So what are you? And what are we? There is no right or wrong answer and one is not necessarily better than the other. It really is just a matter of personal choice. Why then, do we ask the question?

Well this month is our two year anniversary of living “on the road.” We meet heaps of people along “that road” and we are regularly asked “where is home?” People also say to us – have a great holiday / safe journey / travel safe / have a good day / enjoy your holidays / have a great life!

We get asked “how long have you been travelling / are you on long service leave / how many times have you been around Australia / are you retired / which way around Australia are you doing the lap?”

We meet many people who are on their big lap of Australia. We too ask them these same questions. We are intrigued by the variety of answers. What intrigues us the most is the shortest length of time people are “doing their lap”.

The total road distance around Australia is 15,097 km’s / 9,380 miles via National Highway 1. This doesn’t include the area in the centre of Australia between Darwin and Adelaide. Based on towing a caravan as we do, averaging 500km a day, we could have driven this distance in 30 days. Therefore in two years, we could have gone around Australia approximately 24 times! The reality is……….we haven’t done one full lap yet!

Now we fully understand there are many, many reasons why people only have a limited amount of time to travel. They may never have the opportunity to travel again, therefore they want to see as much as possible in their timeframe. PLEASE NOTE: We are not knocking anyone for the choices they make in regard to their journey.

However, it has made us assess our journey and the way we are doing it.

We read the following on a travel forum:

1. Tourists go on holiday.
2. Travellers go travelling.
3. A tourist wants to see all the sights.
4. A traveller wants to see some sights, but also to find something interesting that isn’t in the guidebook.
5. Tickboxers go to places to tick that box but don’t necessarily experience anything.

So why did we set off?

1. We were in a rut, stagnating
2. Our work/life balance was see-sawing out of control
3. We didn’t have any immediate ties to keep us home
4. We didn’t want to work another twenty years to pay off our mortgage
5. We wanted to expand our mind not our waistline
6. We didn’t want to be couch potatoes
7. We didn’t want the characters in Coronation Street or Home and Away becoming part of our everyday conversation as if they were family/friends!
8. We wanted to step out of our comfort zone and be challenged
9. We wanted to think out of the box and be open to new experiences
10. We do it because of our favourite quote: Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” – Mark Twain