We’re counting down: 6 days to go.
Time is slowing down in that torturous way when the number of sleeps until Christmas and your birthday gets into single digits.
I just want it now.
We did plan on having a camper trailer from the beginning of our Australia road trip, but some factors outside of our control meant we took off with just our Yakima Skybox, which has been fine, up until now.
It gave us the experience of traveling Australia without a camper trailer so we can compare accommodation options such as camping, hostels, cabins, apartments, house-sitting and hotels.
But, we can now officially tell you via documented evidence that the BEST way to road trip around Australia, with kids, is to have a camper trailer. Especially when you have to homeschool AND run a busy online business.
After Tasmania, I laid down the law – we MUST get a camper trailer!
It’s taken awhile to organize financing, which is part of the reason we’ve been laying low in Victoria for some time. (We’ve discovered it’s a great state to do just that). We found out last week, the financing has been approved and on March 27 we move into our new mobile home.
It’s a big step for us.
Since our decline in to hell, we’ve been too frighten to own, or commit to anything. This proves I’m confident and trust myself again. We took our time to make the decision, evaluated our financials, and relied on the signs from the Universe.
It orchestrated it all carefully for us and led us to the place where we found a good deal and got some financing, where otherwise, with our business situation, it was a little tricky.
We all held hands and danced around in a circle, rain dance style when we signed for it. Kalyra is still dancing.
Why is a camper trailer the best way to road trip Australia with kids?
No more packing and unpacking
How many f-bombs can you say in one sentence?
This is what it’s like packing and unpacking every few days when you don’t have a camper trailer.
In and out of hostels, apartments and campsites was driving us all insane. It was taking at least 2 hours for each pack/unpack. That’s four hours of our day each time we move. For time-pressed people this is insane.
When you have a camper trailer, you pop up the roof and pull out the beds and you’re done. No packing our unpacking needed as it’s all set up inside already.
Plus, when you travel with two young kids the extra storage space is going to be awesome. Our camper trailer also comes with an attached annex so extra living and playing room for the kids, especially on wet days!
Less planning time
Again, the time we were taking to research for our next accommodation stay, to find the deal and book ahead was hours every week. We got so exhausted with it that we literally would leave it to the last minute and let the angels take care of it for us. (They haven’t let us down yet)
With our camper trailer, we don’t have to plan too much. We’ll just pick a caravan park we like, a free camping ground, or a beach car park and pull up.
A camper trailer is cheaper
Sure, you have your initial outlay, which is expensive. But, if you buy the right brand and model they have great resale value, so at the end of your trip, should you wish, you can sell it and recoup most of your costs.
We’re also purchasing solar panels, so free camping won’t be a problem. Should we head to the caravan parks for more of a village atmosphere, we’ll book a non-powered site and pay around $35.
As we’ll have better storage and cooking facilities, we will save with self-catering instead of spending a ton on eating out as well!
More Stability
This is more for the girls, although as a digital nomad, I prefer a little more stability. Our girls are pretty adaptable, but they are also still young so love the idea of having a more permanent home.
Trying to get the girls to sleep of an evening has been a nightmare because they move from tent to bunk beds to single beds, to air beds. New environment, new things to discover all the time.
The bed time routine always gets easier the longer we stay in an area, so we’re sure once the excitement of having our camper trailer is over, the night time horrors should move to bliss.
I will miss the cuteness of Savannah asking, “Is this my house, Mummy?” with each new place we go. Even if it is a museum room showcasing how people lived 100 years ago.
And the girls are really excited about getting their own princess doona cover with matching pillows.
Better organization
We just don’t have the space to be organized properly. I’m so tired of my kitchen being in different plastic tubs. We’ve been camping a lot, but we’re not set up for long-term camping.
The girls have a pile of lonely one shoe hanging around, because their partners are buried somewhere in the car, and cause we change places so often, I don’t have the strength to go looking for them.
I can’t stop thinking about my drawers and cupboards that are neatly organized. When I want to put some cayenne pepper in my morning tonic, I don’t have to dig around for 15 minutes trying to find it.
More storage
We have 2 children, one being home-schooled, and an online business. We need a lot of stuff.
There’s only so much we can fit in our car and at the moment we are packed in and claustrophobic. I don’t want to travel any more with only a backpack of possessions. I want a little more like a hammock, comfy camp chairs, a BBQ, bikes and work desks. No more slumming it.
Camper trailers allow for a little more home comforts. We’ve still got at least a year around Australia, and we’re going into the big wide expanses, we want this to be a calmer, more relaxing experience.
Greater Routine = better health and wellness
Managing any kind of routine when you are constantly changing is extremely difficult. We have far too many things to manage to not have some sort of routine.
I’m dying to start my morning in the same way each day: early rise, meditation + yoga, a bit of blogging, healthy breakfast, a bit of school work, and then exploration for the day.
It’s been difficult to maintain any sort of healthy eating and exercise plan which is really affecting our health, energy levels and moods.
I’ve been planning for a week of healthy meals, and then we’ll stay at a place that has no oven, or refrigerator, and there goes my healthy cakes, or we move so quickly that I couldn’t be bothered taking out that tub with all my healthy ingredients so we go for fast food.
Craig and I are not happy with the spare tyres we’re starting to drag around with us. Seriously.
As soon as we get the camper trailer, it is a 3 week cleanse and cleaner living.
(Yep – our high speed blender fit into our camper trailer lifestyle well!)
Better for homeschooling and work
Homeschooling Kalyra is challenging enough as it is. Not having a set routine or learning space for her makes it so much harder.
Now all her materials and resources will be in the one place and we’ll set up a lovely learning area for her. We’ll also have an area set up for Savannah to do at the same time.
It will also be better for us with our online business to have everything we need organized in one place and create a lovely office space – decent chairs and tables and some sacred crystals surrounding me for extra thinking juice.
Now to just speed up time so we can get started. You’ll be hearing our squeals of joy and tears of relief when we drive out of Geelong, in our new home.
We’re stocking it up with goodies from Costco and starting the adventure in the proper way.
We won’t be giving up apartments and hostels for good. We still prefer these accommodation types in cities, and for the needed extra space when we start to get on each others’ nerves. (which lately has been frequent!) Plus we have upcoming campaigns with various state tourism boards where we’ll experience unique properties.
We’ll be sharing lots about the caravanning lifestyle for the rest of our Australia road trip so let us know in the comments what you want us to share.
(Update- 18 months around Australia and our views changed about what was the best way to travel around Australia – camper trailer or caravan) Here’s a beginners guide for traveling around Australia in a caravan
More Australia tips
And please, share your own camper trailer tips.
