3 minute read
Now We're TAWKing
If you have kids and love camping, travelling Australia with them must have crossed your mind. Along with that thought was probably that you could not afford it. Well, read on and I might just persuade you otherwise.
George Herbert Iam Mandy Farabegoli and I run the website
www.travellingaustraliawithkids.com
encouraging families to take a few weeks, months or years and travel our amazing country. I'm often asked how people can afford to travel Australia with their kids, and I always reply with, "Can you afford to have children?" I mean, frankly, if you totalled up all the costs over the years, you’d think you couldn’t afford them either BUT you do have them, so bear with me!
Options
You can make it work and here are some thoughts on how. Of course, it all depends on how long you intend to be away. Let’s assume for this article that you will take a year to do a lap of the country. Remember some of the expenses will be similar to those that you spend at home, i.e. you still buy food whether you're at
travelling australia with kids - with mandy farabegoli
home or away and you still may pay for accommodation costs at camp sites which is like paying for rent or a mortgage. Some families are choosing to sell their homes to help finance their lap, see where this journey will take them and possibly change their life and location when they settle again. Others rent out their homes for the year and the rent can help to cover cost. Many save like crazy for a year or two and others choose to leave with little in their bank account and work their way around or when needed. They are however ALL making it work, so you can too. Budget Variables
It also depends on your family and variables: • How fast you travel – obviously, fuel is a big factor. • Where you stay on your trip – caravan parks vs free camping. • The excursions you choose - flying over the Bungle Bungles rather than driving and walking through them, swimming with the whale sharks rather than just snorkelling from the shore on the Ningaloo Reef etc. etc. You can make it work, you just need to work out how. Most of our TAWK families' budgets are ranging anywhere from $500 to $1500 per week. We were around the $1000 mark and we did fly over Kakadu, but we also worked along the way. We do have a Finance Tracker on our website that you can put in some figures and see how much you might need for your trip and it could help you plan too. There are also some real life budgets from other families that we have documented to give you an idea of how much other families spend and they detail where their money goes, so I encourage you to have a look at those too.
Work on the way
There is a lot of work out there, especially in remote areas, and because many people are travelling our great land instead of going overseas. You will have lots of opportunities to be able to top up your funds and stay a while. We stopped and worked in Coral Bay for five months on our two year trip. In fact it was hard to leave! But working along the way can really help turn your dream of travelling Australia into a plan. So, get planning! I will go into this more in the TAWK article in the next edition of the magazine, together with some budget tips from our travelling families. Until then if you have any questions please feel free to email me at: admin@travellingaustraliawithkids.com
