Big Lap Prep - 1 Year around Australia

This is a blog on how we prepared, saved and decided how we were going to conquer the big lap of Australia.

First thing is first when deciding to take the leap and explore this beautiful country of ours….. BUDGET!

This will determine how long you can go for and what you can do I guess! We knew we wanted to go for a year as a Minimum and anything after that we will have to find some work.

To find what our budget was going to be we researched all channels of social media and blogs to get an understanding of what other family’s/couples spend. Even if you don’t have a family it is still good to get a visual of what they are spending per month or week and work from there.

Once we found a couple budgets and asked a few people what their budgets were we decided on the total amount that would be best suited for us….. and that my friends is $40k FOR 1 YEAR.

Keep in mind everyone’s circumstance is completely different, to whether you have a mortgage that you will need to pay on the road or if you have other loans/commitments to factor into your budget.

Kurt and I wanted a clean break, meaning we wanted to own everything before we left and not have to pay debt while we travel. We were only renting at the time of making the decision to travel so it was easy for us to decide with how we were going to proceed.

We nervously asked the in-laws that if we bought a brand new caravan would we be able to crash in the back yard to save until we leave, and with no hesitation they were more than happy to help us put our dream to reality. We are so lucky and so appreciative that we have Family that are willing to help us with our goals.

So the next step was…. How long was it going to take us to save the $40k? And then …..What do we do in emergency situations? Ok! We need to save another $10k to have encase something goes wrong! Oh and what about when we get home? We will need some funds to continue to live LOL so selling my Car will help with those items and that’s that sorted! Plus we decided to pay for everything up front for the year for example our Rego on the car and Caravan and Insurances just so we don’t have direct debits coming out of our budget!

We envisioned, budgeted that it would take us a year to save, sell, move, and purchase a new van and new car! (Wow what have we taken on here?)

So we started saving, bought a car, bought a caravan, sold our house items (kept the sentimental things) and moved into the in-laws. It took us probably 6 months to accomplish all that with putting our heads down and making it all happen. I paid my car off a year early so that was one less loan I had to pay and now we were chipping away at Kurts car Loan which we will have paid off before we go.

Decluttering was one of the best feelings ever when making this decision, we sold most of the items in our house that we did not require anymore or knew we could easily replace when we return.

We also knew that we could only take a few items with us in the van and storage at the In-laws was minimal so it made it easy to move stuff on that we didn’t require anymore.

The next item to sort out on our List is all the Equipment we were going to need to complete this lap of Australia comfortably.

· A caravan

· A new Car to be able to tow the Caravan – and all is its modifications to add

· Set up for free camping

· Off-road camping necessities

The biggest job has been getting a brand new car and having to add everything again but we have nearly finished thank goodness. We will write a blog in the future on everything we had to do and add to the Isuzu for it to be up to scratch for our trip!

The caravan has been a breeze since the purchase and you can read about it on our blog ‘HOME AWAY FROM HOME’.

Once we had a list we also realised that purchasing all these items we were going to have to fit it into our savings for the trip as well. It has been quite stressful at times and we even started doubting whether we should continue with the Lap, we then remembered that we have done this before! We sold everything we had at the time, saved $40k and went on an around the world trip for 5 months. America- Mexico- South America- Dubai – Thailand and when we came back we just slipped back into everyday life so this reiterated that we can do anything if we just keep our heads up and keep moving forward! Determination is the key!

Our time frame is 1 Year and we were planning on leaving in March however we decided that it would be best to leave in Winter to head North after rain season in Queensland so we will be taking off at the start of June 2020. We would love to go longer than a year but that will depend on our budget and if we can find work when we need it.

Once we decided on a date to leave I told my work and they were so excited for me but also sad for me to be leaving.

We don’t want to rush our lap and we hope to be able to see everything we have planned however we have left some destinations for a whole other trip another time for example the Simpson Desert and all of Central Queensland.

We will be travelling anti-clockwise and Making our Way slowly up to Cape York for our first time ever! We are super excited but nervous at the same time lol.

We will be heading inland first to Miles for our first stop and then onto Carnarvon Gorge to spend 4 days hiking and soaking in the scenery, once we have stopped there we will be making our way to Charleville and then onto Barcaldine.

We will then be heading to Emerald to stop for a night and then onto Yeppoon to make our way up the coastline.

Once we have indulged in Cape York and hopefully not had any breakages or issues LOL we then head on the Savannah Highway to make our way into Northern Territory.

We will be doing the whole outline and some of the in between of Australia including Uluru! We will then be hopping on the Spirit of Tasmania to soak in the beauty down South in Tassie and then who knows where we will go or end up! That’s the exciting part of not knowing and just going for it.

To wrap things up because i have rambled on quite a bit, I hope this gives you an idea or even better, a tingling feeling that kicks in and says ‘ YOU CAN DO IT’! It isn’t easy packing everything up and there is doubt in the back of your mind about the security of having a job and a home but at the end of the day Kurt and I both believe that it can be taken away from you in the click of a finger and we are pure believers that you need to live life to the fullest, live your dreams before it’s too late because we have seen/heard first hand it can be taken away so quickly.

We hope you enjoyed our little overview and any questions please ask we would love to help!!!!

Thanks for your support as always! if you have enjoyed our blog please give us a like and a comment

Carly & Kurt xx