Getting Started
It is not easy to pinpoint the exact moment we decided to head off on this trip of ours, but when we think about it, there were several points in time that all seemed to end up pointing us in the same direction. That direction doesn’t have a point “B” at the moment; it just has us heading somewhere.
We have always had an itch to scratch when it comes to travel. Looking back, when we took our kids, Hayley and Lachy, to Europe for the first time at the ages of eight and six. It was clear that we were never going to travel with just suitcases; it was always going to be the way we do it, backpacks, budget hostels, and squeeze in as much as we can.
On that first trip, we ended up backpacking with them from Austria down into Italy, and although they can’t remember too much of it now, it laid the groundwork for the way we continued to travel as a family for years to come.
Starting a four-day hike on the Bibbulmun Track in Western Australia
When both Hayley and Lachy moved out and headed off to university, we booked our first trip to Spain and completed a 14-day Camino (Camino Primitivo). In the lead-up to this trip, we ended up down a deep rabbit hole on YouTube. We started watching videos from creators like Efren, Lainey and Shawn (Days We Spend), Erica and Ricky (Camino Tellers) and Nick (Nick Living Life), who we really love and still watch today.
It was during this time that we stumbled across (thanks to the algorithm) Lisa and Josh. It was their Camino video “Finding Our Way” that hit us first, and then we had to follow them along on their journeys from then on.
Skip forward to us finishing our trip in Spain, having an amazing Camino experience and then coming back home to daily life. We kept watching these great content creators travelling the world full-time and asking ourselves if this was even possible. The seed had been planted…..
Santiago de Compostela
A picture of us shortly after arriving in Santiago de Compostela, we had just walked 331km over 14 days. The Camino Primitivo was an amazing experience, and for us it was a big introduction to walking a Camino in Spain.
The next two years after this trip were a crazy rollercoaster of emotions and then planning. We found that most of our downtime was spent watching full-time travellers on their trips and how they were able to do what they were doing. We continue to watch them even now, and we love creators like Bev and John (Retirement Travellers), Tia & Cheveyo (One Pack Wanderers), Jordan and Emily and Ryan and Jade (Live the Dash).
Did they influence us? Most definitely. But it also came at a point in time for us as we started contemplating how we wanted to live the next chapter of our lives.
It wasn’t easy, but over these next 18 months, we went through so much together to start living a life of full-time travel. It all began with putting our house on the market to downsize, but the house didn’t sell, and we ended up taking it off the market. During that time, we were keen to get going, but the stars just weren’t aligning for us to make the dream a reality. Despite the amazing work Jo was doing to build a bank of airline points and start a process of decluttering called Swedish Death Cleaning, the momentum to get going slowed to a stop.
In July 2025, we lost a member of our family and again, everything stopped. As we then began the quick march toward both of us turning 50 that year, we started to again ask ourselves - how long do we have and whether we should go now? Was it a midlife awakening or crisis we were experiencing; neither of us really knows, but it was hitting us both pretty hard.
A timeline was quickly drawn up, and we began a fast-track process of decluttering, simplifying and letting go. We had about six garage sales, shredded countless bin loads of old paperwork, sold a bunch of stuff we didn’t need anymore, sold the car and some other assets and then rented out the house.
October 2025, yes, this is us early in the morning with PJ’s still on, starting to work out where we were going.
In March 2026, after four months couch surfing with family, setting up our website and socials and then finishing our full-time secure jobs, we headed off to Perth, Western Australia. We spent a bit of time getting the last of our things and saying goodbye to Lachy. We then headed over to Melbourne to see Hayley and say another goodbye.
We have now left Australia on the first leg of our Journey through beautiful Indonesia. To join us on our travels, follow along on our channel, “Bill and Jo”.
