Ever since Jake and I met two years ago we have always had the need to explore the outdoors. After 3 weeks of meeting each other, we had already planned a 5-day road trip to the Yorke Peninsula in South Australia. When we realised how easy it was to travel together, we booked a one-month trip to the Philippines and ended up catching the travel bug. We returned to the Philippines again a year later, and decided to book a trip to Bali and the East coast of Australia.
While travelling overseas and meeting backpackers from all over the world, we realised these backpackers share one thing in common. They have all been to more places in Australia than we have! They would talk about the different spots that they have visited in our home country and we felt bad for not knowing where these places were! That’s when we made the decision that we need to travel all around Australia first before exploring any other country.
When I met Jake in 2016, he had a 1975 Kombi van that needed restoring. The plan was to fix her up and one day take her along with us as we travel all around Australia. We were both very interested in the ‘Van-life’ style of living, where you can take it slow and travel for as long as possible. We originally planned on traveling Europe first and then start the restoration, but we felt like we needed to explore home first. We started to pull the Kombi apart last year, however we realised that it was going to take at least a year for us to fully restore her. We were far too impatient to wait that long, so one afternoon we decided to buy a high-top troop carrier.
A high-top troop carrier was our second dream car next to the Kombi. Given that it’s a four-wheel drive, it can drive on places most regular vans can’t–while still having almost the same amount of room. Jake flew to Sydney to purchase the troopy, and we spent almost 2 months ripping out the interior and rebuilding everything to suit our needs.
We’ve decided that we wanted to take it easy and explore as much as we could on this trip of a lifetime. Being on the road, we have realised that we don’t need much to live a fulfilling lifestyle. All we need is the great outdoors! We probably spend 70% of the day outside which encourages us to go hiking, enjoy Australia’s lush wildlife, and appreciate how beautiful this earth is.
Since we’re living on the road, we also have more time to enjoy all the things we love doing every day. We can spend an entire day at the beach, hike mountains, watch the sunrise and sunset, surf, draw, read, cook and much more! We get to choose what we do every single day.
We have to admit though that sometimes it can be difficult living in such a small space, but the memories that we make and the people that we meet make it all so worth it.
We are planning to stay on the road until we finish a whole lap of Australia, which may take a couple more years. To sustain this lifestyle, we continue to work on our brand ‘Salty Aura’ and create as much as our hearts desire.
If you are dreaming of travelling Australia full-time–GO FOR IT. Work hard. Save hard. Find a vehicle that suits your needs whether it be a bus, van, troop carrier, or caravan. Just start your adventure! When money gets low, pull up in a sunny town and work for a couple months and continue the journey. To travel Australia was the easiest decision for us to make because we both know that the journey will give us the best times of our lives.
