The Top 3 Lessons I Learnt From Travelling in a Van Around Australia

"Make it up as you go along..."

Everything was going pretty smoothly. And that’s why I had to leave. 

I passed my first year of uni, had a fun job making coffee at a beach-side cafe, and as a fresh-faced 18-year-old was dutifully spending that coin at Perth bars in the evening. 

Life was comfortable. But the weeks were blending into one, and one morning, I was hit by a hankering to change things up. 

So I bought a van with a bed in the back of it and, with two grand in my savings, decided to move to Sydney. 

‘You’re what?’ my parentals said. 

‘Moving to Sydney,’ I said. 

‘When?’ 

‘Next week.’ 

‘What’s the plan?’ 

‘Dunno.’ 

‘But you have no money.’ 

‘I know.’ 

‘Isn’t that a bit impulsive?’ 

Yes. But that was the point.

You’ve probably felt it too: Your gut saying you need to do something. It’s not rational, sensible, or calculated. It doesn’t make sense to your mates. Definitely not to your parents. And yet, you gotta do it. 

In the next couple of minutes, I’ll tell you my greatest three lessons from listening to your gut, travelling great distances with a beat-up hippie van, and surviving a move to another city on a shoe-string budget. 

1. Prepare, but not too much.

When travelling, there’s something incredibly freeing—a tad scary too—about leaving without a plan. Unencumbered, you can move where the wind blows you. 

Stumble across a beautiful little bay in South Australia? Why not stay there for the night. 

Meet some crew who invite you to a cool event the following day? Stay another night. You’ve got nowhere to be. 

Favourite memories are made from spontaneous decisions. That said, you want to be a little prepared. You don’t want to get a flat tyre in the middle of the desert without having a spare, for instance.

So: Service your car. Bring basic camping gear and canned food just in case. Find a travelling buddy. Save enough money for fuel and bars along the way (and maybe a buffer for emergencies). I had two grand, which lasted me—just. 

And the rest? Make it up as you go along. 

2. Embrace things not going to plan.

10 hours out of Sydney, we stopped at a coastal surf town. It was dusk and we were trying to look for an inconspicuous place to sleep. 

I drove down a little bush track and the further I went, the more sketchy the terrain became. We ended up getting stuck in mud on a slope, and the van began to slide down it. It didn’t fall down the hill, thank God. But the van was bogged at a severe angle. (I thought it was going to topple over).

Three hours later, in the cold of the night, we eventually got hold of a tow truck. By the time we got to sleep, it was 1am and we were $300 poorer. 

This was one of many screw-ups. Ultimately, though, we were richer for them—in character and stories to tell. 

3. When you get there, find a job and a home. Or just camp in suburbia.

Two weeks after leaving Perth (we really took our time), I chugged into Sydney, arriving at Bondi beach around lunch time. 

If you move to a big city, finding a good place to park (and sleep in) your bongo van is paramount. So that’s what I did—close to the beach, but away from main roads to not attract unwanted attention. It took me two weeks to find an actual room in an apartment. So my rule was this: Move your car to a new spot every night. Turns out, residents don’t like seeing people living on the street before them.

No. 2 priority is to find a job, especially if you, like me, don’t have a big piggy bank. Knowing people helps. So does having experience in hospitality or other ubiquitous industries who offer casual positions. 

And lastly, find an actual home. As fun as it is living in a van, not showering gets old. Oh yeah, you should probably shower before you start handing out resumes. 

After that, you’re pretty much set. You’ll feel times of loneliness and vulnerability, but without sounding cliche, it’ll also be life-changing. 

I ended up staying in Sydney for 18 months. I studied over there, had an amazing time, and was a better, more worldly person for it. 

There’s a time and place for being organised and calculated. And then there’s a time and a place for owning a bongo van and spontaneously travelling across Australia…