Hi there, welcome to our blog. Let me tell you a little bit about us. We are a family of four who had enough of work keeping us apart. Let us introduce ourselves, Rich, Samm, Ella and Ash. We are the Travel Owers.
Samm is a personal trainer and enjoyed teaching group fitness at the gym. She likes to get the family out and about and exploring no matter how long the walk is.
Now that you know a bit about us, let me tell you why we chose to leave our everyday lives behind and embrace family life on the road.
As mentioned above, Rich was working a lot. He would work away for weeks at a time, which would be extended at the last minute, keeping him away for longer. If he was at home he was on night shift and we would not see him anyway, as he would be asleep during the day. We all missed family time but Rich was missing the kids growing up. He missed birthdays and anniversaries and the day Ella asked why he was home, was the day we decided something had to change.
We started looking at moving house. We found a property out of town, which was everything we thought we wanted. Unfortunately, the market was not in our favour and it sold to someone else. We were back to square one. What to do with our lives to make sure we would spend more time together as a family. After a long stint away, Rich came home and said, "Here's a crazy idea, let's travel Australia."
It was a crazy idea but we both loved it. So that was our next goal. We were going to make it happen. We started researching caravans and looking at maps of Australia and planning out our trip. Rich kept working away, but we were saving every possible cent to make sure we could reach this goal.
It took us a couple of years to plan. We bought our caravan second hand. We were planning on camping in our new van a few times before we renovated it, however after sitting in the caravan for a few hours each day we came up with a design. It took a lot of hard work and late nights but our vision came together and our home on wheels was ready to travel.
Our first couple of nights in the caravan were at my parents property and then it was time to do some weekends away. We gradually made our little stints away longer and further away from home so we could get used to life in the van. We were still working and the kids were still at school and the planning for the trip was still going on in the background. Then we set a date.
We were now packing our home of 10 years into a caravan. Well, what do you take? What do you sell? What do you pack away in storage? We had a lot of stuff which had built up over the years. We had garage sales, we sold items on Facebook, we donated some things to the op shops and the pieces we couldn't part with were packed away and stored at my parents place. (Thanks Mum and Dad).
Our house was rented out 3 months before our leave date. So we moved into the van, living at the caravan park before moving to my parents property for the last 2 months. It came around really fast, we finished working, kids finished school, the caravan was packed. Our lives were about to change and we were embarking on the adventure of a lifetime.
We are excited to be on the road full time, spend so much more time together as a family, see so many different sights beautiful places, learn new things. It is going to be an amazing experience, and we can't wait to share our travel adventures with you. If you haven't already, follow us on Facebook and Instagram to keep up with our latest updates.
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