The One Thing I’d Tell Anyone Before They Leave on a Lap of Australia

I remember our first full day on the road. We received a call about a work incident — suddenly there was a major staffing problem to solve from hundreds of kilometres away. I looked at my husband Stu and asked, “What are we doing?”

If we hadn’t already had a contract on our house, I honestly think we would have turned around.

Instead, we sat in the caravan, wrote a job ad, uploaded it to Seek and worked through the problem. It certainly wasn’t how we’d imagined the start of our trip.

Looking back, I think that day set the tone for everything that followed. Life wasn’t going to pause because we were travelling. We were simply going to have to learn how to do life differently.

Then, slowly, something shifted.

There wasn’t one big moment where it all clicked. It was more like hundreds of tiny moments stacking on top of each other.

You stop Googling every little thing.

You stop overthinking whether you’ll fit into the site.

You work out where everything belongs.

Dinner becomes easier. You start baking banana bread in the caravan oven.

Emptying the toilet becomes just another job on the list.
Packing up gradually becomes something you can almost do on autopilot.

Not perfectly. Not like seasoned travellers who’ve spent years on the road. But comfortably. Confidently. Capably.

Because the biggest thing I’ve learned on this trip isn’t actually how to caravan. It’s that life doesn’t stop just because you’ve chosen to live it differently.

Work still happens. BAS’s still need to be lodged. Emails still need to be answered. We’ve bought property, sold property, travelled for work, met deadlines and kept businesses moving. One day we’re watching the sun set over the beach. The next we’re at the caravan table lodging a BAS before hitching up and driving another few hundred kilometres. Somewhere along the way, both started to feel completely normal.

I spent those early months waiting for the trip to feel easy before I believed we were doing it properly. But that was never the point.

The point isn’t that it becomes easy. The point is that you become more capable.

You learn that you can have a bad morning and still end up at a beautiful beach that afternoon. You learn that plans change, things break, the weather turns, and somehow you still find a way through. You learn that you can do hard things in small spaces. You learn that home can be a place, but it can also be the rhythm you create wherever you are.

So if someone asked me today what they should pack before leaving on a lap of Australia, I wouldn’t say Crocs. Although, for the record, I would absolutely pack Crocs.

I wouldn’t say a coffee machine. Or an air fryer. Or extra storage tubs, though I do have strong opinions on those too.

I’d tell them to pack enough patience to get through those first few months.

Because one day you’ll realise something.

It isn’t that caravan life suddenly became easy.

It’s that you’ve quietly become the sort of person who can handle it.

And once you’ve learned that about yourself, it doesn’t stay in the caravan. It follows you home.