The 5 biggest challenges of being a full-time travel family

Travel Stories / The 5 biggest challenges of being a full-time travel family

Our way of life is completely different as we now live 24/7 together as a family. We depend on each other for pretty much everything (need for space, education, food, water consumption, love, support, etc).

Living “life on the road” doesn’t mean all our worries have flown away. We aren’t totally stress free and being together all the time means we sometimes get on each other’s nerves. We still encounter many challenges and finding beautiful sandy beaches and rugged landscapes to set foot in aren’t our only worries.

However, one thing is certain: life since we left feels more complete and more natural than it ever used to be.

The 5 biggest challenges about being on the road full time

• Being together 24/7 with no babysitting opportunities!

We basically don’t have a break from each other, ever! It is very hard to get any romantic couple time as we are as tired as the kids once the sun sets and its bedtime…

• Managing our water consumption

This experience has been an eye opener on how much water we use daily (dishwashing, toilet flushing, washing ourselves, cooking, cleaning, etc)!! It is quite freaky to say the least. We have about 200L capacity and it runs out quickly.

• Recycling, recycling, recycling!

We have always managed our recycling back home but when you travel it is much more difficult to find recycling bins. It means we need to be organised and keep our rubbish until we finally find one in either a caravan park, a shopping centre or a council recycling station.

• Finding quality time for work

I work on the road and it is very difficult! The dream #digitalnomad life is not just dreamy. Good reception is rare when mostly free camping and having the kids with us 24/7 makes it all the more challenging!

• Planning the itinerary on the go

When finding time to clean up the dishes, cook meals, educate the kids, work, set up and pack up is hard enough, imagine finding time to plan the rest of the itinerary! And I haven’t yet mentioned driving time…

The 5 best things about traveling full time

• Being together 24/7

Yes, you are reading this right and yes I do realise it was also in the 5 biggest challenges 🙂 But think about it, one day Thomas and I fell in love and then we decided to have kids together. We didn’t realise then how much time they would be spending at school or day care and how little energy we would have on weekends to play with them… Now, we are 24/7 together and spend heaps of quality time together, making epic family memories!!

• New discoveries & landscapes every day

We get to explore one of the world’s biggest and most varied countries on a daily basis! This means we regularly set up our camp in a completely different backdrop most days. We enjoy an incredible variety of landscapes and they offer us so many different types of activities to choose from. We also get to see many varied wild animals and sometimes share a piece of land together, side by side in all due respect.

• Educational opportunities for everyone

This trip is enriching us all in so many ways. We meet other travellers who kindly share their life stories with us, we find out about indigenous ways of life, we learn about nature and how it provides for us, we hear incredible stories from the past, we get to know wildlife better through observation and so much more.

• Back to basics – living a more minimalist lifestyle

This is a big one for me. I am truly passionate about living a more simple life. I grew up believing humans were naturally meant for nomadic life because I already felt suffocated by our consumers’ way of life. I am sensitive to consumption and wish to get away from it to find my true calling. Feeling nature, exploring the world, connecting with people. Living on the road forces less water and electricity consumption which is a great exercise to show us we clearly abuse it. It is an opportunity to spend quality time with your family but also other human beings. It opens you up to more people and consequently makes you develop a more general respect and love for others. When mostly in nature and away from the material wants of the city, you realise you really don’t need that much!

• Managing your time as you wish

We don’t have to answer to any patriarchy except for the sun maybe 😉 We basically run our “daily routine” the way we like. We don’t have to stick to a 9 to 5 or drop off or pick up our kids at a certain time. If I feel like taking a break from work to go for a swim then I will. If I feel like I can, I might not work for a couple of days and then I will catch up with a big day of work on a rainy day for example. If we have a great night activity to share with the kids we will just go out and about on a night adventure and they can simply sleep in the next day. This means we once got to witness little penguins come home at night from their day out in the ocean and what a memory this is!

Onward to the rest of our adventures! 

Making the final decision to sell everything, pack up and live a new way of life may have been a bold one. Living an off-the-grid kind of life definitely has its challenges and it is not perfect. I actually don’t believe that perfect is meant for life on earth anyway! But what it does to our family is precious. We are fully responsible for our children’s upbringing and we keep developing our own education, all this whilst enjoying a simple life in connection with nature, people and our own spirit.

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