absolutely love it when we say we're going to go camping. They can count down the days until we're going to go.
When are you heading off, are you prepared?
(Myles) Yeah, so we're getting used to it now because we took about 2 months off a while ago to take a trip up to Cairns, that's when we realised the caravan, we had was too small to live in full-time. So that was kind of a practice run. I'm a bit of a neat freak, so we just had stuff everywhere. Not that it was a mess. It was just that you know, you got stuff up on top of the cabinet and underneath tables and it’s not convenient having to rearrange everything just to reach one item. But then I guess that has its pros because having to find your rhythm when it comes to cleaning up and taking care of your gear it kind of changes you as a person.
Because you can't physically leave your spot until everything is put away. Getting that routine down pat is really rewarding when you learn to work as a team together to be super-efficient. When things do go wrong or something breaks, you have to work together and use what you have to fix it, you become extremely capable, especially as a couple. We find that whenever we go off and do a long, extended trip, the first week there are always restless nights with the girls, but then they settle in on the fifth night, you're just in that routine, again, kids are loving it, and everyone's sort of just flows and it all runs smoothly.
Are you looking forward to meeting other people on the road or are you trying to stay away from crowds?
(Kyrstal) Both really. Yeah. We don’t mind Interacting with people when we go camping. But we will not go camping in the school holidays. You just can't go anywhere, everywhere is so packed. It's not fun and there are no nice spots because people have gone and set up and they've just sat in that spot for the whole two weeks of the school holidays and it’s double the price. Instead, because we both do shift work, I’ll do nights and then Krystal will pack up the caravan the night before and I’ll come back and get it ready to hitch up, so yeah, we’ve both perfected our jobs/tasks when it comes to camping. It’s a huge part of our life.
What do you do to keep the kids entertained?
It’s not really something we plan, we like letting them do their own thing and they're happy to. If you try and force them to do something they don't want to do, then they won’t be happy. They always want to be outside looking at stuff or playing with animals, we just let them be. They love helping with all the tasks, with cooking, collecting firewood and cleaning. They don’t do it very well but it’s great to see them help, they just love being involved. And yeah, the best thing about camping is, by the end of the day, they're exhausted. So, they don't fight us to stop at night-time, the sun goes down, and we'll sit next to the fire and the girls will fall asleep on top of us.
Are you taking your kids out of school for the year? Are there strict guidelines on what they must learn?
(Krystal) Evelyn is in prep next year, so I don't have to register for school yet as Queensland is only compulsory from year one. We do feel that it is still important to have some sort of formal education, so I have purchased a home-schooling pack online for prep to ensure she is still keeping up with her peers, but it’s nowhere near as full on as an 8-hour day. We’ve done a lot of research, you can effectively do the same amount of learning in like one to two hours when outside the classroom environment because they are like sponges at that age, and when you are learning one-on-one it’s so much more rewarding.
Tell me about your Youtube channel, Family Escape Australia. What are you trying to achieve with that, and do you think you have the right gear to engage an audience?
(Myles) So Krystal does most of the vlogging on the camera, I do a little, but I will mainly fly the drone. I think we have enough gear and to be honest, I don't think we need to record more or change many things because we don’t want it to take away from the experience and become a job. We want to stay authentic and just capture moments that matter. We have two GoPros, a DJI Mavic Pro drone and a DSLR camera. We are using Premiere Pro to edit and Epidemic sound for our music. Although we would love for our channel to take off, this is not an income we have factored at all, we really wanted to keep a video diary of all our travels which we will cherish one day when the kids are grown up and our friends and family get to watch our children grow.
Do you think you’re ready to go? Have you set a date and budget?
(Myles) We've been ready to go for about six months. I have long service leave that I’ll be using which is great and if we do need to set up for a while and build some cash Krystal is able to work remotely as a nurse. We have been saving and that’s why we’ve set our budget as $1000 a week, which is enough to cover groceries, fuel, caravan parks and tourist attractions we think. And if it’s not enough, Krystal is already linked with agencies around Australia. They're just waiting for her to update her location and do a two-week contract wherever we need to.
I think some people get really scared financially to do that big leap from a weekly income to nothing. But when you’re travelling you don’t have the expenses a house would come with. Rent, water, electricity, gas etc. Most of that’s free with solar or fill-up stations and if you shop locally, you can get some great deals. You just tailor your journey to your own needs and expenses. With the channel, we also like to promote that we are spending our money in small towns that need it or if we are staying at a free camp, we will make sure to promote it. We are much more likely to buy dinner or lunch where there is free camping available.
What would you say to any other families or young parents who are thinking of doing the same thing but may feel intimidated by the cost or fear of taking time off from work?
Just take that leap. We strongly believe that life is short and we didn’t want to ever be in a position and say “we wish we did...”. Our children are young and haven’t started formal schooling yet, so we felt that it is a great age before they are older and settled with friendships. We believe that if it is something that you would like to do then you could make any budget work. Although we prefer the caravan lifestyle with our children, we have met many families on the road that have set-ups tailored to their family sizes and budget. Everyone that we have met on the road has been friendly, supportive and plenty of people are happy to lend a helping hand. We are fortunate to have long service leave to fund the start of our life on the road, when this ends we plan on finding work along the way.
Krystal is a Registered Nurse and in preparation, she has completed additional certificates and gained a variety of experiences to assist with remote communities and joined multiple agencies around Australia. One thing we encountered during our SW QLD trip, is that there is a lot of work on the road! We even had caravan parks asking us to work there and have free accommodation as payment. There are multiple Facebook groups for Australian travellers that list current job vacancies, we have found that preparation will ease some anxiety about finding work on the road. This may include having blue cards, white cards, forklift licenses etc. If you have a skill then add it to your resume. Due to the limited number of international travellers, now is a fantastic time to find work on the road.
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