Right now, we are yet another family/couple who’ve given everything up to live out of a van and go travelling around this huge country of Oz. Over the years I’ve read countless online articles and feeds about people who have become permanent travelers, especially traveling around the big open space of Australia, wistfully wondering how they have done it and how we could become one of those couples or families.
Most of you reading this will already know us and our story, but hopefully over time there will be more people through the power of social media who come across us and our blog. So for those of you who don’t yet know us personally – we’re the Actons. Together for 10. Married for (almost) 6. Parents for (almost) 5. Living out of a van for almost 2 (weeks, that is).
Daniel is the driver, the budget keeper, the stresser, the cleaner, the barbequer, the carry-er and the rule follower. Liana is the researcher, the communicator, the navigator, the organiser, the shopper and the penultimate “she’ll be right” Aussie.
Kaia who is almost 5 is a human tornado with no off switch. Ryder who is almost 2 is a chilled out old soul. They are chalk and cheese.
From the time we met we’ve been passionate and voracious travelers. As a couple, travel has undoubtedly been our “thing”. Luckily, our previous jobs in Events gave us the opportunity to travel frequently as well as living and working overseas in Asia, Europe, North and South America, before circling back to Australia in 2017. For Liana this marked 11 years away from the homeland, while for Daniel this meant increasing the British population in Oz.
When embarking down the road to parenthood, one of the promises we made was that kids would just become part of our travel adventures, and have no choice but to adapt to our traveling spirit. While of course there is an element of reality which kicks in – a 7 hour bus ride down a dirt path to find a remote waterfall no longer seems like a cool idea with kids – for the most part we’ve stuck to it. We took Kaia caving at 9 days old, and when Ryder was a few days older respectively he was in a helicopter up a glacier. We don’t always get the parenting thing right, but we always nail the travel thing!
For the 10 years we’ve been together, we’ve dreamed about taking a year off to go travelling. The destination has changed over the years but the premise to dedicate ourselves to travelling has never changed. Since becoming parents the dream has taken on the additional layer of giving our kids once in a lifetime memories, and spending the time with them while they are still little.
Cut to 2019.
We’ve purchased a second hand camper trailer and Toyota Prado (more on those later). We’ve packed up another home – this time on the Gold Coast – and invested in yet another storage locker. We hit the road with the aim to do our own Big Lap within 6 – 12 months.
In our family there is always some form of shouting or screaming going on. There’s arguments, bickering, injuries and whinging pretty much hourly – and I wish I could say this was all the kids! But there’s also loads of laughs, cracking “funnies” and cuddles. This is us, we’re the Actons.
Where are the Actons? 